Just thinking out loud

[Nighthand]

You know, I bought an Abit board and a Athlon 800 a few months ago. I thought it would look really cool to get one of the Suntek translucent cases for it. Well by default they come with a 230W p/s. I noticed I got pretty frequent lock ups and would have problems with starting. So I jump on Windrivers forums and see all this stuff about p/s needed to be pretty decent for AMDs. So I go out and get a 300W p/s for my cool case, a case fan, and a hdd cooler (I have a 7200rpm ata-66 20gb hdd. Gotta tell you guys, have not had a problem since. Now my question is, why is p/s such a big deal, and did I go overboard with cooling?

[Green Iguana]

Athlon processors draw more current than other ones. If you have an inadequate power supply it doesn't get the right amount of power and will cause problems. As far as cooling goes, the more air you can move through your case, the better.