Power Supply

[snowman]

i am getting new motherboard, memory, processor and case the rest is from my old gateway i up graded until now. and i am wondering how many watts i will need on the power supply. the specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Epox 8RDA3G
GeForce FX 5200
SB Audigy.
512MB DDR 3200
40 GB HD
DVD Drive
CD RW Drive
Floppy Drive
and 3 80 mm case fans

do you think 350 watts will be enough? because thats what comes with the case. and the case is only $22.

and also when i install my new motherboard will i have to wipe my hard drive clean first? i know its like a whole new computer but i am just making sure.

 

[StormBringer]

no, don't use that PSU, I pay $20 for generic cases without power supplies, so I would think that PSU is junk. I'd recommend an Enermax, look for something around 400W, you don't really need quite that much now, but you might if you make any upgrades. Also make sure the 12v rail has enough current for the load you'll be putting on it(shouldn't be a problem if you go with Enermax)

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Storm is correct, buy a brand PSU...
It'll ensure that you won't have any problems with the PSU not giving you enough juice to run your system...

A couple of other brands which are good, along with enermax, are Vantec and Antec, with Antec and Enermax being the most popular... Though Vantec makes good silent psu's...
Just thought I'd give you a couple of other brands to look out for...

As far as Watt goes, you probably doesn't need anything more than a 350W, but a 400W won't hurt you (except for your wallet, but that's another matter )

 

[tmollo]

Power Suppy

I have a P4 2.66 with a Radeon 9800Pro Graphics Card

An Creative Audigy 6.1 Sound Card

Two Hard Drives: 1- 30GB 2- 120GB

A Hauppauge TV Tuner

And a Dazzle DVCII PCI Recorder.

When i customized my computer two months ago i bought a CompUSA 600W Power Suppy... Last week i noticed the neon light inside the tower flickering, after checking the neon light i decided to change the Power Suppy. The problem is that the only one i could get was an ANTEC 350W Power Suppy (SmartBlue)... It's real nice and looks great in my system but is it enough to power it properly ? Everything seems fine...... The Neon light is back to being bright and constant and i'm running Unreal 2003 and HALO (which is a graphics HOG!!) terrific. No Problems.

Is this possible, is 350W enough ?

I know the 600W CompUSA Power Supply was a bit of overkill and by the way ....... It was large ugly and crapped out on me in two months.

Thank You, Thomas

 

[StormBringer]

Read this
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/sup/output_Power.htm
which I originally posted in this thread
https://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=377

Then you will understand the difference between total power output, and available power for each rail.

There is only a certain amount of power available on each rail(+12v, -12v, +5v, etc...)
Lets say you have a PSU with 17A on the +12v rail. This means that all your devices that use the +12v lines can have a total of 204W.

 

[snowman]

i was going to use the power supply in my gateway machine i have now until i saw it was only 115W

 

[snowman]

would channel well be a good power supply? i dont have much money left over and this one is cheaper.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Hadn't heard of them before you brought them up, but a search turned up this...

It looks like quite an OK psu imo... And with such a high combined output W, it shouldn't have any problems running your system even if you decided to add more drives...