I need the power.

[swestrup]

Lately my computer has been crashing all the time. Its been happening with greater and greater frequency, ever since I put a new graphic card into the system a few months back. One person I know opined that it sounded like I had overloaded my old power supply, and it was slowly burning out under the strain.

Considering the kind of juice a graphics card can pull, and the fact that this machine is 8 years old (well, except for the motherboard which was replaced a few years ago) I tend to believe this. Crashes seem to happen most often when I am doing something intensely graphic, like playing a 3D game. Lately its also been happening when I'm watching a movie on my computer, or even watching YouTube videos. They also seem to happen when I do anything that exercises the hard drives a bunch. Running a virus scan, downloading several movies at once, or the like.

Now, a new power supply only costs around $50 if I go for something hefty like a 450 watt unit, but that's been money I couldn't spare. Well, now my Mom just sent me $100 for my Birthday, so I seem to have that covered (Thanks Mom!)

Here's the problem: I know nothing about power supplies and have never replaced one before. I do know they come in various flavours depending on what motherboard you have, but I don't even know the names of the flavours. I can't really afford to have someone, who knows what they're doing, do the work for me, and the actual replacement should be (I'm assuming) fairly straightforward.

So, I'm hoping folks on my f-list can point me to some good articles on replacing power supplies, or can give me some tips on what I should buy, how to know if I have enough power, etc, etc. Any advice you can give at this point would be appreciated.

Comments

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX should get ye started. There's essentially two types of power supplies nowadays; ATX and proprietary. Identify the cables running from the power supply to your current motherboard; that or the motherboard documentation should get you the fine detail on what you need.

The actual replacement is very simple; all you need is a screwdriver and determination.

[fordcov.livejournal.com]

Very easy procedure actually. I just had to do this myself a few weeks ago, for exactly the same reason. I popped a new graphics card in and slowly but surely my old power supply just stopped feeding the right amount of power to my hard drives.

If you've only got the one graphics card and maybe 2 hard drives and an optical drive, you should be fine with a 450 watt. Though with these things I always tend to suggest buying a little more than you need right now to give you some upgrade room later, if you ever need it.

ATX should be what you need. Companies to look for include OCZ, Antec and Enermax. Don't buy anything generic if you can avoid it within your budget, simply because these will tend to burn out quicker and provide uneven power to your devices (which could in turn damage them).

Let me know what your system specs are and I can maybe help point you in a clearer direction when I've had a bit more sleep :)

I'll also be happy to provide you a step by step walkthrough for replacing the one you've got.

[swestrup]

I just spent some time going through my board manual and running Sandra to check out my system specs. In brief, what I'm running is:

Overview:
Processor: 1.21GHz AMD Athlon 1206
Mainboard : GIGATREND XP-K7V400
Total Memory : 768MB DDR-SDRAM
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 6200
Disk 1: Maxtor 6B200P0 (ATA) : 190GB (C:) (D:) (E:)
Disk 2: Maxtor 6Y160L0 (ATA) : 153GB (H:)
CD-ROM: HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8400B (ATAPI) : N/A (G:)
Floppy: 3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : N/A
COM: TOPIC 56k Internal Data Fax Voice Modem #2
Network Adapter : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC

It also has this to say about my power supply:
Voltage Sensor(s)
CPU DC Line : 1.84V
Aux DC Line : 1.28V
+3.3V DC Line : 3.25V
+5V DC Line : 4.87V
+12V DC Line : 11.73V
-12V DC Line : -4.30V
-5V DC Line : -3.15V
Standby DC Line : 5.03V
Battery DC Line : 4.06V

That -4.30V instead of -12V makes me think that I'm right in needing a new power supply.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

The -12 isn't specced for much current, nor is it used for much. The most common uses are for serial ports and onboard network cards, I am told. Which explains why it could be so woefully out of spec without causing your machine to fail entirely.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much what everyone else said. Newer ATX power supplies have a bonus 4-pin connector (that's sometimes stuck to the side of the big fat main one), but it's backwards compatible - if your motherboard doesn't need it, then just don't plug it in. My desktop has a 4-year-old Antec power supply that's still working fine, which is quite possibly longer than any other power supply I've ever had.

If you're really concerned about the load, there are power supply calculators available, but it takes some fairly serious effort to require more than 450W. Odds are reasonable you require even less, though if you think you may add more stuff to your machine, then there's nothing much wrong with having some headroom.

[swestrup]

Hmmm. It seems to recommend a 400 Watt unit, so long as I don't do any overclocking (which I never do).

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Really? That's odd. My machine has a power-hungry inefficient bastard of a Pentium 4 in it, a third hard drive, and a bunch of other random crap, and it only tells me 330W. I guess I'm underestimating the power draw of modern video cards (mine, while power hungry in its day, dates from 2002...).

Out of curiosity, if you tell it you have a GeForce 4 Ti-series video card, does the number change much?

[swestrup]

Hmm. This time its telling me I only need 245. I wonder what I did differently last time? BTW, if I switch to a GeForce 4 Ti, it just goes to 257. So, maybe Hendrik's 300 watt job is good enough after all...

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

Wow. Slow *and* power-hungry. A real winner of a video card I've got :)

I think I remember that site did something along those lines to me at one point when I first found it. It told me a faintly ridiculous number, and I said "get outta town" and tried again, so it told me something more sensible. I forget what the problem was, I think it's just all too easy to lose keyboard focus and accidentally tell it something outlandish. Pressing page-down once or twice on the list of processors or video cards could lead to entertaining results.

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

I have a 300 W power supply. Any use to you?

[swestrup]

If its ATX, then maybe. I have no idea what I have in here now, and I don't want to put in a smaller one than I'm already using.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

For a 1.2ghz machine, I doubt your power supply would be more than 300W. There'll be a plaque somewhere on the power supply listing its specifications.

[swestrup]

There's no plaque on the outside. I'll have to open the case to check the power supply, which I don't feel up to right now.

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

If that doesn't work out, then you might want to look at this post on Craigslist.

[swestrup]

That does look interesting. I'll certainly think about it. Thanks!