Please bear with me people as I've found myself in complete and utter confusion. So I buy a P8P67 motherboard, i-5 2500k and some Rip jaw 1600mhz ram, incidently exactly the kit recommended by overclockers and for good reason too. I fitted the new kit, it all connected together very nicely inc PSU connections but... What I've found though is I'm getting constant reboots, often when windows7 begins to load after POST, you know where the 4 colours swirl around and make a window... *pop* it reboots... im also seeing the occasional warning from the motherboard about surges from the PSU and can see my 3.3 voltage going up and down erratically, when it dips/raises to much the bios displays the reading in red. The rest of this post assumes the PSU is at fault, can anyone confirm this sounds like the case? So I'm thinking the 600W PSU I have isn't up to the task... so I referenced OCUK's recommendations and they're saying go for a OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W, 500W? if my 600W couldnt cope how could a 600W? Now my 600w is 3 years old but always did well with my old Core 2 Duo and nVidia 260 GTX, apparently it isn't anymore, ive tried getting my head around why my PSU seems to be struggling. I'm planning on going to PC World Later to buy a OCZ 700W StealthXStream 2 ATX, will this do the job for my new kit? Please please if someone could take the time to respond I would be ever so greatful! this whole PSU/PSU requirements lark is so confusing and I don't really know what I should be looking for to guarantee compatability
I'm assuming 2500k + your old 260. That shouldn't be drawing more than 400W, when the GPU's idle through startup probably little more than 300W.
What make is your current psu? Couple of things to bear in mind about psus They suffer from component degradation over several years and the output drops quite a lot. Not all psus are created equal. A cheap 600W would usually be rated at peak not continuous output and would not have the voltage stability under load that the more expensive makes have. There is a useful psu calculator at http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp which will give you a good idea of the power required by your system.
This is my PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104014 It's discontinued now and I've had it for about 3 years so I suppose degration is possible but I've done a check on http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and it's saying I'm using the same wattage now as I was for my old CPU, a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz Yes this is 2500k + my 260 still, it's just my RAM, Mobo and CPU that have changed. I've tried reinstalling Windows because when I first tried to boot Windows it started loading and blue screened, I half expected this. But when I tried to reinstall Windows i'll be able to click a few 'Nexts' on the installer then it'll inevitably reboot. This is Windows 7 64 bit if it makes any difference.
PS was a little unsure on one part of the mobo setup... theres a 24pin connection, that was fine... and theres an 8 port... the mobo manual seems to suggest its ok to plug in just 4, but i found my PSU had two 4 pin's that slide into one another to fill all 8 pins, is that right?
