Question about power supply upgrade

I have decided that my poor 350W power supply needs to be replaced.

I get confused at the whole +3.3V, +5V and +12V and all the other numbers and support stuff that is written in the descriptions. I know which cables get connected to what but I have no idea what their actual names would be.

Does it matter what I get? Are the connectors on all power supplies pretty much the same?

~ Izabela

 

You will find that power supplys are pretty standard in the way they come, i just upgraded mine and apart from it have SATA suppiles already on it (old one i had to attatch them) and a couple of new main connectors, im presuming for new types of Mobo's it has the basic, 2 floppy, and 6 normal for ure hd, dvd, etc. so doesnt really matter they should all come with the ones you need. long as it says it supports ATX and its a ATX mobo u got then ure fine.

hope that clears ure mind a bit

 

I second what balakir said,if you post the rest of your computer specifications we can advise you on which power supply will suite your system

Its best above all else to get a quality PSU,this Antec is a good choice for example,you may want a stronger one depending upon your system specifications

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103935

 

Ok let me see what i can remember about my computer..

mobo: Asus K8N-E Deluxe
cpu: AMD 3200
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (i added an Arctic Silencer Rev.3 onto it, i dont know if that needs to be counted or not)
1GB ram which will soon go up to 2GB
1 hdd but i want to add either a 300GB or 500 GB to it.
I have a DVD burner and I still have a floppy drive
oh and the case fans x 2

I'm having a problem with the graphics card (red lines on the screen) and i'm really hoping that it is just a power issue. I have the case fans unplugged at the moment.

I would like to upgrade the whole thing to something newer within the next year or so. So i guess i would like to get a power supply that i can use now but then not have to get a new one again when i upgrade.

 

You definitely need a psu upgrade,does the psu feel quite warm to the touch?,I would recommend you get a 450watt psu form a quality brand for your system,this will probably be slightly underpowered for your next system though depending on the specs,for that you should consider a 500-550watt psu

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

Do the red lines appear before the windowsxp screen has appeared during bootup or do they appear during heavy usage playing a game for example,do you have any other problems random restarts,lockups ect.How long have these symptoms persisted

 

Well im not from the usa so im not even gonna try find a psu for decent price for you lol. but a 450 will suit you now but for further expansion id always say to go with a 500 - 550 psu make can make a difference but if your tight on cash jus grab a cheep 500-550 and save for the high quality one at a later date.

As for the red line on you graphics card yeah it could mean not enough power, could also be a dodgy driver install. i got a 550psu for 25pound roughly 45dollars which works nicely until i can get a nice antec one and it solved all issues i had with slowness on my machine (was using a 350 one). but u can always get back to us if the psu dont fix ure graphics issue

 

Thanks for the quick replies

First the psu..
If I got a nice 550W now, would that be ok for my current system or can a psu be too high?

I wouldn’t say that the current psu is overly warm. The computer has only been on for 30 minutes. So far its just pleasantly warm.

I'm sure I can find myself a good price. I'm in Australia so I'm used converting currency. But maybe you could suggest which psu i should look into. You both mentioned Antec. I've already put aside some money for this so I can spend up to 123 USD/70 GBP/170 AUD

Onto the graphics card.

I got the card at the start of last year. Everything was peachy until November. I was playing a game and it ran fine until it got to a certain point in the game and the monitor would turn itself off and Id have to restart to get the monitor to turn on again. After restarting, everything would be fine but if I played the game again the same thing would happen.

After looking inside the computer I realised that the fan was no longer spinning. I cleaned out the dust but it didnt help. I have probably fried the card. I dont know. I replaced the fan with the Arctic Silencer and now I have the red lines.

When I first start the computer I get the K8N-E screen. there are no lines but there are strange dots on the image. The windows loading screen is pixelated and once I'm in windows I get the red lines.

I have removed the old drivers, and installed the latest. that seemed to make it worse because then I had red lines plus everything slowed down. scrolling was very jumpy and slow. so i got rid of those and re-installed the old ones. Things improved in terms of speed but not the red lines. I havent tried playing any games.

I got the arctic silencer on the off chance that perhaps the card survived. It was the cheaper option. A new psu might help the card if it not damaged but either way I still want to upgrade it.

 

Ok i had a look at antecs website for you and on it they have a where to buy page. here u can select your country and if your looking for online sellers or retail etc and they will give you websites etc to go check, there are plenty of nice highquality psu's in your price range from antec and other companies like thermaltake. i would say shop around find out if place deliver in you area etc but the antec truepower, smartpower and neopower are all nice psu's if you look at them on the antec website it tells you what connectors they come with as standard.

Im not really big on graphics card issues so you might wanna start another thread and try get one of the specialists in this area to help you out but it sounds like u might have damaged the card by it overheating playing a game it couldnt handle or the driver might just be corrupt. first thing id try is download the latests drivers, uninstall the old ones in safe mode and install the new ones in safe mode and see if that helps if not might be trying to get the card itself tested.

hope this helps

 

Yes a psu can be too strong,but the only side effect is an increase in power consumption,idealy you need a psu that matches your system,but as you say you would like it to be powerfull enough and compatible with your next system

It looks as though your card is fried,it may not be the end of the world,did you keep your old heatsink?If you can reinstall the old heatsink and contact the manufacturer via email 'check out their website' with regard to an RMA,you may be suprised to find they will repair the card for free,you will incur shipping costs though

 

ok.. one more

EPS12V or ATX12v?

 

It isnt one or the other they are all ATX,apart from mini atx and micro atx,EPS is just a connector for servers which you dont need

 

ahhh well you have cleared that one up for me.

i was reading about them and the more i read, the less i understood.