Hmm.... according to this site, it is recommened 400W PSU and the "Uninterrupted Power supply" & Use Windows2KPro or WinXP Pro. What if I only have an Antec 350W PSU (1.5voltage core setting) and Windows XP Home?

You can still edit. The differences between Home and Pro are minimal for editing purposes. The power supply: as long as it provides sufficient power you should be fine. However, bigger is definitely better when you start adding more cards/drives/...

Some people go crazy with power. I have two systems that are still using 200W supplies. Two of systems I built recently have 400W which I KNOW is overkill but the supplies were on sale.

I wish I remembered what I calculated my power requirements to be but, iirc, if you have 300W or more, you have more than enough.

What about XP Home?

1- Antec is a good brand power supply, and should do a little more than it's rated. You should be fine, unless running dual processors OR a top of the line video card (massive cooling indicates power hungry video cards) and a whole bunch of other stuff (hard drives). If you really care, you can calculate your power consumption with any of the various calculators online but you should be fine.

2- XP Pro lets you log onto Microsoft networks.

I can't think of a reason you would need XP Pro. Just turn off the stupid dog.

Tough to really answer the question regarding Power Supplies without more info. As mentioned, power hungry Video Cards play a role as do all the other possible gear. Unless he better defines what is in his system there is really no way to say if 200, 300 or even 400 is enough. It's not uncommon to find NLE machines today with 3 hard drives, 2 CD/DVD drives, Video Cards supplying more than one monitor, a capture card PLUS a number of USB/1394 devices plugged in. That can add up to some pretty serious power demand (not to mention cooling requirements).

I have P4 2.1GHz, GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB, one 80GB 2mb buffer HD, 1GB PC2100 RAM..

What will happen if your CPU power supply is in adequate -- will this affect your capture footage or performance?

David, you can go calculate your power supply needs with any of the calculators online. You should be fine.

What happens when power supply is inadequate?
Your voltages will dip when your computer is under load. This can lead to system instability and probably isn't good for your parts (might cause them to not work or fail faster?). My guess is that it's hard to diagnose if you don't know about it.

Anyways, power supply really shouldn't be a problem for you. If you experience problems, download Motherboard Monitor or use your motherboard's monitoring utility to check your voltages to see if they're within 5% of what they're supposed to be.

Hmm... where can I find these power consumption calculators? I really want to know if my voltage is doing ok. I mean, I've overclocked my processor and vid card not too much without any additional cooling, all stock, and the voltages stayed the same. It's been very stable though, no crashes or anything. But where can I find the programs or calculators?

Hi David,

I have an overclocked P4 3.2@3.6 and 2gb memory, on top of that I have 4 power hungry HDD:s. With my Antec 300 PSU I can se a drop on the +12v line, from 12 to 11.2 when I load the CPU at 100%. Sometimes when this drop occurs, one of my HDD:s stops and reboots itself.

I have ordered a 500w silent PSU - maybe some overkill, but "better safe than sorry". ( I've also ordered an Asetek watercooling system ).

To calculate your need you do like this

U*I=W ie 5v * 800ma = 4 watt

To get the mille amps rating on your HDD, go to the manufactures homepage and look at the tech. specs. you will get several readings, 5 and 12 volt + idle and working.

My drives rates like this:

http://www.sidens.se/powerconsum.html

On the side of your PSU it will tell you what load it can take at 5 and 12 volt. This numbers are often the "peak load" - ie. the load the PSU can deliver for a short period.

I usually count the cpu to drain between 80-100 watt ( at full load ).

You probably have some kind of software bundled with your motherboard that can show you temperature and volt - if it looks good ( ie. doesn't change more than 4-5% ) you can be rather calm. If you want to make absolutely sure, take a voltmeter and check +12 and +5 when cpu is under full load.

Good luck!

Best regards,

Lars Siden

When you say check for voltages drop, I'm pretty sure I can do this in the BIOS. Do I just look for minor or major changes and random variations?

<<<-- Originally posted by David Ho : When you say check for voltages drop, I'm pretty sure I can do this in the BIOS. Do I just look for minor or major changes and random variations? -->>>

The bad thing about checking in bios is that there are no load on the cpu. It really is a HUGE difference when the cpu is loaded to 90-100% ( first the CPU takes lots of power + all fans will spin up to full speed )

I'd say that +12v may be between 11.6 and 12.3
+5 maybe between 4.85 and 5.2

If you drop alot at 3.3v line then you're in trouble.

// Lazze

Hmm.. this seems a bit confusing to me. Are there any programs or any methods that I can detect power usage loss or not enough power? I mean ANY physical signs that will currently show or ways to test it? I mean, this voltage stuff scares and confuses me... However, I do want my system to be running efficiently and produce little or no errors during the editing process.

If you aren't getting errors now and your system isn't randomly shutting down or resetting, then you're fine. Your display shouldn't display random flickers either.

I don't think you said how big your supply is but if you're running 300W or more then don't worry about it with your current setup.

Google search for "power supply calculator"
First link: http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

I also said which programs will monitor voltages:

Rob, it is 350W.

No worries, mate. Load it up.

Regarding the PCI cards, do I check that too with the motherboard? I mean, my mobo has already the PCI cards listed including the network card, USB, FireWire, etc... When calculated, total PSU consumption minimum was 380 W! I don't think that's really accurate... but perhaps I should invest in a 400 or 450W.

You say those pci cards are already on the motherboard. Do you mean they are built into the motherboard? Or are these actual, physical, cards that can be unplugged from the motherboard?

If these features are built into the motherboard, it will use less power than if they are seperate plug-in pci cards.

Hmm it seems like a lot of power supply calculators differ in the numbers they use. There are also various numbers you could use. For hard drives, they take a lot of wattage to start spinning and then use less energy once they're up and running. Most sites list hard drives as between 5-15W, while it can take up to 30W to start up.

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda7200.7.pdf
On seagate's site, the 7200.7 (7200rpm PATA/SATA drive) takes up to 12.5W while writing or seeking. Other manufacturer's drives probably take more wattage... but probably not the 25W the jscustompcs.com site suggests. I think the numbers there ,may be a bit exaggerated since I've seen a few other calculators that give lower numbers.

350W should be good enough for most people. The worst case is when you are running a Pentium3.2C/Prescott/AMD64 processor, top of the line video card, and multiple hard drives.

There's an excellent thread about power supplies at http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...5&m=8490995295. It has brand recommendations, because off-brand power supplies probably have their wattage rating fudged.

There's another calculator over at
http://takaman.jp/psu_calc.html?english

Rob, they are built into the motherboard already.


I am not noticing any problems at the moment (or ever from the beginning). Everything is running fine, no crashes, stable -- then I guess I have enough power. :)

If all that is built into the motherboard then the power requirements for the whole motherboard are all you need to look up. You don't need to look at individual cards at all.

Disk drives, in fact all mechanically driven electrical devices, use the most power at start up. So that number is the only one you should use. If a drive only runs on, say, 5 watts while running but needs 10 watts to spin up, then your power supply better be able to deliver that 10 watts on demand. Therefore, you just add 10 watts to your power requirements.

According to my Asus P4T-E manual, a typically loaded system consumes 230watts max. A heavily loaded system is 300w max. But they don't define what a system is.