Is MAX tripping my power source??!?

[-Vormav-]

The only way that I can imagine this happening is if you're putting too much on your powerstrip to begin with: If you have, say, a 500-watt power supply, I don't think that it can go over 500W of power. Check your powerstrip to see what its max rating is, and then check that against all of the appliances you have hooked up. If you're going over, that definitely is a problem.

[Blue]

I could imagine that your machine gets hot or stressed while performing a complex render or computaion, the fan kicks on, the draw becomes to much and then the strip pops. I know my pc's fan goes into overdrive on some processes. More memory could resolve this, if the computations exceed the physical ram it will then have to use the disc to start storing data that should be in ram and that will cause a pc to heat up and draw more juice as well.

NOTE: consider pluging your pc into a UPS.

[stuh505]

Using a dual core athlon x2 with 4 gb ram and my quadro fx 3000, a fortissimo sound card, a 400w 4.1 surround sound system, 5 fans, an external USB drive (in addition to regular drive of course), a 19" CRT monitor, a regular mouse and a wacom, plus keyboard and a couple dvd/cd drives...my rig only pulls 200W max. At least that's what it says on my cooler-master PSU meter! Maybe it's incorrect..

[GraphicDragon]

...my rig only pulls 200W max. At least that's what it says on my cooler-master PSU meter! Maybe it's incorrect..
200W does seem a bit low to me for that rig but I guess it's possible. I think the problem mogee is having is the breaker on his power strip tripping. Sounds to me that this is an issue with too many power hungry things on the power strip (like -Vormav- said). The solution should be to use another power strip, plugged into a separate wall outlet, for the other peripherals and use the main strip just for the tower and monitor.

[mogee]

Thank you for the input.....

It tripped again and then it refused to switch back on. What we then did was we, went to all the switches and switch them off. We suspect that there is an overload on the line. As you guys mentioned...

So i have unplugged all the fridges, so that i can test this out. I guess its making everything reach the limit, then it trips.

I will do the test later on today to see if it happens again and i will fill you guys in.

Thank you for the advice...

Will get back to you soon.

[andrewjohn81]

never plug in more than one fridge/appliance into one power strip. It isn't even recommended that you have more than two major appliances per outlet. A computer (including monitor) is considered a major appliance in this case.

Talk to an electrician about this and what it does to the wires in the wall. They will get so hot that they nearly melt the plastic casing the wires are in. Hopefully you have conduit if you continue to do this or the wires are at least 12 guage or larger. Multiple fridges and and a pc is overloading 14 guage wire.

You should thank your power strip for tripping.

ThinkGeek.com has a watt usage meter (other places probably have it too) you can use to see how much any of your devices pull at any given time. Pulling too much through small wires is very dangerous.

I would move the fridges.

Also, many cheap cheap power strips can't even handle a powerful pc. Make sure you check it's power specs.

[opus13]

Using a dual core athlon x2 with 4 gb ram and my quadro fx 3000, a fortissimo sound card, a 400w 4.1 surround sound system, 5 fans, an external USB drive (in addition to regular drive of course), a 19" CRT monitor, a regular mouse and a wacom, plus keyboard and a couple dvd/cd drives...my rig only pulls 200W max. At least that's what it says on my cooler-master PSU meter! Maybe it's incorrect..

yeah, thats too low. the only 'real' method of measuring power consumption is to measure at the wall.

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