Need NEW Power Supply

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24500

That is what I have my eyes set on since amazon doesn't carry PC P n C products

The ratings are conservative according to every single review I have read but it will suit my single-card setup more than adequately.

Hmm, I just noticed something, well somewhat unexpected with their moving from first to second generation on the X-Connect. (I got a first gen).

Here are the product specs:

X-Connect first gen (which I have):

total power: 500 watt

+3.3v: 28a
+5v: 30a
+12v: 34a
-12v: .8a
-5v: .3v
-5vsb 2.0a

Now looking at the second generation, there's an additional amp total on the +12v by adding them together (same looking at the specs for Sazar's suggested power supply). But the specs for X2 fall as:

total power: 550 watt

+3.3V: 25A
+5V: 30A
+12V: 17A
+12V: 18A
-12V: 0.8A
-5V: -
+5VSB: 2.5A

Alright, comparing the numbers from mlakrid's link, to what's printed on my PSU box from the 1st gen X-Connect, anyone else scratching there head? Here's the list of changes in specs:

- second gen is rated at 50 watts higher
- second gen has 3a less on the +3.3v rail
- +5v rail shows identical ratings
- +12v rails are split though total at 17a + 18a = 35a My 500w X Connect has 34a on 1 rail
- the newer gen has an additional .5a of +5vsb power

Hmm...

On the surface, and this goes for both mlakrid and Sazar; there might be a question with the 2 rails (given 1 rail is 17a, which falls slightly below the recomendation for an A64) on how this power is distributed. That, admittedly would take some more research on my part. Is the available power additive before it is distributed to the devices requiring? Or is the power split with some connectors drawing from 1 12v rail, and other connectors drawing from the other? If so, which draws from what? I'd have to look more at their setup to say for sure.

But all said, I find the side by side comparison of the X Connect which I own, and the X Connect gen 2 which mlakrid's link points to, to present a bit of an interesting change on the part of the manufacturer...

well after the installation I can say I am happy with the way the cabling has changed within the case... HOWEVER, power alone is not the only problem...

Its wierd... ok so I attach all the cables, connect the new Satadrive, and the old one makes a cyclic spinup/spin down sound repeatedly, until the screen goes blank, and it just sits there... Sadly, this is the same thing it did last time... so now, I have a new power supply and still have some kind of HD issue...

I was thinking that the other HDD is messing the primary up, the reason I say that is because it came with NO jumper, and I would not have thought that a problem, except this symptom only happens when both drives are in the PC...

Oy... I thought I had better luck than this....

My next step which I am about to do is to install the other raptor and see if i get this problem... it makes NO sense to me thoguh....

@ Son Goku, the power supply is almost EXACTLY the same as yours ,sadly if there is a way to connect to the power supply to ensure things are connected on seperate 12V rails, I have not found it yet...

@ LeeJend you are right it does not say it is PCI-E / SLI certified but has 2 PCI-E connections, right now I just couldnt afford to spend $400+ dollars for the PC P & C PSU

Son Goku said:

On the surface, and this goes for both mlakrid and Sazar; there might be a question with the 2 rails (given 1 rail is 17a, which falls slightly below the recomendation for an A64) on how this power is distributed. That, admittedly would take some more research on my part. Is the available power additive before it is distributed to the devices requiring? Or is the power split with some connectors drawing from 1 12v rail, and other connectors drawing from the other? If so, which draws from what? I'd have to look more at their setup to say for sure.

Click to expand...

That has bothered me too. The two rails are physically isolated going to different connectors. One is primarily considered to be for the MB the other rail for add-ins.

17A should be adequate. I'm running my X800XL, MB/CPU/HSF, CD, DVD, HD, 3 case fans all off one 17A rail with an AMD 64 ~XP3700 and 1 gig RAM and have not had a stability issue except at start up. (Boot-up aborts and cycles off and on if I push the FSB all the way to XP3800 speed. It did not when I was just running the 9800 PRO vid card. The PSU voltages are not fluctuating on a meter during boot so this may just be a PCI-e related problem.)

mlakrid said:

well after the installation I can say I am happy with the way the cabling has changed within the case... HOWEVER, power alone is not the only problem...

Its wierd... ok so I attach all the cables, connect the new Satadrive, and the old one makes a cyclic spinup/spin down sound repeatedly, until the screen goes blank, and it just sits there... Sadly, this is the same thing it did last time... so now, I have a new power supply and still have some kind of HD issue...

I was thinking that the other HDD is messing the primary up, the reason I say that is because it came with NO jumper, and I would not have thought that a problem, except this symptom only happens when both drives are in the PC...

Oy... I thought I had better luck than this....

My next step which I am about to do is to install the other raptor and see if i get this problem... it makes NO sense to me thoguh....

@ Son Goku, the power supply is almost EXACTLY the same as yours ,sadly if there is a way to connect to the power supply to ensure things are connected on seperate 12V rails, I have not found it yet...

@ LeeJend you are right it does not say it is PCI-E / SLI certified but has 2 PCI-E connections, right now I just couldnt afford to spend $400+ dollars for the PC P & C PSU

Click to expand...

/BUMP... anyone? Ideas on what the cause of the problem could be.. bueler?



Im sooo not happy I cant build my RAID its not even funny....

LeeJend said:

That has bothered me too. The two rails are physically isolated going to different connectors. One is primarily considered to be for the MB the other rail for add-ins.

17A should be adeqaute. I'm running my X800XL, MB/CPU/HSF, CD, DVD, HD, 3 case fans all off one 17A rail with an AMD 64 ~XP3700 and 1 gig RAM and have not had a stability issue except at start up. (Boot-up aborts and cycles off and on if I push the FSB all the way to XP3800 speed. It did not when I was just runnign the 9800 PRO vid card. The PSU voltages are not fluctuating on a meter during boot so this may just be a PCI-e related problem.)

Click to expand...

Well, the hardware does tend to put a heavier load on the PSU at initial powerup, then after it's been running awhile... Though you indicate that your testing this. Ideally, for us, the 18 amps would be on the mobo, and specifically to the A64 I'm gathering, but I almost have a hunch the lower amperage is being fed to the single device perhaps, with the other rail feeding the rest. There's no documentation I can see, which could help isolate what's going on here.

mlakrid,

I wonder if you're having problems similar to LeeJend's. It sounds like they might be related.

However, on reading this

Its wierd... ok so I attach all the cables, connect the new Satadrive, and the old one makes a cyclic spinup/spin down sound repeatedly, until the screen goes blank, and it just sits there... Sadly, this is the same thing it did last time... so now, I have a new power supply and still have some kind of HD issue...

Click to expand...

the first thought that sprang to mind was, are you sure the drive is still good? Perhaps the PSU wasn't the problem, especially if it's the same HDD issue both before and after. Have you tried booting up with the respective drives in another box, to see if you still get this problem at boot, in a known working system?

Son Goku said:

Well, the hardware does tend to put a heavier load on the PSU at initial powerup, then after it's been running awhile... Though you indicate that your testing this. Ideally, for us, the 18 amps would be on the mobo, and specifically to the A64 I'm gathering, but I almost have a hunch the lower amperage is being fed to the single device perhaps, with the other rail feeding the rest. There's no documentation I can see, which could help isolate what's going on here.

mlakrid,

I wonder if you're having problems similar to LeeJend's. It sounds like they might be related.

However, on reading this



the first thought that sprang to mind was, are you sure the drive is still good? Perhaps the PSU wasn't the problem, especially if it's the same HDD issue both before and after. Have you tried booting up with the respective drives in another box, to see if you still get this problem at boot, in a known working system?

Click to expand...

No, I have not, the issue is not the other drives, it must be with this one. I will try my other raptor and if it works, then I know for sure its the HD... that would suck, because then I cant even have i RMA'd I have had it entirely too long...

I have been looking on-line, and I see no one else having issues with this model drive... NOT good news for me...

EDIT: also, I never did get to put my other Raptor in my PC to make sure it is the bigger HDD causing the issue...

Well, personally I'd swap out the troublesome drive first. The prospects of it being the culprit might suck, but the sooner it's tested, the sooner you can know for sure, and possibly get it up and running. Ya I know, probably what you were thinking, and probably just what you don't want to hear/see now

Son Goku said:

Well, personally I'd swap out the troublesome drive first. The prospects of it being the culprit might suck, but the sooner it's tested, the sooner you can know for sure, and possibly get it up and running. Ya I know, probably what you were thinking, and probably just what you don't want to hear/see now

Click to expand...

I KNOW what you are trying to say, that it could be the drive in my PC going bad... but what I am telling you is that, I NEVER had ANY issues, prior to putting this drive in the case... ever.

I bought it back in late June, and just never got around to installing it...
which is why I said I need to install the second raptor I bought and see if this happens..

the only good thing (if there is such a thing) is that at least this drive will only set me back $100ish...

Nah, I meant the drive that keeps spinning up and down during boot itself. Wasn't sure when you bought it, etc and just that the prob was there before the PSU upgrade. I sorta assumed the drive that was doing this had been in there, but of course can't know for sure...

And yes, if you didn't find out it was bad until too late, because it was never used, that REALLY does suck

The best I could find also

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp

and yet I suspect you already checked the warranty options that apply to you, etc...

Son Goku said:

Nah, I meant the drive that keeps spinning up and down during boot itself. Wasn't sure when you bought it, etc and just that the prob was there before the PSU upgrade. I sorta assumed the drive that was doing this had been in there, but of course can't know for sure...

And yes, if you didn't find out it was bad until too late, because it was never used, that REALLY does suck

The best I could find also

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp

and yet I suspect you already checked the warranty options that apply to you, etc...

Click to expand...

Yes I did, but the problem is that I never registered the drives... So, if they want to be bastards about it they can...

We will see, I will register the product, with the initial purchase date, and see what they say....

Also, the drive which is spinning up/down IS the drive which has the OS on it.. whihc is why I found it odd that it ONLY acts that way when I put the new drive in...

On the cycling at boot. If you have your FSB overclocked return it to stock speed and try a boot. Mine only acts up if I overclock the FSB more than about 6%. My MB would do 10% easily before I switched to the lower power CPI-e vid card.

Actually it shouldn't set you back anything. WD is very good about warranty returns. And they have a 3 year warranty. If the drive is bad.

Can you pull all the other drives, install the suspect one and boot off the WD Floppy/CD? Then run diagnostics. If it has a problem it will generate a problem report for you. If it boots OK install windows on it and see if it still boots. If you can boot windows it still sounds like a power problem.

PS Have I mentioned lately I hate computers?

Ok to clarify My system curently:

Asus P4c800-E Deluxe
2GB Corsair TWINX-Pro memory
BFG 6800 GT vid
(1) WD 36G Raptor --> OS drive

How I want my PC to be same as above with the exception of adding 2 drives as follows:

Install WD Caviar Drive... format, setup partions, set drive letter, back up entire raptor on 75GB partition
Install 2nd raptor... format second raptor... format OS raptor, power down...

Move BOTH Rator connections to SATA RAID connections...

re-install XP PRO on the raid... move over the drivers, game date etc from the larger drive to the RAID... install all applications I want on the RAID... de-frag and back up new striped RAID set to 75G partition....

I hope this clears it ALL up now....

LeeJend said:

On the cycling at boot. If you have your FSB overclocked return it to stock speed and try a boot. Mine only acts up if I overclock the FSB more than about 6%. My MB would do 10% easily before I switched to the lower power CPI-e vid card.

Actually it shouldn't set you back anything. WD is very good about warranty returns. And they have a 3 year warranty. If the drive is bad.

Can you pull all the other drives, install the suspect one and boot off the WD Floppy/CD? Then run diagnostics. If it has a problem it will generate a problem report for you. If it boots OK install windows on it and see if it still boots. If you can boot windows it still sounds like a power problem.

PS Have I mentioned lately I hate computers?

Click to expand...

Yea that was the next step...