125 Total O/P on my Power Supply.... WTF?

[AlphaNex]

Im currently running an old celery 333A at 416, the case, PSU, CPU, and motherbaord all came from the same place i guess about 2 or more years ago. When i bought it, the description said it was a 250Watt Power Supply, but recently i ordered an Epox 8KTA3(Spelling?) Motherboard and Tbird 750 combo and that sparked me to look at my PSU and lo and behold on the side it says: TOTAL O/P 125W. Im assuming that means Total Output Power, which as you can see is NOT 250 like i was led to believe. I had planned on hopefully winging it with 250 until i found a good deal on a AMD approved ah heck but now it appears things will change. My question is this: Does TOTAL O/P mean something completely different and my PSU is actually 250 or was i ripped off those years ago? And if so, there is prolly no chance of me running my system on a 125 wat PSU correct? The manufacturer is, as far as i can tell, Century Electrical(The electrical is (mis)spelled on the side of it as Eiectrical, the model number is SPX-250C\2.01. Any advice\good places to buy PSU's would be appreciated.

 

[Mode4]

No, you didn't get ripped off. The 125w is the combined wattage of the +5 & +3.3 feeds. Normally, a 300wt power supply is going to around the 150-170wt range BUT a 450wt PS may have a 300wt combined value. I'm not explaining this very well, but......I hope you understand.

Although AMD has approved some 250's for use with the Athlons, most of the approved devices are 300 or higher.

Some may disagree but I will always tell people to buy a QUALITY PS over the cheaper (meaning, generic, low quality, etc. - not price) ones. There are other benefits that the cheap ones just don't have.