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PC hardware: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best?
- 10/16/09 3:27 PM
Power supplies for PCs
by blusmk - 10/10/09 1:19 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A good 450 or 500 Watt power supply should be more than sufficient. Just don't buy the cheapest one you can find, unless it's a higher priced one on sale. If you have a high power video card, check for it's Amperage requirement. I've had good luck with Apevia (Aspire) power supplies, but there are a lot of good brands.
here is the right ps.
by Draconid - 10/10/09 1:23 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The right power supplie for a p4 . Is a 450 watt ps.
power supply
by bertiedixon3 - 10/10/09 3:24 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
As a retired senior electronics tech I would probably question what
the input voltage is doing. Do you have a surge suppressor or a Ups installed? I live in a rural area and this is a must in Hatteras, NC
Most ps are two speed and run in high speed when the computer starts to get very warm. Do you clean the front/rear grill and blow out the inside periodically?
Bert III
Power Supplies
by NBK_Viper - 10/11/09 7:53 PM In reply to: power supply by bertiedixon3I would tend to agree on the fact that if you don't keep your case clean and free of dust it doesn't matter how much you spend it will drag your computer to its knees. Something said from another post drives me nuts that a self built PC could not be built as well or be as reliable as a bought PC (ie., IBM, Dell, HP, etc.) and I say that is horse hockey. Sorry, but that is total bunk, despite the availability of the store purchased PC, they posses neither the quality or power to do any serious hardcore computing. Also when it comes time to upgrade rather than purchase a new computer you are limited to upgrades due to proprietary hardware. Building a computer is all based upon what you need it to do and how long to you plan on keeping it. If it needs to do more and last longer purchase higher grade componentry, if you need it to do less buy more budget minded parts to help you make due until it can be replaced. Buying a cheap power supply is a computer death sentence but you can get alot with the right advice for a little. A very good UPS or Surge protector can save you alot of headache, but you have to spend the money to get the protection. Go to your local computer stores, not Best Buy or Office Max and have them help you choose, be frank, honest, and listen to what their advice is and open up you wallet and "Buy the best You can AFFORD".
Power Supply Check
by cameronvs - 10/10/09 8:00 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The rated output of your power supplies should have been more than adequate for a P4, unless you have a half dozen hard drives or some exotic cooling system. Most basic P4 based systems run fine on 300W or less. but you need to add about 40W for each hard drive and about the same for each case fan. If you're using a liquid cooled pump, that's about 25W. Video cards can be demanding, but not more than 300W each, unless they have massive fans. You mentioned concern about your surround sound system and USB camera. Neither of these create a significant drain on your system. The surround likely plugs into the wall and has its own power supply, and the camera won't pull more than a few watts. Newegg has a nifty power supply calculator on their website. Their recommendations run a little on the high side, but you can be confident that you're safe if you follow what the online calculator recommends.
Rosewill Cooler Master and Antec units have worked well for me. I generally find that the more the PSU weighs, the more reliable and stable it will be. This may seem odd, but big heat sinks and quality transformers are heavy.
Most power supply failures I've encountered were caused by fan failures in machines that were kept in confined areas (desks, cabinets) with poor circulation, or by shorts in case fans or hard drives. You might also get a voltage tester and verify that you're getting close to 110 volts from your wall outlet. If you have an outlet that's shorting out or a bad circuit breaker, you could be getting low line voltage, which can have all kinds of negative effects on your PC.
Using mostly under 400W power supplies, no issues yet...
by chromeBuddha - 10/10/09 8:38 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been building home systems for the last 10 years. I have used power supplies from Antec, Enlight, Thermaltake, Panther...usually whatever was on sale at the time. I have only had one power supply fail. I have the computers on 24/7/365 and run SETI@home which consistently maxes out all the processors. Most of the PSU have been 350W@ or 380W. The only problems I had were with Antec NSK1300 small form factor cases with 300W PSU. I don't think the case design had enough airflow, so the PSUs would shut down (I believe it was a thermal protect circuit). When I would suspend SETI the boxes would stay up for weeks. When I let it run, maxing out the CUPs (they were a dual and quad core) it would stay up about a day before the themal protect circuit would kick in.
If you are burning up PSUs, I think you need to look at the quality of power you are giving them, and possibly use a UPS, which should guarantee consistent power to the computer.
Another consideration is the amount of dust/debris in the environment. If you are packing the PSU full of dust, it will coat the heat sinks for the power transistors and they will overheat, eventually failing completely.
toshiba laptop PASSWORD DECELOPED PROBLEM
by motolase - 10/11/09 10:20 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
MY TOSHIBA SATELLITE LAPTOP DEVELOPED PASSWORD BY ITSELF
I DONT KNOW D PASSWORD TO USE
WHEN EVER I ON IT, IT WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO ENTER SETUP AREA, BEFORE IT REQUEST A PASSWORD WIHICH I DONT NORMALLY USE BEFORE.
THANKS
You need to know how it starts...
by Awesomeguy123 - 10/11/09 3:24 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
As you may know, the self-built PCs are much less reliable than that of a company such as Dell, HP or any others. So clearly, self built PCs are made by the sake of the maker on how much power they consume, and other things. We would need to find all of the machine specs to even have an idea. The best brands for least power consuming are HP, Dell, and IBM.
Obviously...
by theGadgetman - 10/16/09 7:30 PM In reply to: You need to know how it starts... by Awesomeguy123Sounds like you've never built a system in your life. Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. are all great for entry, low-end systems because they buy components in bulk from a source that gave the best price at the time. This is why their can sell system at a price that we can build (unless of course you buy the cheapest no-name components). Admittedly, they do last long time, because you can't push their system (e.g. run any resource intensive software). On the other hand, if you look at any system from serious gamers and video enthusiasts, majority of them are custom-build. Yes, if you don't know what you're doing and only buy cheapest components and try to build it, it will be inferior to the namebrands.
I've built dozens of system in the past 10 years. Before I build each, I determine its purpose and compile a list of component specs that I want to have. I then use that to research and find the right hardware. This process could easily take several weeks. My last system that I built last November was a high-end video editing system with a capability to play Blu-ray discs. I also wanted it to be silent PC that you have to look at the power indicator light to tell if the system is even turned on. Based on that requirement I ended up spending roughly $900 to build. For that price, none of these companies could provide a system that came close to mine. Yet, it could easily edit HD videos and also play Blu-ray on my 24" HD capable LCD Monitor (1920x1200 resolution) via HDMI cable. I can also play any PC games out there at a max display capability with all the video features turned up. Few months after I built it, I went to Dell site to build a system with similar components and specs. Their site quoted me over $3500 and still didn't have the same quality. I can tell you my system is far superior than anything they could throw at because I hand picked each component.
Now, getting back to the PSU. My system only has one of those eco-frientdly Antec EarthWatts 500watts PSU. It has ample power to drive my quad-core, 8GB RAM(I'm running 64-bit OS), GeForce9800GT(best at the time), 3 Terabytes of SATA2 drives and Blu-ray superdrive. I also protect my PSU with UPS by APC. So first rule of thumb is make sure you have a clean power.
Vauge specifications = Big answers
by DH950 - 10/12/09 12:34 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a system with the same processor & speed, 2 GB RAM, along with 7 hard drives & a power hungry video card that runs fine with an Antec 500 Watt PS. You don’t list all your components, brands, or models, but it’s likely your PS has plenty of power available. You may even be wasting electricity with your excess capacity.
It sounds like your power supplies don’t last long enough to get so dirty as to cause failure. Lack of adequate ventilation inside your computer case could be a problem, but I’d expect other heat related problems to be apparent, especially unexpected shutdowns due to the CPU overheating. Turn off your computer & use some canned air to clean it out if you suspect dust & dirt.
In the numerous computers I have had to replace power supplies in due to failure, most had no UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply). A quality UPS has made power supply and other component replacement due to failure a rarity.
My computers run without a hiccup, while my satellite receiver or TV DVD player resets or locks up sometimes right after a warning beep. Even lesser power fluctuations can cause excess stress on your computer.
A UPS usually has some outlets that only provide surge protection & others that provide true UPS protection. The UPS outlets basically run off battery power converted to 120 volts AC. WWW.APC.COM has a wizard for estimating UPS size. Any of the UPS manufacturer sites should explain how the UPS functions. Only my computer & monitor use UPS outlets, that's so I can properly shut down the computer during a power outage. The rest of the stuff is plugged into the surge protection outlets, which do not use any of the power capacity of the UPS. Even if you have extra UPS outlets, I suggest not using them or you will exceed the capacity of the UPS.
Assuming you are using a 17” CRT monitor, an APC BE750G will likely meet your needs for under $100 if you shop around. This is what I’m using.
You are asking this on CNET which has product reviews. WWW.NEWEGG.COM is a site that sells computer parts, accessories, etc. They encourage customer reviews & ratings on everything they sell. If a product only has a couple dozen reviews, look at what the reviews say. Many low reviews have nothing to do with product quality; an example would be it came in a crushed shipping box, which is beyond the manufacturers’ control.
Large power supplies DON'T waste power
by ehsteinert - 10/12/09 5:59 AM In reply to: Vauge specifications = Big answers by DH950Where do so many people get the idea that a large power supply wastes power if you don't need what it is rated at??? If you study electrical basics you will learn that every power supply is driven by the load, not it's maximum rating. If you take a 500W and a 1000W PSU out of their packaging and plug them into the wall outlet, they will each draw the same amount of power (maybe a slight variation due to different efficiencies and cooling fans). If you take either one and install it into a computer that requires 300W to operate, each one will put out the required 3000W, no more, no less.
The load draws power from the PSU. The PSU does NOT push power to the load. If you have seven hard drives and a "killer" graphic card, I suggest looking at the recommended requirements. Today's high-end graphic cards can draw several hundred watts each under full 3D gaming load. That drops to 40-50 when just doing simple office tasks.
Everyone should read this in-depth article on computer graphic cards and overall system power requirement:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-radeon-power,2122.html
GOOD LUCK!
and thats the truth
by larryandcathie - 10/16/09 10:25 PM In reply to: Large power supplies DON'T waste power by ehsteinertI was just going to comment on the same thing . people also make the same mistake with speakers . How often do you hear people bragging about their 300 watt speakers believing that when driven with a 100 watt amp that the speakers are actually producing 300 watts out .
PC Power Supply subjectively
by OldGrayGeek - 10/12/09 7:04 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Bill
My gut says 500W would work okay, 600W should be fine and 750W is more than you need unless something was left out of the list.
What I wanted to say here most importantly in to not cheap out on a PS. A whole host of problems manifest themselves when power is marginal or a PS starts to fail. Second concept of import. The quality of a PC power supply is directly related to its weight. Heavier components are better for endurance. While there are a multitude of PS suppliers and a number of good ones, it's hard for an individual to qualitativly sample many, so if you find a good one, stick with it.
I have personal experience with over a dozen Enermax supplies of various sizes and I've never had one fail (knock wood). That certainly doesn't mean they can't or won't, but they've served me well over a number of years. That also doesn't mean there aren't supplies of equal or higher quality, just that I haven't been lucky enough to work with them.
I've found something that works for me and as my daddy said, "You pays your money and takes your chances". Good luck. Mike
Probably not a result of inadequate power
by jcforge - 10/12/09 7:23 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If I might ask what brand of PSU are you using? Different brands have different rates of failure but some often carry a warrentee.
What sort of problems are you having that you think it's the power supply going bad? Are you plugged into a surge protector?
Your surround sound should be getting power from the wall not your computer.
On a remote note, have you tried moving the computer to another wall socket (a different circuit would be best) in your house?
Power supply replacement
by fpeterson76 - 10/12/09 10:28 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have had the same problem with power supply failure and found that it was not the power supply that was at fault but the noisey and fluctuating power to the supply was causing the problem. I installed a battery backup/surge protecter and have not had a failure since. I don't think the size or brand of your supply is the cause of your problem. I hope this helps you with your problem.
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