PC hardware question...

[Jorath Calar]

Does anyone know how I can measure how many Watts my system is using of the Power Supply Unit?, I have a psu for about 320 watts but sometimes it's like one of my harddrive or cd drive just loses power and stops working... if I turn the system of and on again it fixes it... and I'm wondering if the PSU is too small or If I haave too many devices on the computer?
Hope not because I just upgraded it in march...

Is there a program that does this...? hardly... but you never know.... any other way to do it?

[Zero Alpha]

what power supplie you need all depends on what your doing. also the quality of a power supplie is also a factor. expensive ones tend to put out power nearer what they are quoted. what devices have you got on your system? if you can list we may figure out if 320W is adeqate. eg, i wouldnt want sub 450w if i had a Raedon 9800 PRO type system

[andrewas]

If you have a modern motherboard, it might be able to monitor the voltage rails. If so, install motherboard monitor (just dont ask me to help set it up) or the software that came with the motherboard, and what you'll see if it's a PSU problem is that the +5V rail will start to drop and keep going until your computer crashes. You should also see a high 12V rail. Why in the hells an overloaded 5V rail would cause a high 12V is beyond me, but there you go.

I did see a site to calculate your power consumption, but I cant find it just now. Ill post it if I turn it up.

[Zero Alpha]

dont you just love google

http://www.pclincs.co.uk/Forums/showthread/t-2122.html

that seems good. remember though, if if says you need 350, buy a good 400 and save yourself some greif

edit: i just calculated im using 464W (using max values). therefore my generic 450W might do it for low consumption, but im not supprised JK2 crashes. :/

[ 09-06-2003, 06:14 AM: Message edited by: Zero Alpha ]