Power Supply Poll. What do you use?

[freewheeling]

I keep getting this opinion from two know-it-all gurus that my computer is "underpowered" and that I need something like a 650W power supply. I just wondered what other people use, if the primary purpose is to run SageTV as a server with an extender, with three SATAII hard drives (one of which is "green")? Does anyone else think my problem is that I'm underpowered with a 550W or 500W power supply? Remember, I have no video card to drive... just the video on the motherboard. I have no PCI cards. Prior to the recent problems I've been running my current setup (other than the HD-PVR) for *six months* with a 300W power supply.

[doc]

I have an Antec EarthWatts 380W 80%+efficiency PSU. I got it because it was nice and quiet.

I have 3 sata drives and 3 PCI TV cards, use extenders, and its been on 24/7 for about a year.

Personally I think you should be OK as you are.

[sic0048]

I'm just trying to follow. You use to have a 300 watt power supply and are now using a 500-550 watt power supply and it has been suggested that you increase it again to 650 watts?

What CPU are you using? What mother board?

Here is a power supply calculator that should give a good estimate on how much power you really need.

By my quite calculation, even runnning a quad core CPU with 4 sticks of DDR2 ram, 3 7200rpm HDs, a DVD RW drive, and 4 case fans, your total wattage is only about 215.

One might be able to argue that a 300 watt power supply might not be adequate in startup or high power usage (I'm not sure I would agree - but one could argue ). But a 650 watt power supply is completely overkill.

Personally I would look at getting a couple new "Know-it-all gurus" if I were you.

[MitchSchaft]

Those guys aren't know-it-all . More importantly, the quality of your PSU is what you want over sheer numbers.
With that being said, I really don't think you are underpowered.

[HelenWeathers]

Here's another Power Supply Calculator:
http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by doc

I have an Antec EarthWatts 380W 80%+efficiency PSU. I got it because it was nice and quiet.

I have 3 sata drives and 3 PCI TV cards, use extenders, and its been on 24/7 for about a year.

Personally I think you should be OK as you are.

Thanks. For what it's worth I can't get any help on the Windows 7 Forum. They're all terribly sensitive that I won't spend another $120 to take their advice even though they can't be bothered to tell me *why* they have that opinion. Trying to get help there is worse than getting no help.

[aaronb]

Originally Posted by doc

I have an Antec EarthWatts 380W 80%+efficiency PSU. I got it because it was nice and quiet.

I have 3 sata drives and 3 PCI TV cards, use extenders, and its been on 24/7 for about a year.

Personally I think you should be OK as you are.

I'm using that same power supply with 6 SATA drives, an HDPVR, a PCI-X SATA card, and a PCI NIC. My server is on 24/7 and no problems.

[freewheeling]

I asked these "experts" to give me some logic as to why I should spend $120 on their advice, and they just posted I should take it or leave it, and then locked me out.

These can't be adults. They have to be someone's petulant children.

[RocKKer]

Sounds like a good forum to be disabled from - saved you some $$!

These SageTV forums is the same way (sans the "petulant children") - this place cost me all kinds of money!

Let's see, I need another HDHR, HD200 (just one more!), Harmony Remotes for all of them, a BRD (reader will be fine) and of course I will need more storage.

[MeInMaui]

@freewheeling

Personally I have used 450W Seasonic power supplies in several computers, though I probably could have gone a bit smaller.

I highly recommend checking out the power supply reviews and commentary at silentpcreview.com. Even though the focus is on noise, their reviews are some of the best I've read. Bottom line is unless your system is a beast, it probably doesn't pull much more than 200 - 250W. Power supplies don't run as efficiently (i.e they waste more power and generate more heat) when you run them far below their rated power.

Another thing I would recommend is to pick up a Kill-a-watt power meter. You plug it in between the computer (or anything else) and the outlet and it will tell you the total wattage it is consuming. That should give you a much better handle on what you need. HTH

Aloha,
Mike

[JetreL]

For my SageTV box I use the 350W PSU that came with my antec case. I have been very lucky with it overall. (typically I would up the power supply for the sage scenario because the number of fans and drives in my case) I am pretty sure this post is trying to isolate your freezing issue from your previous post.

Have you tried your PC on an UPS to see if its spikes or drops in power to see if that is the issue? A UPS would regulate the power coming to the PC this taking that out of the equation of possible issues. Helen's link and Maui's are truly two good resources in making a sound purchase.

[GKusnick]

High-wattage PSUs are useful in a couple of scenarios: if you have a lot of drives to spin up, or if you have a cutting-edge gaming rig with dual high-end GPUs. Other than that, 400-450W should be plenty in my experience. 300W strikes me as a tad light if you have more than one hard disk or plan to add more in future.

[autoboy]

I run Dual Core 4800+ and six drives on an Antec 380W earthwatts. It works fine. it's made by seasonic which is a top quality PSU maker. Some generic 300W power supply from years ago may not have enough on the 12V rail for your system. Old PCs used to use the 5V line a lot while most modern computers use the 12V line almost exclusively with harddrives using 50/50 5V/12V.

But 650w is retarded for a server unless it runs 20 harddrives.

[Djc208]

I second the kill-a-watt. Watch for sales and you can pick it up for about $20. Plug it into the wall and plug your PC into and and hit power and watch the wattage. That will give you the real requirements for both startup and normal load.

The biggest user of power in a current system can be the GPU. The CPU is limited to about 165W but these GPUs seem to have no limits, and you can push more than one, which is where the 1kW power supplies are coming from.

I like anandtech's power supply reviews. They've been quiet on new reviews recently but then again power supplies don't change much.

If you look through the reviews you'll see that the PSU efficiency has a peak in a certain range, the goal is to get your computer's running load to match that peak. Going too big can cost you more money due to reduced efficiency in the computer's operating range.

[sundansx]

Short: Measure your voltage supplies while the unit is running or at load. Best to use a voltmeter (onboard voltage measure is not always accurate).

Long:
If you are indeed having instability, underpowered supplies are not the only problems you can have with them. I have had two Antec TruPower 380watt supplies wig out in the past (they were ample for the machines I was using them with). They came with my Antec sonata cases. My htpc was starting to have crash problem very infrequently and then I noticed that my USB LCD display up front was strobing and looking generally wierd. I finally discovered that the 5V supply was running at around 4.2 volts. I took another one of these supplies I had and gave it to a friend. He had some instability and I measured 4.25 volts out of that one as well. Antec seem to have uneven quality at times. I have gone thru 3 Antec supplies. I have been moving to Seasonic/Corsair supplies as of late and they get good reviews everywhere I have looked. Note: corsairs are not always Seasonics...look around.

[bigo93bronco]

I use a hot swapable, 3 module unit. Its three individual units that slide into one enclosure. Each module is rated for 230w, and most of the time my server operates under that, so It could probably take a double failure. I also have an extra module on hand so I can just swap em and keep going. Have it plugged into an UPS too.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Personally I have used 450W Seasonic power supplies in several computers, though I probably could have gone a bit smaller.

It's been a while, but my Seasonic is somewhere in the 450ish range and has worked fine for almost 3 years.

The Corsair 750HX that I just got for my workstation is ridiculously quiet. Highly recommend it if you need lots of power and modular cabling, while maintaining a quiet footprint.