I never thought my power supply would quit

What things do I need to consider when buying a new psu? I'm not really sure where to begin. I know the kind of connectors I need, but that's about it. I have an amd sempron 2600 and an ECS 755-A2 MB.

 

The best advice when purchasing a new PSU is to go higher in Watts and not lower. You want at lease 500Watt and that should hold you for a long time, I am using a 700W and it is great.

 

Can not argue with the logic, the more over rated a component it, the less stress it is under, and the longer it will last. The weak point in most power supplies is the fan, you really have to check it now and the to make sure it is working.

 

You might go to http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and use their Power Supply Calculator to get a solid number on your system. My hunch is a good quality 400W PSU would be quite adequate. I've been using one of these for about 9 months: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104953

 

Really good tips, thanks. So, should I look for a psu with no fan then?

 

I think almost all of them have a fan or two in them. Just don't buy a cheap one. A common mistake many people make is to get a cheap PSU. I did, once, never again. It gave me fits trying to figure out what was going on. Your PSU supplies power to everything, so get a good one. Look for one with a high efficiency rating.

Also, I think you need a 20 pin power connector for your motherboard, check into that. If it does, I would get a PSU with a 20/24 pin motherboard plug so you can use it in a newer computer later on.

Good luck! If you have any questions, ask away.

E

 

What prompted that question? I believe all PSU's have a fan.

The PSU for which I posted a link has a 20/24 pin motherboard plug.

 

This one claims to be fanless. As did several others on a Google search. I don't think I would recommend one of these, but they are there. I like a fan in mine.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article263-page1.html

E

 

Everyone has been really helpful. Thanks a lot. I just read that one of the main differences in the ATX and ATXv12 is that there are 4 extra pins to help out with the additional power. So I opened up the hood to see what I had under there. Turns out I have a 450 watt ATXv12........with a 20 pin power connection. Well, that's what my motherboard requires is a 20 pin. Anyway, I've found out a few things. Look for a good Mean Time Before Failure rating. Look for higher wattage than absolutely necessary. And, look for a high efficiency rating to help with life span and power savings. However, I'm not quite sure how high to go (as I do have a budget to think about!). My 450 watt ran just fine 'till I plugged in my second optical drive, Mad Dog cd burner. I Think it was just a little more power drain than it could really handle well.

As a side note, I have the MB, Hard Drive, CD burner, DVD Rom, Processor with a fan, PSU with a fan and Video card with a fan. So, given the limited connectors I had, I sacrificed the side fan on my computer case in order to plug in the mad dog burner. No big deal right?

Anyway, I was thinking 550 watt, or maybe 500 if I can get away with it. What do you all think?

Oh, I almost forgot. There's room on my MB for the extra 4 pins to stick out at the bottom If I get an ATXv12 24 pin connection, but no room at the top. So it is possible that If I get a 24 pin connection that I could not use it, right. Or can you just plug it in either way i.e. "high or low"?

 

Did you visit the power supply calculator site I posted? You'll see that 400 Watts is more than adequate. Your hardware configuration is quite similar to mine. Actually, my system has more components. I have an Athlon XP 2200 processor, which takes 5Watts more than your sempron, according to the power supply calculator. And, I have two video cards, one AGP and one PCI to run two monitors. I also have two case fans; you did not mention case fans. And, I have a sound card and USB card installed in PCI slots.

Actually, I was using a 250Watt power supply up until I got my current 400W PSU. At that time, my hardware configuration did not include the USB PCI card and, except for a short time, did not include the PCI video card. But, I used that 250W PSU for over 4 years. I replaced it because I believed I was getting symptoms (mainly, an occasional failure to start when I hit the power button) that might be solved by replacing the power supply.

Did you look at the PSU I posted a link for in my previous post? It has 20+4pin connector, meaning it will work with either 20 pin motherboard power connectors or 24 pin. It also has SATA power cables; so, it will support motherboards using either IDE hard drives or SATA drives (or both). It also has the PCI-E power cord, in case you have a PCI Express video card.

So, this card will not only work with your current motherboard, but would continue to serve you with a newer motherboard with SATA, PCI-E, and a 24-pin power connector.

 

Also on PSU degradation, I read somewhere that a PSU can lose a good % of it's power due to capacitors getting weak and being overused. Check this link out.

 

O.k. I did look at your links usafveteran. And, though I didn't have enough savvy to answer all the questions with 100% certainty (if I didn't know I just left it alone), my pc came up with 272 watts necessary. I don't know whether to be happy or to cry!

Anyway, now I only want to know one thing. What the heck happened!? My psu lasted a whopping 2 yrs. That's just not acceptable. Here's what I know...I had a HP pc for 8 something yrs and no problem EVER. No I have my own custom built pc with fully compatible components all purchased from Newegg. The psu was a atxv12 450 I think ranging from 40 - 60 or more $. And, way more wattage than I needed. By all right it was a good psu and should have lasted much longer than it did. Shortly after plugging in my cd burner, which works fine and has no problems, my psu starts whistling and now won't even turn on my pc. I mean granted the warranty is probably outdated by now but come on...that sucks.

And if it had anything to do with the capacitors wearing out then that just sounds like bad design on the manufacturer's part.

To be fair, I really don't know THAT much about computers. I do know that if I make something with my hands I make it to last.....decades. I don't like to buy something that goes dead in a year. What steps can I take to keep this from happening again?

 

Also, I'm still not sure I can really use a 24 pin because there is a electrical thingamajig sticking up that would definately block it at the top. Unless I can scoot the connector down and plug it in more toward the bottom, but I'm not sure you can just plug the connector in any way you like.

 

I have no clue how you arrived at the 272 Watts figure. I came up with 203 Watts for your system; I assumed a 2 sticks of DDR2 SDRAM and a nVidia GeForce 7600 GT video card, and 2 case fans.

I think maybe you just had some bad luck with that PSU. I agree the 2 year life span is unacceptable.

Before buying the PSU I previously mentioned, I bought another one, a different brand. I installed it. It got so hot, just from normal computer use, that the top of the computer case was almost too hot to touch for more than a few seconds and was exhausting very hot air out the back. I returned it for a refund. The current one runs cool; the top of the case is never more than slightly warm.

Regarding the 20/24 pin motherboard plug, did you look at the images of the PSU I mentioned? I'm not clear on why you would have a problem connecting it. It looks like this:

 

usaveteran is on the right track as far as the main power cord. Look for a PSU with a 20+4 one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...CZ+StealthXStream+OCZ600SXS+600W+Power+Supply

The more watts the better in my opinion, it will only use what it needs, and if you get a good one, it will be ready for an upgrade later on.

E

 

Thanks everyone. Atleast now I feel like I know enough to make an informed choice about which PSU to buy. When I get it I may post back here to let you know what I come up with. Thanks again............

 

Post back and let us know what you got and how it works.

E

 

Well, I finally found something. Took several days and hours of looking too, especially today. My eyes are burning. Anyway, the more I researched PSU's and tried to find out the smart buy, the more I began to learn that a bad PSU probably causes more hardware problems than anything else. A PSU goes out and could likely take lots of other stuff with it. As I mentioned before I had an HP for 8 or so yrs and never had to replace one thing! So, I was very dissappointed that my $60 450 Watt from NewEgg blitzed out after only 2 years. However, I also learned that it's quite common for many psu's to die before 2 yrs is up. Infact, many quit after 6 months or 3! The reason...bad company/brand name...or in other words: generic product.

After coming to the realization that I had to find a reliable source, it then made my search even tougher. Because every good name I found had even less Watts for a higher price! So, what I had read was true. Companies definately "fluff" up the Watts to sell to uninformed buyers while producing a much less quality product, even dangerous PSU's.

But, I don't give up that easily. I looked up several names of companies that were considered to be reliable and honest manufacturers of PSU's. Then I ran a search on every single one of those companies on ebay until I got what I wanted. Because of the fact that it is darn near impossible to find actual quality for a low price, I wasn't able to get the 450 or 500 Watt I was hoping for...mind you I could have gotten a 600 or even 650 Watt for less than 30 bucks. That would have been something that I could count on really blazing inside my PC! But, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to quite pull that one off.

So, I managed, to my utter amazement, to find a brand new 350 Watt ATX Mad Dog PSU. I know, I know...it's just a Mad Dog, right. But, I've had a mad dog cd burner that I like and has worked perfectly for a couple of years now. This Power Supply is 130 Watts more than I probably need. The Mad Dog made no "bad lists" that I could find. And, it did, in fact, make a "good" list. So, personally, I like and trust Mad Dog. They offer a reasonably quality product for reasonable prices, though I'm not entirely sure what I would have paid over the counter. Lastly, I consider Mad Dog to be just slightly better than a standard comp usa product, which in the past has been my "fall-back". One comp usa psu I found would have totaled $30 including S&H. Every other brand name I came across ranged anywhere from about $45 to oh say...$455 for an 1100 Watt PSU. What did I pay for the Mad Dog?....hmmm....wouldn't you like to know.


We still have yet to see how it performs, though.

 

Hope you got a good deal, just remember you usually get what you pay for. A$30 psu is not in the same league as a $100 psu, even with the same ratings, its the quality of the parts inside. ed

 

If I had a nickel for everytime I had read that about psu's, I would have 15 cents now. It is the quality of the parts and how well they are put together that counts. However, I also read that much over 450 Watts is more than anyone would ever even need. Because of the changing times, I don't necessarily agree with "never". Though, If I DID have 400 dollars, I darn sure wouldn't spend it on the power supply for my pc. So, while I agree, to an extent, there certainly is another end to that spectrum. It might not last for 8 years like the default PSU in my low-end HP, which I'm using now, did. But, it will hopefully power me back up for a while.

But, yes, if I had 65 maybe 70 bucks I would probably spring for it. Then again, if I had a whole lot to blow, I wouldn't have built my own pc.