Chips' Fun House ~ View topic

I believe its borderline, but I want to get the opinion of others. I have a computer in my basement that has the following items.

I have an antec 400w psu powering:

-Gigabyte 7VRXP VIA KT333 motherboard with Promise RAID controller(onboard audio IS disabled)

-1.5 ghz athlon xp

-768 megs of ram (3x256) pc2100

-1 hd (seagate 120gig 7200rpm)

-soundblaster live 5.1

-chaintech geforce 4 ti4600 agp (128meg)

-plextor cd burner

-pioneer dvd rom

-2.1 logitech speakers

-adapter that contains 4 2.0 usb ports

-4 80mm fans

I want to add an nec 3550a dvd burner (got a new one for my main comp) to this without taking away any of my other optical devices. The rule of thumb is to have around 30% more power than needed for variances in usage by components (.......atleast my rule Good Idea

), so i'm just curious what you think.

There's really no need for two burners. I have two in my case...with one simply not connected. Two drives can in fact burn at the same time...but they'd have to be the same make. The psu should be more than sufficient.

The reason for keeping all the drives is so the dvd rom takes the beating for reading all the discs (it reads it better than the other 2 and the plextor burns cd's better than the nec). Since this computer will probably not be upgraded again, i want to maximize the life of the drives (it will be the main computer used for burning).

I thought the 400w would do it, but i just had some lingering doubts.

i have an ultra[brand] 500watt psu w/ the cable connections on it, i can connect just the cables i need, no excess to have hanging or bunched in a corner.

True, the cords are a bother, but since its all in a lian-li pc-70 server case, even if I didn't tie the cords, there's still plenty of breathing room Good Idea

But i'm gonna look that psu up....might be a good purchase for my regular computer which is in a mid size case.

Forum Newbie Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 32

How are you hooking up a third optical drive? does that MB have xtra connections for drives?

In my experience, each IDE controller can control 2 devices, master and slave, of the same type.

The MB that I have seen adn the ones in both mine and my roomates computer each have 3 of thes IDE controllers, 1 for floppys, 1 for HDs, and 1 for optical. To connect a thiord optical drive would require a 4th controller.

the mobo has a Promise Raid Controller, so it has 4 ide ports. No floppy (whats that????? Razz

) is connected, and the cd burner and dvd rom are on the same port, one has slave and the other as master.

So currently only 2 ports are being used right now, one for the optical drives and the other for the hd, leaving 2 free for use.

The floppy is a different size, though, you can't use that port for anything else. But I want a MOBO now! It has an xtra IDE port?!?

This link will lead to a picture of the mobo, you can see the 4 ide ports in it(for those that don't know its the 3 green and one white ports).

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/gigabyte/7vrxp/7vrxpp1.htm

Forum Soldier Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 352

i have a 600w enermax noisetaker (EG701AX-VE SFMA 2.0) and it works like a dream. It's 600w cause it has quite a bit to power, 2x 250gig hard drives, 2 graphics cards, pretty big monitor.

Good choice wahoo, I'd go with enermax or antec when purchasing power supplies, both companies have historically been reliable when it comes to quality psu's. I liked sparkle a few years back, don't know if they still exist...haven't heard much about them these days.

wow, dude, that's a lot of stuff you got hooked up in there.

I'd go with something 500w and up. I've got the Enermax Liberty 620w under my hood. Got SLI, CROSSFIRE, 20 pin, 24 pin, and BTX Motherboard Configuration (IT'S SET FOR THE FUTURE), Pre-Loomed Wires, VERY Modular wire configurations, SATA, Floppy, 4-Pin, You want it, it's got it.
AND it is LITTERALLY DEAD SILENT! I thought I got a DOA Unit, but I checked the airflow, and it was working!
HIGHLY RECCOMENDED FOR ANYONE WHO WANT TO INVEST IN NEW TECHNOLOGIES!

Yah, look for Name Brands, no no-named Brands. here's a list of some reputable companies:

Enermax
Ultra
PC Power and Cooling
Antec
Thermatake

And that's pretty much all of them. If I forgot any, I'll add them on later.

Forum Scout Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Posts: 87 Location: Texas

your AMD chip requires a lot of constant voltage, what you might look into is one of antec's dual source power supplys. I have a antec overture II case that came with that type of power supply. One 12v source drives the cpu only, then a second one drives all of the peripherals.