Do I need a new PSU or is my PC overheating?

[thegesus]

Greetings.

My computer is a little different to most in that I (try to) run 5 PX-716SA Plextor DVD burners. Other than this, it is a normal machine running:

Intel Pentium 4 531 Prescott 3ghz CPU
Asus ASP4GD1-VM PCI-E mainboard (is this board any good?)
Seagate 200gb SATA Barracuda 7200rpm HDD
Ares ATI X300-256nb PCI-E video card
Kingmax 2x512mb DDR RAM 400mhz PC3200
5 x Plextor PX-716SA DVDRW/CDRW
Codgen 500W PSU

I purchased the Plextor's seperately then bought the rest of the machine thinking it would be able to run them. Unfortunately the computer completely lags out as soon as I start to use more than three of the drives at once.

The computer also has lag issues just running Windows.

Another area of concern though is that my Asus Probe hardware monitor utility is telling me my P4 is running at 80 degrees celcius which I thought would be a little warm considering it's a computer component not tonights dinner.

I asked the people where I purchased the computer parts from why I'd be experiencing lag running the 5 plextor's (which I got somewhere else) and they said my hardware was more than capable, but that I just needed a PSU with more wattage.

As you can imagine this is really frustrating because all I want to
do is use my Plextors and this machine just keeps lagging out. Is this machine powerful enough or should I be looking at upgrading to dual CPUs or 2gb or RAM or just a better mainboard in general? Or is my problem more simple like I need a higher wattage PSU or do you think I'm having cooling problems. Help!

I don't really use this machine for gaming.. Well, the occasional Counter-Strike 1.3 battle with the bots but my Plextors need room to breathe.

Kind regards.

Cameron.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Well running that many drives will lag any system down. But I think you would have much better luck with a 64 bit system. But if you dont want to spend that kind of money I would try to upgrade the ram to 2 GIGs. But ive never ran into anyone with runs so many drives before..

 

[thegesus]

So you think it is a memory problem? The Asus Probe thing gets up around the 40% physical memory usage.. I didn't think that was too high.

Do you think that 80 degrees is too warm or that I have enough power (500W)?

What's that mainboard like? Is it sturdy?

Regards.

 

[Richard]

80 degrees celcius is too hot. Are you sure that its not fahrenheit?

 

[thegesus]

60 degrees celcius right meow.

80 degrees celcius is too hot. Are you sure that its not fahrenheit?

Haha it's deintely celcius. Right now it's as cool as its been for days, 60 degrees celcius (140 Fahrenheit). So is 80 degrees celcius maybe my lag problem? Solution?

 

[thegesus]

I Googled it and I'm reading that 80 Celcius is warm, but not crazy hot for some P4s.. Is this right??

I am running out of buffer while burning with all 5 drives.. Is this a memory problem?

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Its not super hot at all. But you can always put some thermal paste on the CPU. Artic silver is the best. As to tthe Board being good im not sure have you tried looking on http://www.tomshardware.com/
You can read reviews and they test almost everything. The reasion I say memory is its cheap and if that dosnt help enough at least you can use it if you build another computer.

 

[thegesus]

Hmmm

Hmm,

kernal_data_inpage_error

Had a couple of those blue screens and my HDD kind of sounds like a floppy drive. Could this be the source of my lag problems if my HDD is rooted?

I know I could relpace or upgrade everything until I find the problem, and I know it's difficult to troubleshoot online but sort of thought someone would had tried to run 5 drives on a PC before.

Cheers.