Computer Hell

(cross posted to vax-plus Saturday night)

I am in computer hell. I have had two power supplies fail in the last 3 days. It started Thursday night when I shut my computer (with the mail, web, etc. server) down to install a stick of RAM to check on its size. It never came back up. The power supply was known iffy because it was only a stopgap install until I was able to replace it (but that's a long story), so other than the initial pain and suffering, I didn't worry too much about it. Today, when Anna was napping, I figured I'd steal fizzgig_bites's PS real quick, and replace hers when we were able to do it. No biggie there, right? Wrong.

Her PS failed to power up my box, too. Uh oh, better put it back, and see what else I can try. Put it back, and now _her_ box won't boot either. Oh shit. Strip out components and determine that, basically, I can run the system as long as no hard drives are powered. And I can't find my Knoppix CD(s). Ugh.

So now, I'm logged into my firewall, which doesn't have the horsepower to run X, and ssh'd to maple to read my mail. And to top it off, the monitor strobes because it's right next to a mini-fish tank (it's normally only used for system tweaking / emergencies). The fish don't seem to like it either.

To give this message a point beyond being a whine-fest, I'm going to throw out some questions to the collective wisdom of the group.

Data point: we leave the computers on all the time, except for power outages where the UPS drains, and hardware changes. Thus, today was probably the first time fizzgig_bites's computer has been turned off in months. I wish I had considered that earlier, but hindsight is 20/20.

Question 1) is it possible for components to cause damage to a PS? How? When I buy a replacement PS, am I just going to turn it into another paperweight if I don't look for something specific first in my existing hardware?

Question 2) I tend to buy cheap parts if I don't think there's a significant quality difference between cheap and expensive. What would be the "quality" price range of a 300 and/or 400 W ATX power supply?

Question 3) Hardware (2 years old, mostly):

• Mine: AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4Ghz, mobo with onboard audio, 3/4Gb SDRAM on 2 sticks, 120Gb hard drive, DVD-R, CD-RW, Nvidia GForce 2(?) video card, network card, blah blah.
  
• Hers: Same CPU and mobo, 578Mb SDRAM on 3 sticks, 40Gb hard drive & 20Gb hard drive, CD-RW, Matrox Millenium video card, network, blah blah

How much power should these systems be getting? Both original PSs were 300W, and I'm planning to get one (eventually 2) 400W to replace them. Am I spending my money in the wrong place, or have these boxes been woefully underpowered for the last 2 years.

Question 4) Can computers be cursed? This all started roughly the time that I started fixing Nina's computer, and climaxed when I finished with Nina's computer. I think her computer was cursed, and the curse transferred to mine.... ;)

An aside: Damn, I can't believe how much fucking spam I get. 34 of my last 59 mail messages were spam. I miss my filters. This sucks.