Are you pissed off? I'm pissed off. Vent Thread.

[Goose]

There's usually a status light on the motherboard too to confirm that the motherboard is receiving power.  If everything is plugged in and that light isn't on, you can be guaranteed your power supply is the problem (or at least a part of it).

Corsairs are great, as are Antecs.  I've been using Antec EarthWatts power supplies for years now, they've got the best efficiency available afaik (least amount of power lost to waste heat out of almost anything else out there).

[Aaron]

Thanks r00 I will try that as well. If I do see a light at lest...

Andrea posted on my fb that her pc did about the same thing. Only it was the mobo. Is there a way to test that?



I  will be looking for that light then. I still find it odd that it just turned off. Like I was playing and then click.  But thanks for the recomendation, I will be looking into buying a new one tonight. I really just need a cheapish one to get me through....

[Goose]

See, that sudden no-go is what leads me to believe its a power-supply problem over the mobo.  If some component of the motherboard failed, you'd probably get a blue-screen or something, or at least a bios/beep error on startup.  I'm not saying its impossible for it to be the mobo as well, but a power supply failure is more likely.

[Aaron]

Ya, that is why I thinks its the power supply as well. It doesn't even make sounds when I turn it on... No fans reving or the hdd spinning up. Just though I would ask though.


Also for a new one how big of one should I get? 500 wats?  Like they have some on Newegg that are 550 wat. I have an old pc. 5 years and for its time I had a high end cpu graphics card two hdd a Rom drive.  Cuz while I don't want to spend to much like 80ish and then shipping. I also need to make sure I get a big enough one that will power it all comfortably...


I'm assuming the watage is written on the power supply. But if not... Would 550 ish be enough. I woulent go lower then 500. And like I said I don't want to spend a ton. When I do buy a new pc. I want to keep this one as a storage/ media back up kinda thing... So I don't want to get a huge one and tear it out for the new pc...

[r00]

Here is a power supply calculator on newegg.
http://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html

I would take what it tells you and add 250 watts to make sure.   As long as you aren't running SLI/Crossfire or 5 harddrives in raid, I wouldn't see any need for you to go over 750watts.

[Aaron]

Hahah it says I need 354... So ya 550 should be damn near perfect....

[Aaron]

It ate my post. So to shorten everything. I'm getting back enough for a beast of a machine

Is one really high end card better then getting two not as really good video cards running SLI. If I do buy the really high end ones I could just make it SLI down the line.

8 (ish) gig of ram. Will I see that much improvement with more? I won't be editing movies or photos. Just games watching movies and stuff. (if I find some that is a great deal ill buy more ram. But I think 8 should be good right.

[Goose]

8GB of RAM is perfect, and one video card will cause you significantly less grief than two.

[individualzero]

^What r00 and Goose said.

550w should be more than enough to power any modern graphics card (perhaps surprisingly, more recent GPU series like the 7000-series from AMD and nVidia's 600-series have actually vastly reduced their power output, meaning you don't need as much juice to power those warp drives), as well as the rest of your rig. You could go higher if you really wanted, but unless you've got some blazingly fast triple-top of the line GPU, five non-solid state storage drives in RAID, $600 CPU setup then you're not going to need more than 650-700w.

Depending on how much you feel like spending on which high-end graphics card, 550w might not be enough to SLI them but to be honest, I wouldn't SLI period because doubling up means double the trouble. Your motherboard's PCIe slots may not scale the processing power of your dual cards too well, and a lot of games not only don't support SLI/CFX at launch (if ever), they may not support them very well if they do.

Usually I just buy a single big, beefy graphics card that is in line with the rest of my system (i.e. won't get bottlenecked by my other PC parts).

Here's a handful of PSUs to consider:
$25-$50:
Antec NEO ECO 520W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030

$50-$70:
Corsair BUILDER 600W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028
Seasonic S12II 520W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151096
Antec Earthwatts 650W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

And GPUs:
$100-$200:
SAPPHIRE 7770: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202011

$200-$300:
SAPPHIRE 7870: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202024
MSI 660 Ti: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127696

If you can tell us what kind of budget, and what kind of processor and motherboard you're packing in that tower, that'd be awesome. It might help us narrow down some options for you as to what won't bottleneck you and would be best for your price range.

[Aaron]

Well the new psu would be for my old pc. New pc will he new everything. Maybe my old storage bin hdd. I haven't even really looked at to much as far as cpu mobo and ram or graphics cards or how much hdds are now. I do want to buy a blue ray Rom drive. 50ish bucks and it saves me from buying a player down the line.

I'm getting a bit more then 1k for taxes. I want to spend about 1k. I want a cheapish case... I know what case I really want. But that is 300 or so alone. So out of the budget for now.  I'd like to get a new monitor and have two. But right now I'm more concerned about the tower and everything going into it.

[individualzero]

$1000 is a really nice place to be in terms of a budget for a new PC as it allows you to fit all the best top of the line components into a rig and some amenities to boot (a bluray drive, a nice, fast SSD and a storage HDD, a speedy quad-core CPU, top of the line GPU, plenty of top-notch RAM etc.)

If you want some help piecing together an awesome rig, let us know.

Though I'd say that if you're going to buy a new case, I wouldn't spend more than >$200 on it. A $300 case is damn-near guaranteed not going to do anything more impressively than a $100-$200 case unless it toasts bagels and brews your morning joe.

[Aaron]

Iz this is the case when my roommate (the old one with out cats) bought it was 300. Still a bit much. But its bitchin. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133188


(sorry if that doesn't link right. On my phone...)


I just bought a new psu. I got home opened my pc. And I made sure it was plugged in. And no light. Granted I don't know where the status light would be but I check the back panel where everything pluges in to it and the mobo its self... No light seen.

[r00]

This is the best bang for your buck as far as cases go.  The Antec ninehundred.  I can't recommend it enough and it's right at around $100.  Any heat issues I had before using this case went out the window when I got it 4 years ago and it's still rocking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021&Tpk=antec%20ninehundred

[Aaron]

Damn. That is a bitch case. And it does have a lot of air flow. (case I linked keep my roommates pc cool even when he was overclocking his cpu and stuff. But that is a damn nice one. And half the price.

[r00]

The only possible drawback to that case I suggested would be if you needed it quiet.  It can be pretty loud with all those fans if you crank up their speed.