Hi Tyrenta,
You should be OK with a 500W PSU PROVIDING that it is of good quality and is
capable of running at an efficiency of 85%. My calculations in my previous
post were based on a PSU efficiency of 65%. However, I would advise you to
back up your RAID data to an external USB hard drive (move your internal IDE
hard drive to an external USB enclosure) and then install your RAID5 array
without having the other array present. That way, you will only have 4 hard
drives installed as opposed to 7 (I assumed 6, but didn't know about the 7th
until you mentioned it in your post). Not only would there be a reduction in
the noise level of your system, but there would also be a decrease in power
consumption (from 7 x 22.5=157.5W to 4 x 22.5=90W, a difference of 67.5W),
thus you will not be overloading the power rails (as you might well be if you
have both arrays installed at the same time). In addition, there will be less
heat generated by your system. You can then format your new array and load
the data onto it from your external USB backup. Providing that you take your
time over this procedure, you should have no trouble in setting up your new
array. Even if you do end up reinstalling Vista, your data should be safe on
the backup that you made. Applications will then need to be reinstalled from
the original media.
Dwarf
"Tyrenta" wrote:
Quote:
> On Mar 13, 8:37 am, w...@xxxxxx (the wharf rat) wrote: Quote:
> > In article <DF44A77E-A389-4A6F-A798-D2BD970D6...@xxxxxx>,
> >
> > Dwarf <Dw...@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > Quote:
> > >If you are using average rated components, I recommend a supply of 650W.
> >
> > Well, that's just silly. There must be something wrong with your
> > figures because even a decent 380 watt PS is perfectly adequate for an
> > ordinary desktop system.
> >
> > For instance, I make an 80mm case fan to be 12v x .15a = 1.8 watts.
> > Are you figuring startup current as your steady state? That would only
> > apply to motor driven parts like fans and drives. That's momentary and
> > the other components aren't drawing anywhere near peak when it happens.
> > And what x86 CPU uses 150 watts? Max current for an AMD X2 is 89. Some
> > of the Intel quads get as high as 130...
> > Quote:
> > >Motherboard 50W 75W 62.5W 15w
> > >Processor 25W 150W 87.5W 90w
> > >RAM 10W 30W 20.0W 6w
> > >Graphics 25W 200W 112.5W 60w
> > >Hard Disk 90W 180W 135.0W 14w
> > >Optical 30W 70W 50.0W 30w
> > >Cooling Fan 6W 10W 8.0W 1.8wx3=5.4w
> >
> > My figures are closer to 250 peak 180 steady state... So a
> > 300-350w power supply should be fine for normal usage... >
> Thank you both -- I think the problem (or dumb move) was trying to
> replace a 2-disk data (non-OS) RAID with a 3-disk RAID, so to
> transition I actually had 7 (5 RAID + OS + a back-up IDE) drives
> running, but ideally that would drop back to 4 or 5 when I'm done. The
> largest supply I could get locally (Circuit City) is a 500W, so I'm
> hoping that would be sufficient, and I could try to disable a few
> components (the IDE, and possibly the optical) while building the
> RAID.
>
> the rest of the system is fairly standard by todays compents -- AMD
> 3800+, 3gb RAM, middle line video card, 1 optical drive, 2 case fans
>
> could a low power state have caused the software issues (inability to
> lauch several components), or likely I need to do a complete reinstall?
>