PSU problem, i think?

[Shinjion]

Hey, first time poster here all. I apologize for that but maybe i'll stick around!

Anyway, I thank you all for the help in advance if anyone can help me. ^^

Anyway, My old video card (AGP BFG Tech Nvidia GeForce 6600OC) pretty much blew up. Fan stopped working and boom. So i upgraded to a BFG Tech Nvidia GeForce 7800GSOC[Also AGP],
and installed it and all was well. Well every now and then, when gaming i lag very badly; almost as if the video card is only running at 20% of its normal capabilities. The only way to fix this is by a reboot. So, i was thinking with my moderate knowledge of computers; maybe its the PSU! On the box it says a 400W Minimum power supply with a 20.0A +12V Rail minimum is required.

My system spec's are as followed;

Intel Pentium 4 Prescott 3.00GHz w/ Hyper-Threading
1GB(2x512) PC3200 RAM
Intel D865GBF Motherboard
250GB 7200RPM ATA Western Digital Harddrive
BFG Tech Nvidia GeForce 7800GSOC [AGP]
SoundBlaster Audigy 4

Now as for the power supply; it came with the new fancy case i bought maybe 3 years ago. On the side of the case it says it's "400W MAX", and as far as rails go...
+3.3V = 28.0A
+5V = 30.0A
+12V = 25.0A

I've heard that power supplies that come with cases are usually bad news. Also, i know this might have something to do with it but my computer keeps trying to ChkDsk my second Physical Partition every time it boots up. But i could care less about that, unless of course it's causing the problem. So what do you all think the problem is; and what steps could i take to solve it? Thanks in advance!

 

[infrared]

Hey there, Welcome to the forums!

a generic 400w PSU is a definatly too low for that system, the ones that come with cases are generally not worth the space in a bin let alone a PC. A good name brand 450w psu would be up to the job. Perhaps an Antec 480w would be a nice upgrade.

Also, have you tried reinstalling the graphics drivers?

 

[Shinjion]

I actually just did that as you mentioned it; no help. It's just odd that it'll work until i leave the computer idle. This was happening as well before; and i reformatted the hard-drive hoping the problem would go away, but it hasn't. It was working fine yesterday pretty much all day, but now it's changed.

 

[Yin]

Yep new psu i thinks, If money isnt a problem get silverstone or ocz.

 

[Towly]

Definitely the psu had a similar problem just with my hdd's and dvd writer. I had a 250W psu (ouch!!!). Basically when gaming the hdd just shutsdown and my whole system collapsed.
Now I got a 500W generic PSU. It doing its job as its intended to do.

 

[Shinjion]

Money is kind of a problem, after spending 200$ on the card i don't want to drop any more. Can you guys recommend something? :/

 

[Shinjion]

Would http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817159040 be good enough to handle my system?

 

[infrared]

Yep, that should do it

Although it's not a very well known brand, so keep an eye on the voltages, and don't expect it to last forever.

 

[Shinjion]

Will http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817182017 work? this is what i ordered. I'm a little concerned; my main connection is 20-pin, and then off by the CPU is a 4 pin from the power supply. Is this incompatible with my motherboard?

 

[FujiwaraTakumi]

I believe it should work. You'd just end up plugging in 4 of 8 of the pins into the socket.

 

[Shinjion]

Does that work? sound's like that'd end up shorting my motherboard.

 

[Shinjion]

Small update...
Ever since i reformatted, the computer would Chkdisk every time it booted. Of course i let it run, every time, and even during a normal reboot it'd Chkdsk. I thought this was weird..all of the games i'm experiencing these problems with are on a secondary partition, my X Drive. Well i just now noticed that i can not even defragment the X Drive, and now it says "X:/ is corrupt or unreadable blah blah." So now i feel like it's my harddrive that's causing this slowdown..../wrath... The computer gods hate me right now..

 

[infrared]

Time to format, and start fresh!

 

[Shinjion]

It won't let me..it says its not accessible.

 

[zekrahminator]

I agree with Infrared, but only after doing a thorough check for viruses/spyware, and especially after making sure your important files (music, movies, pictures...) are in a safe place off-site (or just away from the computer). Also, what exactly do you have on that second partition? If the second partition is formatted as anything other than NTFS or FAT32, then Windows will definitely go a little nutty. Probably a good idea to go in through hard disk manager (right click my computer, manage, disk manager), and simply format the second partition so that you don't have to do all that reformatting. Formatting gets you a lot of speed and fixes a lot of problems...but a format is exactly what it is, a clean slate, NOTHING you had before will be there. I tend to think of a reformat-install as a last-ditch effort to save a computer.

PS- In response to your last post, you can't do anything to the C drive while you're booted into Windows silly . You have to go into the Windows install CD and do it yourself.

 

[Scavar]

You'll have to format from a Windows CD, or some other sort of access from boot and not from in Windows itself.

How old is the HDD? You said its a 250GB ATA right? You might try putting the HDD in a ziplock bag and then wrapping that in a towel, and putting in the freezer. Only do that when worse comes to worse though, if it turns out the HDD is actually dying and you need to get information off of it.

It sounds like you have bad sectors. You could try using like Tunup Ultilities or something of the sort which has a HDD recovery program.

It is possible that the entire problem started with your PSU though. In attempt to give the power to the VGA, it may have gone to the very brim and been giving teh HDD less power then required, there by damaging it.

 

[DRDNA]

now you found the problem was that drive making a clicking noice?

 

[infrared]

^ LOL, repetitive clicky noise of doom!

 

[Shinjion]

Nope..I...don't think so. Chkdsk was able to recover some files or something i dunno it went too fast for me to read, but now the scandisk every startup has ceased..Oblivion works ok but we'll see for how long..should i cancel the order for the new PSU or just let it go through >.> saying the HD was the problem that is

 

[Scavar]

You might need a new HDD, but I think you should replace the PSU as well. You could cancel the PSU order until you are 100% the HDD is faultly though?

 

[DRDNA]

DONT CANCEL!!! When that psu makes fireworks and possibly takes out say maybe ur graphic card or maybe your processor you will be very sad

 

[Shinjion]

Well, i thank you guys very much. Hopefully this fixes my problems.