250W Power Supply adequate?

[fwtong]

I'm trying to build a PC for my Dad as cheaply as possible. One of the ways I can cut corners is to use a 250W power supply that I already have, and not buy a 300W power supply, but I'm not sure if it's going to be adequate. The components will be a Duron 1.3 with HSF, Asus A7N266-VM motherboard, 1 HD, 1 CD-ROM, 1 floppy drive and maybe 1 case fan or other similar cooling device. I'm not going to use any PCI or AGP cards, and will be using the onboard video, onboard sound and onboard ethernet. He's not a hardcore game player or performance nut. He just wants to use Office and the Internet, so he won't need a hard core CPU, video or graphics card.

 

[wetcat007]

Depends what brand/type(A LOT), I guess u can try it and run Prim95 a bit and so on, check it over and if all seems ok, go with it.

-Mark

 

[Corporate Thug]

250 would be pushing it a little bit

 

[tallman45]

You are in the neighborhood of 200watts, factoring in 256mb system ram. There are a lot of sites (check google) that have wattage calculators.

Here is just one:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1633

 

[JZilla]

I have run the following system on a Fortron 250W psu for almost a year, without any problems.

AMD AthlonXP 1800
768mb ram
DVD/CDRW
1 NIC
GF4 MX420
2 HD
56k modem

Originally posted by: tallman45
You are in the neighborhood of 200watts, factoring in 256mb system ram. There are a lot of sites (check google) that have wattage calculators.

Here is just one:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1633

That faq is useless imo. I usually suggest the excellent FiringSquad guide.

 

[Zepper]

I looked at the mobo you mentioned and didn't see any P4 connector to power the CPU. Without that, I would say that 250W is borderline.
. I would suggest you look at the MSI KM2M Combo L instead. See the buyer reviews under it on NE and my review in "User Reviews" on http://www.techimo.com.
. It has a P4 connector and can support up to a XP 2000+ or maybe more on 250W PSU. If your PSU doesn't have the P4 connector, you can find an adapter under the I-Star company on NE for $3.
.bh.
Where's the :sun: ?

 

[OulOat]

Yes, that is fine.

 

[Zap]

I think it'll depend on the quality of the power supply. FWIW few power supplies put out the rated power. The Antec TruePower series does, but many others do not. As for how much power you need... take this into consideration... the Shuttle mini computers that can handle up to 3GHz P4 or Athlon chips have only 200W power supplies and run just fine with sometimes two hard drives (losing the FDD). I'm running a P4 2.4C (slightly overclocked) with two hard drives, 1GB RAM, GF4 Ti4200, two optical drives all on a 300W Fortron (the one with 120mm fan). I can probably add another drive or two without problems.

recent Tom's Hardware power supply roundup

 

[fwtong]

Based on what people have said, and some wattage calculators, I think I'm going to try using the 250W PS first, and if it doesn't work, then I'll have to go up and get another PSU. At least I'm not paying for it. 😉