PCTech Forums

Hi ive got a pc with:
amd 3500+ 64bit chip
dfi infinity cx 3200 motherboard
ATI x1950 pro gcard
2 gb ddr 2 ram (dont know what tyoe)
sb xfi-elite pro sound card
4 sata II hdd's
1 dvd burner
wireless network card

and im running it on a 400w psu
it keeps crashing and locking up i reinstalled windows and it still does the same is it my psu thats the problem

sorry another question, is there a good crossfire psu for less than £80, i cant find one that actually says its enabled.

400w PSU I think is not enough to support all the hardware you have.... try 500w. 4 HDD that will produce heat and consume more power and I suggest apply a good airflow on the system by adding fans and heatsinks. The fact that your also using AMD processor you should be aware that sometimes it produces heat due to the high HT(Hyper Transport) it has. Well that's equivalent trade more speed consume more power and produces more heat. I'm also thinking about your BIOS maybe the settings on the PC health status is too low... the mobo has the capability to shutdown itself upon certain temp. try to chack it also. I hope this helps ^_^

I agree for all of that hardware a 400W PSU will be straining to keep up. If it runs for awhile then shuts down check to bios system health settings as you may be over heating the case as well due to the ammount for hardware you have stuck in there, if you havent you may want to consider a hard drive fan as well to keep air flowing accross them also if you happen to have extra drive bays leave a space inbetween each drive to allow more surface area for the air to go accross.

according to the specs you provided the minimum wattage you would need is 334 this does not include fans, usb devices that pulls its power from the system (thumb drives) extra video cards, heat and anything else that draws power from the system, go to this site http://www.journeysystems.com/?powercalc and it should help figure out the ammount you need approximentally I would use this as a bare minimum.