do i need new power supply?

I recently bought a pci graphics cards (geforce fx 5200) and noticed it recommended a 250w psu but i only have 230w. The card still works fine but am worried that 230w isn't enough, can it overheat, can this cause damage to your computer? I've got a few peripherals, dvd rom, cd burner, tv card, sound card, isdn modem and now the gpu. I'm also planning to upgrade my crappy cpu to a pIII 1.1 ghz or celeron equivelant, so should i change the psu and is this a an easy task?

cpu: celeron 600mhz
motherboard: trigem cognac
memory: 256mb sdram pc100
hard drive: 15.2 gb

 

i have often been told the psu is the most overlooked aspect of a computer. if i were you i would upgrade the psu to a 300 to 350 psu especially if your upgrading your cpu.

 

If you plan to update the processor, depending on the processor specs you may have to upgrade the power supply. This will benefit you in the long run anyway with the all the devices you have and devices you will add in the future.

These days 400W or more is standard when searching for powers supplys (for me anyway). I suggest 400W or more. As far as name brands and stuff, let the other geeks tell you that. Doesn't much matter to me.

 

Thanks for the advice. I went to a local store and was surprised at how expensive psu’s are, more than what I spent on the graphics card! Guess I’ll try e-bay.

 

how expensive is expensive? mine was $65 i believe for a Thermaltake 410w.

 

You don't need that much better PSU, unless you have a really bad no-name one, as long as you get a brand name one. I had a 250w "average" PSU with the same specs as what your upgrading too, not sure about it tho since yours might be a noname and its a 230w. PSU's are easy to upgrade btw.

 

At the store they were £65 ($110) for a 400w psu, all Q-Tec. I consider that expensive especially having just forked out on a graphics card, I’ve given myself a budget of £150 to upgrade my pc. Anyway on e-bay the brands I’ve seen so far are Zalman, Sparkle, Magna and Q-tec, lots of generic ones as well, guess I should stay well clear though. So any one of those brand names are ok? Even Magna, who they?

 

Sparkle made my old AOpen 250w, its good I guess.

 

The reason I thought about changing the psu was because in the minimum specs for the graphics card I just bought it recommends a 250w psu. I just noticed that when I’m using my tv card the graphics on every other application slows down considerably, before with the embedded graphics it didn’t. Scrolling down web pages becomes jerky like its not refreshing properly, what’s that all about!!? Has it anything to do with the psu? Is the graphics card too close to the tv card, should I move it? Is it because my cpu is so crap?

 

I doubt its cause of the PSU but you probably should get a new one anyway. You should keep the tv card as far away as you can fro mthe video card to give it more airflow tho.

 

I was just looking through my local computer parts rag and noticed that you can get a case with a power supply for about the same money as just the power supply.

My 2 cents worth:

With all that hardware in the box, your enemy becomes heat. If the PSU fails, it will most likely be due to overheating rather than overloading.

Open the case and blow all the dust out, especially the power supply. You will need compressed air to do this properly. Invest in a fan (cheap!) and use it to force air into the case. The name of the game is circulation. The power supply has a fan which moves air out of the box.

As Max said, seperate the TV card from the video, they are both big heat generators.

Do this and I would say you are ok for now. Marginal but ok.

 

I moved both cards away from each other, the graphics card was a pain in the ass to reinstall, computer booted into safe mode which always freaks me out and it took some fiddling around to get the gpu to work. Result exactly the same as before. I’ve written to the gpu company, maybe they’ve got some suggestions. One thing that was very noticeable was the heat inside the case, much hotter than it’s previously been, also a slight burning smell. Frying an egg in it would have been an option so I guess I better get a psu asap, there are a few decent ones on ebay for next to nothing. Kinda annoying that I can’t watch tv or listen to radio while doin other stuff with an apparently much better gpu!

 

I'd get a new PSU, yea, but if it still does it you might wanna consider a reformat.

 

i would recommend a new psu (and $110 for a 400w psu is expensive, imo).

 

I got a 350 Enermax for $60 Canadain!

 

most definitley

 

I thought I’d play it safe and go for a 400w psu, I found one in a computer market for £30 managed to get it down to £20 ($35) but no refunds if it didn’t work. It’s a Q-Tec 400w dual fan gold. Anyway installing the thing was a bloody nightmare, it’s twice as big as my previous psu so I had to bend all the metal fixings with pliers to get it to fit in, at one point I had a hammer in my hand but thought better of it, the back of my pc now resembles a car crash. Unfortunately I couldn’t screw it in as none of the holes aligned so I pressed the back of the dvd rom as hard as it would go against it and that’s what’s holding it in place, not text book but I don’t care it’s working. Didn’t make one bit of difference to the gpu tv card issue but I guess they’re conflicting and there’s nothing I can do about it. Got a new heatsink/fan which installed fine, bought a celeron 1.1ghz from e-bay which I should get by the weekend then all that’s left to upgrade is the hard drive. Thank f***!

 

Cool, I would have gone for a better brand PSU but mayby your case is weird, meh, at least is working. Since the videocard thigns still ****ed, why dont you try a reformat? Or mayby just wait till you get a new hard drive, 8mb cache western digitals are dirt frigan cheap now.

 

How easy is it to copy my old hard drive onto the new one, isn’t as simple as dragging the c drive onto the new one is it? As you mentioned I’ll try and get a western digital, any other decent brands, Maxtor any good? I overclocked a little bit and saw a slight improvement in the gpu problem so maybe this new processor will help, if it works that is.

 

Maxtors are fine, its as simple as that for windows 98 at least tho you probably should get a real HD copier like one from majorgeeks. I would reformat tho, may solve your problem.

 

So now I need to worry about circulation, dammit, there's always something else. Today I got an extractor fan for the back, so now I should get one to pull air in at the front, right? Are these easy to install where do they go? If fans that pull in air are so important why don't new pc's come with them?

 

Usually best practice is to keep it even, if you have 80mm fan in the rear blowing out you should have 80mm fan in the front blowing in also. New computer manufacturers usually don't put any more parts in than they have to.

 

IF you have a decent case you can snap the fan in and plug it to your mobo.