Power Supply Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter SmarSquid
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SmarSquid

This is my first-time building a system.

Antec SLK1650 retail case with 350 watt power supply.

Here is a list of everything plugged into the motherboard:
Shuttle AN35N-Ultra motherboard
Athlon AMD XP 2500 1.83 Ghz CPU
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 AGP video card
2 hard disk drives (1 Maxtor & 1 Western Digital)
Memorex 48MAXX 148AJ CD-RW drive.
HP DVD300I DVD+RW drive
3 cooling fans (front/side/rear).

Running Windows XP Professional.

I was getting "SCSI Command Aborted" and "Power Calibration Error" messages
in Nero when trying to burn DVD or CD on one of my two drives. Built-in XP
burning software reported errors as well. Someone suggested that my power
supply wasn't robust enough and that I should unplug a peripheral. Sure
enough, if I unplug my CD-RW I can get the DVD+R to burn just fine. Plug the
CD-RW back in and wham! the problem returns like clockwork.

My setup is very basic, and I find it really hard to believe that I am
pushing or exceeding the limits of a 350-watt power supply. Not to mention,
I was getting the burning error messges when I had only one cooling fan
running (before installation of the two auxilary fans).

Another possibly-related problem is this: if I try to connect one or both of
my two auxilary fans directly to the motherboard with those 3-pin
connectors, I cannot get power to the motherboard. I hit the switch and the
power comes on and quickly shuts down. If, however, I connect the fan to a
4-pin connector directly to the power supply and NOT to the motherboard
itself, the fans work fine and I can get power to the motherboard.

Please advise. Is my power supply inherently the issue or am I maybe dealing
with a defective one? Is it something else entirely?
 
SmarSquid said:
if I unplug my CD-RW I can get the DVD+R to burn just fine. Plug the
CD-RW back in and wham! the problem returns like clockwork.
And can we assume that the CD-RW motor was not running during failure?
Does the CD-RW housing feel hot? I can't believe that the CD-RW circuit
board would use much power.
My setup is very basic, and I find it really hard to believe that I am
pushing or exceeding the limits of a 350-watt power supply.

I tend to agree. I believe your graphics card doesn't have a fan, so I
guess it doesn't use much power. I would guess you have a good 50W to
spare. It would be good to add up the power specs of your components to
be sure. Try something like this: http://takaman.jp/D/?english Also
amd.com has some literature on calculating power requirements.

Do you have the IDE jumpers set correctly on your optical drives?
 
Actually, my video card does run its own fan. Also, I forgot to mention that
I have a Promise PCI IDE controller installed. Connected to it are one of my
2 hard drives (the other hard drive is connected to the primary onboard IDE
channel) and the CD-RW. The CD-RW is set as master of channel 2 on the PCI
controller. My DVD+RW is connected as master on the secondary onboard IDE
channel. Did you give any consideration to what I said in my original post
about the PC not powering up if I connect the 2 auxilary fans directly to
the motherboard (instead I have to connect the extra fans to the 4-pin
connectors directly to the power supply). A couple of other things, too -
the power supply has a 4-pin connection that matches a 12v female port on
the motherboard. Currently it is not connected; I'm not sure what it does.
Also, from the power supply is a black and blue wired pair that goes to a
3-pin connector of some sort. Don't know what this is supposed to be for
either.
 
SmarSquid said:
Actually, my video card does run its own fan.

Okay, well anyway I've seen a couple models of ATI 9600 that don't have
fans, which means the graphics chip doesn't use a lot of power.
the power supply has a 4-pin connection that matches a 12v female port on
the motherboard. Currently it is not connected; I'm not sure what it does.

That is probably the source of at least one of your problems. That
should be connected. See the ATX12V spec or so at www.formfactors.org
 
SmarSquid said:
Also, from the power supply is a black and blue wired pair that goes to a
3-pin connector of some sort. Don't know what this is supposed to be for
either.

I believe that is for using the motherboard to control the fan speed of
the power supply. Look in your mobo manual for a "system fan header" or
so. Find the specs and manual for your PS at www.antec.com. If you
have fans besides the one(s) included in the case purchase, I doubt that
you will need them.
 
Well, I plugged in the secondary 4-pin 12v connector from the power supply
to the motherboard, and moved the CD-RW from slave on the secondary onboard
IDE channel to master on the secondary IDE channel on the PCI controller
card. I can now connect my two extra fans directly to the motherboard with
no problems, and the CD-RW and DVD+RW drives seem to be performing without
the SCSI Command Aborted or Power Calibration Error messages from Nero.

Howver, my DVD+RW is giving me attitude with my CD-RW disks. Nero will
report the CD-RW as a blank rewriteable disk before I burn. After I burn a
test CD-RW disk with the DVD+RW drive and then go to erase it, Nero and the
DVD+RW drive reports the disk as being "CD read only" and therefore not
erasable. The CD-RW drive will erase the disk just fine. I'm not sure, then,
if this is still a power issue. I guess I will unplug a few things and see
if that changes the behavior of Nero and my DVD+RW when trying to erase
CD-RW disks. true, I can avoid the problem by using the DVD drive for
writing to DVD only, but I'd prefer to have the flexibility.
 
Howver, my DVD+RW is giving me attitude with my CD-RW disks. Nero will
report the CD-RW as a blank rewriteable disk before I burn. After I burn a
test CD-RW disk with the DVD+RW drive and then go to erase it, Nero and the
DVD+RW drive reports the disk as being "CD read only" and therefore not
erasable. The CD-RW drive will erase the disk just fine. I'm not sure, then,
if this is still a power issue. I guess I will unplug a few things and see
if that changes the behavior of Nero and my DVD+RW when trying to erase
CD-RW disks. true, I can avoid the problem by using the DVD drive for
writing to DVD only, but I'd prefer to have the flexibility.

It's your brand of media. Switch to a different brand. Try several until
you find a brand that is compatible with your DVD burner. -Dave
 
SmarSquid said:
moved the CD-RW from slave on the secondary onboard
IDE channel to master on the secondary IDE channel on the PCI controller
card.

Not clear why you are using an add-on IDE controller.
 
I've been conditioned to believe that I can get better paging file
performance by placing it on a hard drive connected to a separate controller
from the system hard disk. That's why I put it in my system. Plus, the card
was a carryover from my old system, which had no onboard ATA133 support. I
stuck the CD-RW on that IDE controller just to see if it helped produce
different outcomes regarding the burning errors. The controller card may not
help at all in reality, but I don't think it's detrimental anyway.
 
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