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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
Your problem is not the output power, it is the input power.
by RobertWFrei - 10/16/09 7:53 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Your power consumption is not the issue. You either have very bad luck in getting defective power supplies, or your input power sucks. Do your lights flicker when the washer is running or when the refrigerator compressor starts up? Do you blow circuits? Do items with electric motors break down a lot? Do you have a huge heap of fried electronics?
My guess is that all of that is true.
I am guessing that you are getting 110 volts on neutral - a short. It may only happen when a certain device kicks in, or when a certain switch is on.
First, buy an inexpensive plug-in electrical tester (usually have three indicator lights.) If anything except normal test, call an electrician - and don't wait, your family's lives could be in jeapardy.
It is also possible that all of the people connected to the transformer near your house are having similar problem. If that is the case, make the power company clean up its act.
psu
by omnivious - 10/16/09 9:02 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I just built a system a couple months ago with a toughpower 750 and it's quiet and works very well, I have 2 gpus so I needed something bigger but toughpower is good and priced well, I haven't had too many problems with toughpower in the past and I have not read anything real bad about it, with any psu, there's going to be some faulty ones, just hope that you don't end up with one of those and most come with a warranty so find one and try it out!
Dirty Power True But Don't Forget Plain Old Dust.
by doods2 - 10/16/09 10:38 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you have one of your old power supplies open it and see if dust/dirt is getting inside and caking up components. In humidity dust can short out supplies. Your solution may be as easy as getting your PC off the floor and/or adding a filter to the intake. KEN
so wrong yet so right
by turbographx - 10/16/09 11:34 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
First off, I'm simply blown away at all the totally, 100%, incorrect, information that is being passed around on this thread.
First: the the guy that says 350 watts is enough to run any home PC. you have, obviously, not seen the wattage needs for a lot of modern graphics cards, let alone the rest of the system. My Graphics card alone requires a minimum of 400 watts, and i have two (2) of them. so there goes more than 2 of those 350 watt PSU's right there and we haven't even powered the motherboad, cpu, ram, fans, sound cards or drives yet.(not to mention if he has any case lights, water pumps for a water cooler, etc, etc)
Second: the guy that says multi-rail PSU's are a negative. Well, you are HALF right. A lot of the cheaper PSU will drop multiple rails off of the same BUSS which is cheap and makes for good advertisement, but a bad power supply. However, this is not a "TRUE" multi-rail PSU. A TRUE multiple rail PSU will have multiple 12v rails each with their own 12 buss. This is also why a GOOD PSU costs more. (you don't always get what you pay for, but if you read the specs and stats, sometimes you actually do. And a TRUE Multi-Rail is the best way to go as it lessens the load on any given Rail (read as buss) to power a given part or chain of parts. (Mobo on one rail, fans on another, opticals on another, etc,etc)
As for ANYONE who stated how much wattage this person's system "Needs". Shame on you and please stop helping people "destroy" their computers.
Not even a FRACTION of a FRACTION of enough information was given to even make an educated GUESS as to how much wattage his system needs.
Now, to the original poster. Best bet is to grab all of the spec sheets or manufacturer data on ALL of the components on your system. (from the mother board, to the Drives and CPU, all the way down to the Ram and any lights you may be adding) They will all list required wattage. Add all of this up, and add 100. This is the rule I follow when building a gaming rig, a Multimedia rig or just a sit and surf the web and do email rig and have NEVER had one returned due to a power supply related defect. (other than a few actually bad PSU's which is just gonna happen from time to time)
Best of luck.
What is in a Power Supply?
by gvrowe - 10/16/09 11:37 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
A power supply is one of the simpler components we use.
One is found in nearly every electrical device extant.
Simply put a PS consists of a transformer, a rectifier, a regulator and some components to smooth the pulsing DC from the regulator. For a computer the PS must provide a variety of regulated, smoothed voltages. Since if you open the PS case you invalidate it's warranty it is difficult to know what is inside. Transformers consist of an iron core and copper wire windings. (Aluminum wire has been tried and found wanting for this application.) Iron and copper are relatively heavy. After the transformer is a rectifier to provide the pulsed DC voltage(s) and then a regulator for smoothing. The components that do the smoothing include capacitors. These caps are among the items which are woefully downgraded. Good high quality caps are relatively expensive and cheep caps are used in cheap PSs.
Likewise iron and copper can be minimized in the transformer.
A PS rule of thumb is: the heavier the better. (No guarantee but remember you can't see inside.) Even if you looked inside you would likely need and electrical engineer looking over your shoulder to make an educated guess as to the quality of the components.
So, I guess it boils down to bucks and pounds.
Please follow the advice elsewhere about evaluating your power needs.
Don't skimp but don't go overboard either.
Horatius
Power Supply
by kruger - 10/17/09 1:49 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Always go for the PS with the largest output power you can afford. A 500-watt PS is the norm these days and of course, a branded one will be more reliable than a generic one, albeit at a higher cost.
You said that you have been through two PS already and my guess is that it's not the PS you should focus your attention to but the quality of power you have in your area. It would be wise to invest in reliable AVRs, power line conditioners and UPS'es if you want peace of mind when it comes not only to your PC but to your other home electronics...
Power supplies
by Ocarinist - 10/17/09 2:01 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My gaming PC has a 650 Watt Antec Eartwatts, but I have the feeling that's already enough to run two of these PCs.
I bought it so I didn't need a new one if I ever wanted to use Crossfire or other upgrades, and because it wasn't expensive at all.
All this talk about Wattage and not enough about Amperage...
by justbyteme - 10/17/09 3:13 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I can tell you why some of you might be burning up power supplies. Let's say we have a 1000 Watt power supply with 4 12Volt rails with a 80Amp rating. Each of the 4 Rails have a maximum draw of 20 Amps per rail. This power supply will not cut it, it will probably burn out in a short time. The reason is this, most high end video cards these days draw 24 or more Amps. Amps are the amount of electricty. The video card or cards are trying to draw more Amps than the power supply can handle. Now a 800 Watt power supply with a single 12Volt rail rated at 60Amps will handle 2 high end video cards comfortably. You need to watch the specs of your video cards (Along with the rest of your components) and match them up with a properly rated power supply. The key is the Amps, not so much as the Wattage. 
I hope this clears up some things for people.
got any DC?
by sauna6 - 10/17/09 4:50 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In case you have recently moved from a 115 VAC country to a 220 VAC zone, and happen to use some of the old 115 VAC devices (heater, hair dryer) in the 220 V electrical network with an AC converter (which is just a diode), you may have a DC component in your home electrical wiring. Even a few minutes of this DC "pollution" will burn any transformer, or at least overheat it so that its lifespan shortens seriously. DC saturates the iron core, so impedance moves to the resistive area, frying the coil.
my opinion
by shot34ever - 10/17/09 6:13 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Two years ago, I built a new system, since it was years since I did so.
I sent the new motherboard back twice, thinking this was the problem and the power supply back once. The place where I bought both had told me that they would both work together. Well they didn't. I then called the Antec Power Supply company, gave them both the motherboard make and model number and they told me which power supply would work. Turns out they were right, The combination I had original purchased did not and would not work together, telling me that the seller did not know what they were talking about. I bought the suggested power supply, waited for the replacement motherboard to come and tried it. Both worked and still are working. Most of the newer motherboards require a specific power supply and will not work unless they meet the motherboard spec's.
Use this page to calculate PSU requirement.
by eyupo92 - 10/17/09 8:40 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/
It also depends on your VGA card.
There is a possibility that your CPU is a P4 3.0 GHz Prescott, that means you are using the most power eating and inefficient CPU of times.
A UPS would do you very good. Buy a ATX 2.3 85% efficiency Thermaltake or Coolermaster - they have excellent quality and price.
I would suggest you to change your motherboard and CPU too.
A 90 USD Pentium E6500, a 100 USD Radeon HD4770 VGA card and a 70-100 USD Intel P3x or P4x motherboard ( Gigabyte and Asus are fine )will increase your computing power almost 10 times.
Judging power supply quality:
by Mike DiMatteo - 10/17/09 9:12 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Last time around I chose an Ultra Professional 550 LSP as a replacement for a very cheap 450 watt unit. It was whisper quiet, and represented excellent value with a rated 100,000 hours MTBF and a lifetime warranty. $65 plus $10 shipping. It weighs 6 pounds! It's been running great 24/7 ever since I installed it.
Take it from a geezer, when you compare two seemingly similar units the heavier unit will consistently deliver the best performance and value.
Which power for what power?
by TheBig3 - 10/17/09 8:14 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
From what it sounds like, it seems that the problem is most likely coming from your wall outlet. The reason I say this is because I've used cheap, no name brands before and not had a problem with them.
The only one I've ever had a problem with was an AT PSU (Power Supply Unit) from a Packard Bell back in '98. the only other possibility I can think of is too much dust build-up. One system I built had "died" after a bright flash and actully a little smoke. I took the system apart and took out the psu and took it apart. Dust Bunnies had nothing on this, this was a "Dustopolis". I grabbed some canned air, took it out back and blew out all the dust. To this day that psu still works and still gets cleaned about every other year. so the psu just might need to be cleaned out. If you can take a look inside and look for dust or anything that could be in there that shouldn't.
So even if you have a "cheap" psu it should still work fine, especially at the 600w and higher range.
As for how much power do YOU need for your system, I'd say about 500w - 600w range should be more than enough. some brands i've used include:
Antec
Rosewill
Logisys
Raidmax
Apevia
and a few no-name brands
And all the systems using them still run even now.
I hope this has been helpful in some way and I wish you the best of luck. ^_^
<<< Most Power Supply failures are caused by....>>>
by TheTruthBeTold - 10/18/09 7:09 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Building PC clones for 20 years have given me a great deal of experience with hardware. The number one reason for the eardly demise of a power supply failure is:
-Failure or obstruction of power supply cooling fan.
-Power supplies built with cheap components.
The only exception to this is some MACs which use a more complex and expensive LINEAR power supply. Linear power supplies are more efficient at converting voltages\wattages and produce less heat, therefore can do without a cooling fan in most cases.
Power Supplies
by one_unfettered_mind - 10/18/09 7:25 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have a new HP Pavilion, May 09. I need to up grade my video card. I was told, in order to up grade my 512 card to 1gb, I have to put in a new, bigger power supply.(??) By the store with the card. I made my other computer, I got the best and biggest power supply I could afford. My made up unit has a 1.2 amp. power supply. I know! it's way over the 700 watt and such, but it pushes 4 hard drives plus all the normal needs. I have never had a problem with power. For my money, I would get the biggest I can find. Even if you have to leave in on the desk. Best thing, I know it gets cooled properly. Open the case and blow the dust out once a month. My video card runs at 35.4 to 36.6* C. Wow takes a lot of Video power. Ain't no such thing as too much power. Hope this helps. Rob
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