Power Supplies

[vern]

I have an ATX case but without a PS. Will I be able to put any ATX PS in it? I've seen power supplies online that say "for P3" or "for P4" ... does it matter?

 

[sammy5gs]

Originally posted by vern
I have an ATX case but without a PS. Will I be able to put any ATX PS in it? I've seen power supplies online that say "for P3" or "for P4" ... does it matter?

The short answer would be yes. However, what you should be looking at is based on your CPU, and other components you will have in your rig to determine watts/voltage rails. I highly recommend Antec fans, and pick the wattage/voltage based on your components.

 

[Reg]

I say that you should stick with a 300W minimum (for most users). If you are going to have a lot of devices, especially CD and DVD burners, I suggest a minimum of 400W.

 

[ming]

350W if you're only using 1 x HD; 1 x CDRW, 1 x DVD. Get a PSU with more W if you're thinking of adding more than the above components.

Some Thermaltake PSUs have what's called an Active PFC to stabalise the delivery of electricity to the motherboard (for protection).

 

[vern]

This is for an old system. 1ghz P3, 256mb pc133 sdram, tnt2 32mb, 30 gig HD. I'm going to get FreeBSD up and running so I can use it as a router/firewall. It's going to have minimal of everything ... not even a CD-ROM. I'm using a KVM to switch between this box and my Windows box.

I was just thinking of a 200+ watt generic PS ... will this be sufficient?

 

[LeeJend]

A 300W generic is $20 or less on sale, 200W is too risky. The total wattage mightbut the amperage on the 5V output may be too low. Almost everythng is using 5V only now.

If the 5V amperage is high enough (>22) and you don't need the extra P4 connector then any ATX supply will work.

 

[vern]

I guess I'll go for a 300+ watt generic PS then. Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[Unleashed]

Originally posted by ming
350W if you're only using 1 x HD; 1 x CDRW, 1 x DVD. Get a PSU with more W if you're thinking of adding more than the above components.

At the moment Im using a 300W with:
2 x HDD
1 x DVD-ROM
1 x CD-RW
3 x Blue LED Case fans
1 x Sound activated cold cathode tube

And all is fine.

But I have got a gold 550W Qtec PSU Im awaiting delivery for - its got dual fan

 

[Skwowwy]

Surprise surprise...

On 250 Watt I have:

- 1 DVD-ROM
- 1 CD-RW
- 1 Floppy drive
- 2 HDDs
- 4 fans

And on the motherboard itself:
- GeForce4 MX440 AGP 8x
- PCI HD Controller
- Network card
- All the default stuff, like CPU, etc.

And everything's running smoothly. I've even tried attaching 3 HDDs, and that even worked too. Just too bad one of these HDDs is damaged with a scratch on one of the plates, otherwise I'd have been using 3 HDDs instead of 2. >_o The broken HDD is 60 GB.

 

[ming]

I think it is safe to say that with a system under 1GHz, it is pushing a PSU towards its limit.
My 1GHz system with similar components blew my 250W PSU just by adding a 2nd HD to the system.

 

[Skwowwy]

I guess so. I mean, AMD Duron 800 MHz isn't that power hungry. Let alone all other systems with CPUs clocked lower than 1 GHz.

I am just wondering when the PSU will finally give up if I add more components to the system.