Last week when I was mid-way processing my Live and Loud pictures…my chair broke, shortly after that my computer started freaking out – just what I needed right?
I thought the graphics card might be corrupt as the screen kept freaking out and it kept disappearing to the computer, but it only happened when I plugged in an extra PATA drive (I wanted to copy some stuff over from the old PC).
It went weird all the way from the POST/BIOS to the OS, Windows would load fine, but you couldn’t really see anything. So I suspected it might be my ancient PSU, it’s a 420W Hiper unit…plenty of power back in the day of 1ghz processors and graphics cards with 32mb RAM.
But I started to suspect it couldn’t deliver enough juice for a Core 2 Duo processor, a hungry graphics card, 3 SATA hard disks and 3GB of DDR2 RAM…I headed over to Digital Mall this weekend to pick a new one, I ended up with the Cooler Master Real Power Pro 650W PSU.
Great reviews all around and rated up to 780W with a constant delivery of 650W, sounds good enough for my rig and more (it’s rated for SLI graphics cards).
Taking the old one out was a bit of a headache with so many cables, connectors and bits tied here and there…a bit like a giant plate of wire spaghetti.
I managed to get the new sexy black PSU in, all plugged in and working in a relatively short amount of time! Nice mesh on the cables too, looks pretty neat now.
Ok so thankfully it turned out it was the power supply problem, everything is good now, I put the old PATA HDD in to copy some stuff and it was fine, stable – great even! Phew that’s one less thing to worry about….but some more money spent that I don’t have *sigh*.
And my chair arrived, just have to clean out the junkyard enough to fit it in..
Operation clean-up soon!
You wouldn’t know if your HD is fully ok until you test/use every sector of it anyway.
I lost 3 HD, all started showing bad sectors about the same time maybe due to PSU problems.
You definitely need to clear up the spaghetti of wires in your PC mate! Use some cable ties. 😛
ShadowFox: Was nothing wrong with the HD…just not enough power to run everything when it was plugged in.
Mark: Yeah it’s tidy now, it was tidy before…that was just mid way through removing the old PSU.
I’m surprised you didn’t upgrade your PSU at the same time you bought your new rig!
Big giant spaghetti monster cables
How’s the chair doing?
No doubt it looks sexy,but RM1300 for this lady seems to be expensive by the looks of it
You have a nice chair. Looks very comfortable. But it is too pricey for me.
omg the chair looks sexy, looks like a lady with wire mesh clothing!!! but i don’t think i can afford it, it’s way too expensive…
hmm cm is good but i prefer antec although it’s more expensive… my 430W TPII is chugging along fine with an Athlon 64 3200+, X800XL, SATA, Audigy 2 ZS, 2 optical drives, TV Tuner… however might need to upgrade it in the future, do u suggest 500W, 550W, 600W or 650W?
i think i screwed up my PATA, it’s undetectable by Windows.
Ranga: Yeah in hindsight I should have, but I thought it’d be fine.
M-I-B: Chair is great, appt is clean and tidy, chair is in it’s place – all is well!
Wing Look: My back is worth a little money 🙂
easyriderlovescs: Save save save, some things are worth spending. Antec is ok, depends on the series too. CM Real Power Pro series is excellent. The basic level Antec are better than basic CM. Well people are getting 1k PSU’s now. For me I recommend as high as you can afford a good one. I’d suggest 650W continuous output.
Love your site! Keep up the good job. Was wondering if you were interested in contributing to an online lifestyle magazine?
PLUS – where did you get that super-cool office chair? Wanna get one for myself.
KTG
Nice site.About that power supply I have similar problem.Asus P4P800-E Deluxe 3.2Ghz 2GB DDR antec PSU 430W and on christmas I put in Sapphire 1950Pro 512.Motherboard sometimes do not boot up only black screen – diod lite on – but no beeps.I thing its motherboard so I get another one replace it with new one and exactly samethnig happen again!But now its even freez reboot in games etc.Now had symptoms it is PSU!So now I have to buy new PSU and will see if it work.But after I read Yours story I thing it is PSU!What drive me crazy that first board do not have any problems running games etc. just issue was black screen on bootup.Do You thing it is can be PSU too even if videocard is not in full use when boot?
Sorry for my English guys and thank You for any respond ! !
Im CZECH GUY !
KTG: Thanks 🙂 Sure drop me an e-mail on the contact page. As for the chair I got it from A M-Office as mentioned in the post previously. I got mine from LDP branch, you can check out their locations on the site.
Peter: Definitely sounds like the PSU is not powerful enough for everything. My video card freaked out during boot, it broke up and displayed random characters and yes it tuned out to be the PSU, it couldn’t give enough power for the graphics card so it effectively disappeared from the machine.