[NBLUG/talk] Do I need a bigger power supply?

scottmc at sonic.net scottmc at sonic.net
Wed Jul 28 14:04:33 PDT 2004


Does your ampmeter have a min/max feature?  Try capturing the peeks, which
would happen at power up and probably after a soft reboot too, where the 4
HDDs get scanned.  SCSI server systems typcially have a firmware option to
power up the drives in order instead of all at once.  Smaller power
supplies will have issues with this many drives coming up at the same
time.  Also the 300W is usually at 25C, but typical temps around the PS
can be as high as 40C, where a cheaper PS will can then drop down to
210W-250W.
-Scottmc
(www.bedrivers.com)



> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:46:58 -0700
> From: Lincoln Peters <sampln at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [NBLUG/talk] Do I need a bigger power supply?
> To: NBLUG mailing list <talk at nblug.org>
> Message-ID: <1091040418.3196.706.camel at localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> My computer has the following hardware:
>
> Four hard drives, three optical (CD and/or DVD) drives:
> 	hda:	30GB, UltraDMA 133 (root filesystem)
> 	hdc:	DVD-ROM drive
> 	hdd:	CD-RW drive (attached to sr0 via ide-scsi)
> 	hde:	60GB, UltraDMA 133 (/home)
> 	hdg:	160GB, UltraDMA 133 (/home/lincoln)
> 	hdi:	10GB, UltraDMA 33 (/var)
> 	hdk:	CD-ROM drive
> Legacy 3.5" floppy drive
> Onboard IDE, ethernet, and sound (all VIA chipsets)
> ATI Radeon 9200 AGP 8X video card
> "New"* PROMISE ATA/133 IDE controller
> "Old"* PROMISE ATA/33 IDE controller
> Sound Blaster Live! sound card
>
> * "New" PROMISE controllers, such as the ATA/133, require a different
> kernel driver than the "old" controllers, such as the ATA/33.
>
>
> Somehow, I managed to power all of this from a 300-watt ATX power supply
> (and I used an ampmeter to verify that it's drawing less than 300
> watts).  However, I've noticed that, if I perform a "warm" reboot (as
> per "shutdown -r now" or just "reboot"), the "old" PROMISE controller
> fails to detect any attached devices.  However, if I perform a "cold"
> reboot (I shut down completely as per "shutdown -h now" or "poweroff",
> leave the system powered off for several seconds, then turn it back on),
> everything works fine.
>
> I've read that strange issues such as this one can be caused by power
> supply issues, and I wouldn't be surprised if all of this equipment is
> putting more strain on the power supply than it can realistically
> handle.  Should I get a more powerful power supply, or is there
> something else I should consider?
>
> ---
> Lincoln Peters
> <sampln at sbcglobal.net>
>
> It's always darkest just before the lights go out.
> 		-- Alex Clark
>
>
>
>
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