Overdrive 230w power supply ?

[Dolby]

I mentioned in another thread that my PSU died after 2 weeks.

It was a 230w with 70% efficiency and was dirt cheap (like, R315 for the case AND PSU).

Did I maybe overdrive it with 4 x 2TB HDDs, Core2Quad and a GT210 GFX card?

 

[supersunbird]

Well, not overdrive it... overload... possibly

 

[Dolby]

Sorry - that'd what I meant.

So I need to buy another - 300w+ is alright?

 

[Electric]

I don't think you can really overdrive a card as it would rather limit throughput due to being underpowered.
You would find resets and other artifacts occurring.

 

[Beachless]

My guess is about:
40 watts HD's
35 watts GFX card
65-75 watts cpu
150 max watts

230 x 70% = 160 watts

So if you start adding fans, peripherals etc you were probably drawing too much for it.

 

[Dolby]

I found this http://techreport.com/review/14573/intel-core-2-quad-q9300-processor/15

Idle power consumption of the processor is 162 and peak 200
HDD are 30 for the four of them

Then the card etc - seems I was overloading :/

 

[Electric]

Overloading shouldn't cause it to die though.
I seem to be currently overloading my psu when playing high load games.
It is still working perfectly but causes resets when the pc is under load.

 

[Dolby]

Does that mean the PSU fan would have been running at full RPM with my overloading?
If I get a higher wattage, am I right in saying it'll be cooler and the fan will spin less?

 

[Rudimental]

230 x 70% = 160 watts

That isn't what efficiency means. PSU's are rated at the power they provide, not the power they draw. It's 230W to system components and 230 x 1/0.7W from the wall (if I remembered my maths right).

Anyway, I would get a decent 450W PSU.

 

[Beachless]

That isn't what efficiency means. PSU's are rated at the power they provide, not the power they draw. It's 230W to system components and 230 x 1/0.7W from the wall (if I remembered my maths right).

Anyway, I would get a decent 450W PSU.

Your right but I would hardly expect a cheap Chinese 230watt supply to deliver 230 watts.

 

[Messugga]

Overloading shouldn't cause it to die though.
I seem to be currently overloading my psu when playing high load games.
It is still working perfectly but causes resets when the pc is under load.

You're assuming that a bargain bin noname brand PSU has the overcurrent protection and other features you'd find on a R1+k unit. Most certainly not the case. Odds are quite good that he managed to cook some components in that PSU.

 

[Electric]

Valid point.
I didn't take the cheapness into account, just the wattage.

I'm comparing to the issues I'm having on an Antec gaming PSU.

 

[Dolby]

When I say 'cheap', I don't think you can get one cheaper ....