Is my 300w power supply running out of juice?

james22 · Post by **james22** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:31 pm

I just bought a new hard drive (Maxtor Diamondmax 10, 300gb) and my system refuses to power-up with the new drive installed. I have a Seasonic Super Tornado 300w, and my system is as follows:

Asus P4P800-VM
Intel P4-2.4B / Zalman 7000
1 x 512mb RAM
Radeon 9550 (fanless, no power connector)
Samsung 160gb SATA (1614C)
Plextor CD-RW
Lynx L22 PCI sound card
Hauppauge PCI PVR-250
Two low-speed 80mm case fans

It powers up fine when I disconnect one either one of the drives - the Maxtor, Samsung or CD-RW. There is nothing wrong with the Maxtor drive - I am using it now without my old drive. With everything plugged in, the PC comes alive for half a second (fans begin to spin) and then shuts down.

Once everything is booted up though, it runs stably with no issues....

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:46 pm

Hello James:

Is the Maxtor SATA? When both drives are installed, which one is designated as the boot drive? Do both show up in the BIOS? What about setting a delay on the HD start in the BIOS? Also, maybe try them on different "legs" of the wiring harness?

[/random thoughts]

Pauli · Post by **Pauli** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:22 pm

I doubt it. See my sig - I'm running more than you are and have not even had a hint of a power problem.

tay · Post by **tay** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:29 pm

Still sounds like a power problem to me. MB is not liking 1 voltage rail maybe. Any beep codes?

EDIT : Despite what pauli wrote. No idea why it could be but it sounds like it.

james22 · Post by **james22** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 8:50 pm

The Maxtor is designated the boot drive, and I see both in BIOS. Both drives can run together with no problem if I disconnect the CD-RW. I'm going to check right now if I can set a delayed spin-up.... is there any point in changing to different wire harnesses if they're all powered from the same 5/12V rail?

EDIT: Yes, the Maxtor is a SATA.

James

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:47 am

Hello James:

There is another active thread that someone mentions that this Maxtor does use a lot more power than previous models. It is also possible that your PS *unit* might be a little out of spec...

I have used two hard drives with a 200watt PS, in an Athlon Classic 600 system, 2 optical drives and a Zip drive, and a full compliment of PCI cards including an IDE controller, NIC, modem, sound card, and for a while a PCI video card.

Is my 300w power supply running out of juice?

Is my 300w power supply running out of juice?

Is the Maxtor SATA?

Apparently, the Maxtor is power hungry