New board/chip, old power supply

[john]

I've got an old P2 400 & board in an old case which I just replaced with an athlon xp2400. But I can't get it to power up. I'm thinking the power supply is too weak - it's only rated at 235 watts.

Anyone got a comment? This is the board:

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7s5a_v3.html

I'm pretty sure I've got everything wired up correctly.

Thanks. :)

[Bedlam]

do you have the new AMD power connetor thing on the old PSU? Besides that...that PSU is WAAAYYY too small for that processor...honestly I'd be looking at something in the 400W-500W range if you have any additinal hardware in the computer at all.

"IF" you can get the mobo to work with that PSU..you are just going to burn it up in a few months anyway...those things dont like running at peak capacity all the time..and that particular cpu can use a LOT of power. :)

-Bedlam

[Weston]

My Athlon 600 is hardly power efficient, but it's living with a 250watt PSU just fine. Well, the first one did burst into flames (while it was off), but that was a fluke. Damn eBay! I replaced the PSU and it's been fine for the past 2 and a half years.

I've heard that they fixed the excessive power consumption and heat problems on the Athlons a couple years ago though.

As for the power connector, it should just need to be ATX style. Being that the old machine is a Pentium 2, I would expect that it is. I know I had a hell of a time finding a plain AT form factor Socket 7 266MHz board a few years ago.

[john]

Thanks Bedlam, Weston.

New AMD power connector? I'm not sure what that is, but if it's AMD/Athlon board specific, probably not.

It's an ATX board, with an ATX power connector. I'm pretty sure that the P2 400 board (abit ab-bh6) is also an ATX board.

I'm going to go power supply shopping today, just to feel safe. :) I may get a spare case as well, to house the guts of the athlon 850 I'm also upgrading.

Gotta love pricewatch.com - I got 2 xp2400 upgrades and 2 gf4 ti4200 128 meg cards for pretty darn cheap. Enough of these slow machines. At least for today.. :)

[exciv2000]

I'd personally go with an ASUS or Soyo mobo. ECS isn't really quality shit IMO.

[john]

Well, I've got the boards already, so that's not really an option...

[exciv2000]

You can try a new PS. It could be anything tho. Process of elimination. Try the PS first, then maybe RAM, graphics card, CPU, and finally the mobo. Hopefully one of them will resolve the issue... it can be costly trying to get a home built computer working properly if you have problems with it from the onset.

Check out my next home built PC tho: http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=85
It's going to be a TIVO killer with an ATI AIW 9700 if they ever come out

[Brian]

Originally posted by exciv2000
I'd personally go with an ASUS or Soyo mobo. ECS isn't really quality shit IMO.

I disagree. The K7S5A from ECS was one of the best performers at teh time of it's release. I've been using it for several months. It's rock solid stable, and has great support. There are like 15 different fsb settings to chose from so they are very overclockable.

[exciv2000]

I disagree with your disagreement. This is straight from Tom's Hardware:

Neither ECS nor Chaintech is known as a top motherboard company. This is certainly not because of their inability to make good products, but because they lack consistency in their product lines and usually concentrate on the OEM market as well. Although both companies have been known to design good motherboards, they have not been able to get favorable reviews on a regular basis, as is the case for Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI, for instance.

[Brian]

Well I agree with the article. I didn't say all ECS products were great. I don't have experience with many of them, but the K7S5A motherboards they produce are very nice. Since john got his off pricewatch i'm guessing it's a K7S5A.