Arg...in need of a new power supply...

[Chris_F]

[quote]2 times this ones been fixed by a friend but its just a piece of crap.

[Triple_7]

Its never been a great supply to begin with.  Tends to overheat quite easily.  I've had to run a desk fan pointed at it to keep it cool...especialy summertime when this house gets about 80

[Chris_F]

Well then I hope the ThermalTake does well for you.  I have to admit my experience is limited, since I've only owned it for a week.  But it runs my P4, GF6800, HD, CDRW, DVDRW, Sound Card and misc sundries well.  Plus it looks SOOOO much nicer than my old supply (not that I can see it once the case is closed up, but I know it's there.)

[4_Series_Scania]

your all recomending huge psu's but his system is a duron 1500mhz  :P

The minimum wattage I would recommend for a system running a recent (ie dual core) CPU and single graphics card would be 400W +, for a system running high spec CPU and graphics card options I would settle for no less than 500W and if you are running an SLI system you will require an SLI certified PSU (which has 2 seperate PCI-E power connectors) delivering at LEAST 550W of clean power.

Is what I said, I am refering to high end systems,not museum pieces.

[congo]

[quote]Part of the reason for a higher power supply is to provide a more stable current.

[Brett_Henderson]

Since all the voltages are pretty rigidly regulated, the only variable involved is current (volts x current (amps) = power (watts)).

If your system load exceeds the current/power/watts limit of you power supply, the DC regulators will simply "switch" off and everything comes to an abrupt halt. If you hover around a power supply's limit, heat will eventually take its toll and you can even get nano-second blackouts that'll leave you chasing ghost problems.

An extra $20 spent on a better power supply is probably the best $20 you can spend on a computer.

[Viper22]

Speaking of power supply issues, I have some too.  My radeon x850 says minumum power supply 350W, while mine is only 220W.  However, I can't replace it because my case is only a mid tower.  I will wait for the day it overheats, and then I have an excuse for a new rig...

[kipman725]

If the PSU is not providing enough power, then the system will malfunction. Simple as that, it either works or it doesn't. There is no "slowing down" lol.

I'm been nit pickey here but it can cause system slow down at least if you have a relitivly modern NVIDIA graphics card.  If the card dosen't recive enough power a little message pops up from nvidia sentinal saying that your card has been downclocked to reduce damage from the lack of power.  If you load up a game performance is affected so bad you get about 1fps or less.

[Chris_F]

[quote]

[Brett_Henderson]

I'm been nit pickey here but it can cause system slow down at least if you have a relitivly modern NVIDIA graphics card.  If the card dosen't recive enough power a little message pops up from nvidia sentinal saying that your card has been downclocked to reduce damage from the lack of power.  If you load up a game performance is affected so bad you get about 1fps or less.

That v-card probably gets it's power from a drive-type power plug. That is the only "loosely" regulated power coming from the power supply. It counts on the drive (or v-card) to do the precise regulating..  But yeah.. if a power supply is at it's limit, the voltage could actually drop there. And your drives wouldn't be real happy about that either.

[Triple_7]

Well the 430W is ordered as well as a little something extra...a Sony DVD+CD burner that I wanted.  So looking forward to things to arrive  Should have them by the end of the week.

As for the current power.  I'm hoping a higher supply will do a little good.  My V-card has a min requirment of 250W and performance has never been that great from it.  When I upgraded from the 64mb to the 128mb I didnt get that much of a boost for what I should have.  Didn't really get to move many sliders to far.  But my old 64 only needed a 150W.  So I can hope

Even though these 2 items are going to be used on this system...they are really the first 2 peices of the new one

[kipman725]

there are other factors that effect a graphics cards performance aswell as installed Vram such as core clock, mem clock, number of pixel pipes and the effeciancy of the cards architecture.  Your old card was probobly a quite fast 64mb card while the 5200 is one of the slowest 128mb graphics cards.  Don't expect any extra performance from installing a new power supply the example I sited is very ovious and the only one I can think of.

[Chris_F]

I suspect the chances that a vid card is underperforming due to inadequate power supply are very, very slim.  I'd think it more likely to win the lottery than have a vid card which is running slow due to power.  If you have inadequate power it's likely the hardware just plain won't work.  It'll cut out, or the computer will crash, or hang, or something like that.  But slow running without some sort of error code or warning?  Not likely.

But that power supply will provide you with the juice to run just about anything (at least all the non-exotic stuff we mortals run).  I plan on building a PC once my current one is obsolete and I think the Power Supply is one of the things I can salvage (along with sound card, drives, and case).

[kipman725]

yeah you would get a message every time you booted if it was happening....

[Ivan]

The thing with the '300W minimun' is that while the actual use is lower, the thing just won't start when it gets less than 300W.

Fan motors and so on need a kick before they start running. When starting they use more power compared to normal operation.