scarlett-uk

Desperately needing help/advice. I bought the HP M8020n in USA. Now in the UK. Changed the PSU for a V-Cool 240voltage 480w -12v 24 pin (20-4) 6 pin PCI-E PSU as forogot to switch over voltage and blew PSU. The PC has been freezing and rebooting, sometimes at start up , sometimes in IE7 or just when sitting idle. I have rung/emailed HP Tech help on numerous occasions and tried everything to no avail. The freezing the blue screen is gathering momentum at an alarming rate - sometimes 6-7 times in half an hour, then it has a rest and starts again.Also getting error message recently - fatal system error with codes that I cant find on microsoft help. HP repair centre here in the UK have checked all the hardware and said there is not a problem. I have run Speenfan programme and cpu temps run between 24- 30 degrees so I don't think it is overheating. I have also run memtest overnight and this came back with no errors. I have checked hard drive for bad sectors - nothing reported. I read your very interesting article on PSUs. How ignorant was I !!!! I have checked out the brand of psu on other forums and they seem to suggest it was a cheap make (only supplier is Maplins) and very unstable and basically I have got what I paid for - cheap. The voltages are

+3.3v -28A, +5v -35A, +12v - 25A, -5v - 0.5A, -12v - 0.8A, +5VSB - 2.5A

Is it likely that it is the PSU causing the problems and what would you suggest as a replacement? On your discussion forum 5 standard psu's were suggested - 4 Antecs and 1 Corsair all of which I must admit I was looking at, but a bit confused as to which or should I look for higher in the next category up. May upgrade graphics card at a later date as the one it came with is quite low end. I am hoping it is the PSU and not the motherboard. Everything seems to work and all fans are spinning.

PC spec
Base Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 (c) DC 2.13GHz
Motherboard - Asus P5LP-LE - HP Name Leonite-GL8E
Memory - 2GB (2 x 1GB 4300 DDR)
Hard drive - 640GB (2 x 320 serial (ATA) 3G hard drive
Graphics GeForce 7350LE (ComancheD) G72LE chipset, 64MB GDDR2 memory composite video, S-video out (4-pin) and VGA out ports
TV Tuner Card - Hauppauge Phantom Combo ATSC/NTS support (I know this may not work in UK)

Any help appreciated.

Madcatz

Heres the link for the PSU calculato, just click on lite version.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

video card I would say to put in the card you want to upgrade too and add any other upgrades your thinking about doing. Also keep in mind that it tells you the bare minimum wattage you would want. if it says around 400 watts, you'd probably want to get a PSU of 520-650 watts.

dai

to allow for upgrade look at the corsair 650w
if you could borrow one first to check with to be sure it is the psu and the earlier one blowing has not damanged something else

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