This article is for educational purpose only. Author is not responsible for any damages these informations could cause. They are therefore not recommended for inexperienced users! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

After installed a new processor, you might be wonder because your system could not operate. You checked all cables, jumpers, and other peripherals to ensure they were properly connected, but when you pushed power button again, the system still hung up.

So, you decided to debug your system by remove most unused and unimportant peripherals such as additional fans, CD burner, etc. When you pushed power button again, you surprised that the system could boot normally again. So, what was the problem?

And then you tried to plug your most unused and unimportant peripherals once again, but they were installed one by one and reset the system after one peripherals installed and configured correctly.

The peripherals were system fans, CD ROM and then your DVD ROM, it were installed and configured correctly. They worked perfectly. But when you installed your CD burner, the problem came again. You pushed power button, and.... system hung up again. So, what was the problem?

Your analysis told there was an error on your CD burner, but you're not absolutely sure. Then, you speculated to repeat the installation process again, but the peripherals to be installed chose randomly, different from previous step.

You decided to install CD burner first. You're very surprised when you pushed the power button. The system worked. So you could install the drivers and additional applications and then you tried to make your own CD using this burner. You looked confuse, the CD burner you have suspected an error was worked correctly.

Next, you installed system fans and then CD ROM. Once again, they worked. but when you installed your DVD ROM, the problem came again! Once more you looked confuse. The CD burner you have suspected an error, worked correctly, but the DVD ROM which worked correctly on the previous installation was worked improperly. Then, should you told the problem was located at the DVD ROM?

Then, to ensure what the problem was, once more, you speculated to repeat installation process, randomly. But once again, peripherals you have suspected an error on the previous installation worked correctly, and vice versa. This might be become your nightmare. So, what was the problem?

The possible problem was located at your Power Supply Unit (PSU). Your power supply could not give system enough power to operate perfectly. Based on the problem above, you might be wonder why the PSU could not supply enough power although you just installed a new processor only. You might be did not think the processor power consumption.

As you must know, every peripherals installed on your system, they need power to operate, and each of them has different power consumption. You might be think that processor needs just a little bit of power. You wrong!! The processor power consumption is depend on its kind (Intel, AMD, Cyrix, etc.), Model (Pentium, Pentium III, Athlon, etc) and of course its speed (450MHz, 933MHz, 1.5GHz, 2GHz, etc).

Commonly, the newer processors is manufactured with higher technology, such as core design, copper interconnect, organic packaging, etc., so they need lower power consumption in every 100 MHz. For example, Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz needs about 49 VA (Volt Ampere) to operate, so it only needs about 4.90 VA in every 100 MHz, while the newer core, Athlon Palomino 1GHz only needs about 41 VA, so it needs about 4.13 VA in every 100 MHz.

But, although the newer processors, even they have the same core, consume a little bit of power in every 100 MHz to operate, the core speed commonly increased, new features added and of course the built in transistors grow bigger, thus it takes more power to operate.

For example, I choose Pentium 4 processors. Pentium 4 1.9GHz needs about 3.63 VA every 100MHz, while Pentium 4 2.0GHz needs about 3.59 VA every 100MHz. But if we try to calculate the amount power of each processors, Pentium 4 1.9GHz needs about 69.2 VA while Pentium 4 2.0GHz grows up to 71.8 VA.