Power Supply or? Help me findout

[3dx0r]

Hello,

Well it goes like this, for 2 years + my computer has been having problems from time to time and recently it just became more often.
My Pc config:
Athlon xp 3000+ (running @ 1.9ghz - underclocked it, else my windows wont boot anymore).
ATI Radeon 9800pro
Crucial XMS PC3200 DDR400 512mb x2 (dual channel)
A 550watt Power supply from an unknown company somewhere from asia
Harddrive 80GB Maxtor 7200RPM (windows is installed on this one)
Harddrive 250Gb of WD 7200RPM (connected to a raid controller on my PCI slot)
and other things that arent relevent I guess.

*
Anyway, I one day heard a click sound repeating, coming along with freezing screen every few seconds on windows, I checked it out and after I restarted, my HDD didnt get detected by the controller, and windows didnt show it anymore after I logged on.
I turned off the pc, connected and disconnected the power sourceof the Hdd and afterwards it detected it again, and everything was good as it seems.
This problem happens at least once a week nowdays.

And I also had one day few months ago a windows Freeze, and after I restarted, windows wouldnt boot anymore no matter what, my computer got froze everytime I tried to reinstall windows or do anykind of task that requires processing/memory, couldnt even install "very small linux" it froze also. I went inside my bios and tried to play with the Cpu speed, I set FSB to 200 and multi to 9.5x, so at the moment the CPU is underclocked @ 1.9Ghz, But this solved the problem, and windows once again booted after I reinstalled, with 1 problem afterwards: when I installed ATI drivers catalyst it wouldnt let me see any settings options or open it up, and when I open it I get an Error("CLI.EXE ERROR, The app failed to initilize properly(0xc0000135)."), all my games works as before tho.

I read an article just today that some of the symptoms I had been expiriancing might be due to a sucky Power Supply so I decided to go into it and look abit, and I found this:
My LCD bay infront shows really low +5v volt temps 4.5v and below sometimes. I downloaded Motherboard Monitor 5 and it says Avg is 4.88V and in "Low Field" it shows 4.57v, "High" showes 5.03v. No idea whos more accurate then the other but the lcd always beeps the voltage is low, almost never above 4.7v on the lcd at least.

I dont really have another power supply to check it, but if it is the power supply I wanna buy a good one not sure which yet.
I would appriciate any suggestions about my problem, if anyone has an opinion about it, since I'm not sure if it is the PSU, I planned to switch my CPU,memory,mb, hdd, graphics card cause all the problems involved the following :S, yeah, a new pc almost, but if I have another choice...

Thanks In advance and sorry for the long post :x

[comjakun]

Try unpluggin the unnecessary stuff from your box and see if it works. I highly think it's a PSU problem since yours is a generic one.

[Ixon2001]

I would recommend getting this PSU, pretty cheap & very good. [thumbup]

Hiper HPU-4M580 Type R 580W

[Riotcity76]

It's probably the power supply but I also think it could be the hard drive. I know that when my hard drive started dying, it gave the same symptoms you described. First clicking, then every once in a while Windows would freeze, and it got progressively worse. Eventually it got to the point where Windows wouldn't boot, but if I restarted and tried enough times it would magically be able to boot to Windows once in a while. Before you buy a new psu you might want to try installing windows on a different drive and see if that solves anything.

[3dx0r]

Riotcity76,

As I mentioned before, the harddrive with the problem isnt the windows drive, I have another HDD that does absolutly no problems and windows is on this one (80GB WD 7200rpm).

Ixon2001,
Do I really need a 580Watts supply? I checked calculator sites and it said I need 350Watt min, so wouldnt 400-450watts be enough for me from a good name company? the 580W ones are really expensive for my budget as well.