I've gotta question about Power Supplies!

Alright... so this is something new to me. Being one of the people who commonly don't put enough attention into buying a power supply when they build a new computer, I bought one that is underpowered according to reviews and "PSU calculators" that are all over the net.

So, here's my question. I can start up my computer with no problems. I can play Doom 3 on lower settings. I can capture video and live TV, burn DVD's, and backup my movies. I can surf the web. I can write an e-mail and a letter by using Microsoft Word. And I can do all of this and my system has had no problems with stability. But, I'm underpowered??

Should I just take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude, or should I be worried and be looking for another PSU that will support my system now and support a few extra RAM sticks in the future?

Here is my system:
The Motherboard (MSI K7N2GM-V)
The Case/Power Supply (Antec Aria)
The Video Card (ATI Radeon 9600 All In Wonder)
The Processor (AMD Athlon XP "Barton" 3200+)
The RAM (Corsair ValueSelect 512MB DDR400(PC3200))
The HDD (W.D. Raptor 10,000RPM SATA)
The Optical Drive (NEC IDE DVD Burner)

Here are the specs of the PSU:
http://images1.chiefvalue.com/productimage/11-129-146-05.JPG

According to reviews, I should have at least 24A on the +12 rail for my video card, and at least a 400W (350W with a 30% "ceiling") for powering my overall system.

I'm clueless. What shoud I do? I would hate to hear that this could potentially harm my system...

Thanks for any help!

-Derek

 

G'day Derek, though you are a little low on where you ought to be, you shouldn't have any issues, it is on the borderline. If you aren't seeing any issues then continue. I have found in the past that Windows will begin to falter and become unstable when there isn't enough juice coming in, this is your first sign that it’s time to upgrade.

You have chosen a great brand of power supply, a top 5 manufacturer that won "Best Power Supply Manufacturer 2004" voted by the people at Toms Hardware. At any point in time you can jump up several levels.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

 

Thanks a ton Blackspear! That helps out a lot. That's both exaclty what I needed and wanted to hear.

I should've included this though... when I was playing doom 3 on some meduim settings, it would freeze up outta nowhere. I would take out my rifle or something and the screen would display the last frame as if it were thrown through a blender and then it would freeze up on that frame. Do you suppose this could be a PSU issue?

ALSO... I just forgot. I should've put this in there also. I have pinnical 8 that came with my video card and I know that it has capability to burn your home video to DVD+R when you capture your video. Well, it looks like it burns it, and it spits it out and it says that the DVD was completely successfully and the DVD itself actually has information written to it, yet I can't get it to work with any of the 5 DVD players I have in my house. Could that be a PSU issue? Or a bad installation issue?

 

My pleasure.

That is one of the first signs that you have crossed the border.

Not sure on that one, I’d try a reinstall. I gather it will burn other than this?

Cheers

 

lol

Dang. That sucks! lol. I guess there's not going to be any more hardcore gaming for that machine! Oh well, it's my dad's anyways and I was just playing around with it.

Honestly, I have reinstalled it, but I havn't tried it again! lol. Everything else works as far as burning goes (like burning a backup DVD or an audio CD-R). So, I'm going to try it again and cross my fingers and hope.

Thanks again man!

 

My pleasure.

Cheers