What PSU will do the task?

lmao2k · 21 Dec 2006 at 20:36

My current psu OCZ GameXStream 700w just isn't up for the task. It either boots on and off or I have to d/c some hdds for it to boot. Which is no good.

I need the PSU to be able to power roughly 18 hdds. 5 of them are scsi 15ks and there rest are sata WD RE2 drives. There are no optical drives to power and it only has a fx5200 for a gfx. CPU is a 3ghz P4 Prescott and the board is an abit IC7-Max3. If they were all scsi then being about to delay the spin up etc.. would probably help matters, but sadly no can do with these sata drives.

I 've seen the enermax galaxy 1000 or the tagan 1100 (u95 model, 4 12v rails), can't find the u96 5 12v rails)

What do you guys suggest?

Cheers

Andy Pandy · 21 Dec 2006 at 20:37

18 hard drives :eek:

. I think you would be looking at the 1000+ range.

semi-pro waster · 21 Dec 2006 at 20:45

Not that this is a massive amount of help but a PSU calculator rates your system as needing around 550w going on the information you have given. Your OCZ might be dodgy or it might be that it cannot cope with the initial load on boot. Either the Enermax or Tagan ought to be more than capable but maybe take a look at the Seasonic 700w as I believe it is higher quality than either and cheaper.

lmao2k · 21 Dec 2006 at 21:33

Cheers guys. I am pretty sure its the initial load that is causing the prob. Interestingly my 670 enermax server psu can cope with it perfectly. Sadly I am using that in my main box as the OCZ won't fit correctly in my lian v2100 case

Boogle · 21 Dec 2006 at 21:42

OCZ GameXtreme also has some pretty bad ripple. Enermax Galaxy at higher loads even has ripple out of the ATX spec. Ripple is important because high ripple on 3.3v will kill RAM very quickly. High ripple on the 12v will kill HDs quickly. Ripple in general over an extended period will kill everything else

Check out http://www.jonnyguru.com for very good reviews of PSUs.

I would hazard that the drives are overloading a rail. Best bet would be a PSU that doesn't have multiple 12v rails, like a Seasonic, Corsair, or Zippy.