Sam users put enough load on your PSU!

I have a Sam460. Often I had complete freezes of the system (with no debug output on the serial line). It was very annoying to crash so often. Was it because of OS4? or because of some hardware problems?
Even if I know the Sam is not hungry on CPU and so it should not get too hot, I thought it could be the heat because it was summer here in France and a pretty hot one!

I talked about it to Max, ACube CTO, who thought these complete crashes could not be caused by the heat. He told me to put more load onto the PSU so I connected my DVD drive which was disconnected because I didn't use it.

Guess what? All freezes disappeared!

So do not forget that today PSUs are not built for low power boards like the Sam, so you have to connect enough devices to be sure the PSU delivers power constantly.

Thanks Max.

@Elwood
Was your Sam460 system built & supplied by someone else, or did you put yours together yourself? One would hope that pre-built systems don't have these sorts of problems...

BTW, what kind of PSU was yours? A normal "brick" one? What wattage & make?

From my SAM440ep use:

USB lockup / freeze:
-happens rarely (once per day) or every few minutes, depending where mouse and keyboard are plugged in.
-sometimes it can be fixed by removing/re-attaching USB devices

And some amount of (daily) crashes.

Known things:
-AC power needs to come from well grounded outlet
(I have that, but perhaps the 1.5mm2 cabling is too long for steady ground?)
-The single USB connection (port5, J17) is said to work better than J18 or J19 ones.
-HW inside the box: SATA DVD, SATA 2.5" HDD.

Todo:
-The AC power ground will become stronger when I get mu computer room ready.
-Try the J17... (I have ordered internal, powered hub for that)
-Try using powered external HUB
-Put more HW inside the box (decoration+extra HDD+Voodoo3?)
-Use pico PSU between ATX PSU and SAM ??????????
-Overclock SAM to see if it becomes stabler...

Yet another reason to consider using RadeonHD ... to get more power consumption for PSU to work? :P

@ChrisH

I did the setup myself.
Anyway you can have such problem if you unplug the DVD drive, or if you don't use a Radeon card or ....

The PSU is a standard one, inside the case. It's this one.

@thread

I've been wondering if some of the strange problems I have had may be related to the PSU. I have a 500W, which is more than enough; yet, from what I've read here and elsewhere, it may not be delivering enough of that power to the SAM460.

The minimum current output is 1A on the +12V1, .5A on the +3.3, 1A on the +12V2, and 2A on the +5V. I am planning on connecting two fans (total .23 A). I already have a DVDRW and a HD connected. What else would you suggest I add to my system to up the amps?

@interrogative
You can add old IDE disks (to the PSU only of course). It's a good test