Estimating required Power Supply

[Research]

Since I'm adding more hard drives and fans to my gigantic Antec case, I was wondering how do you guys tell what is the power supply requirement for your system?

One way would be to add the power supply requirement of every component (drives, fans etc. etc.) ... Maybe there is an available calculator?

Also, I have an ATI AIW video card which screws up every now or then (words get corrupted).. Then I have to restart (or if I'm lucky, it automatically recovers after the message "VPU recover has reset your graphics accelerator")

Long back when I contacted ATI, they told me that even though you have the recommended power supply, it's good to have more ... since this is something which might be responsibel.

By the way, currently I have Antec 350W power which came in my case ... but I have heard a lot of praise for Antec 430 true power. Any suggestion?

Thanks!!

 

[PliotronX]

Antec makes very good units, and quality takes precedence over wattage as a rule of thumb BTW. Anyway, depending on your system, ATI support may be right, but unless you have a very high powered CPU and your AIW is based on the 9700 or 9800 series, I think the problem would lie elsewhere. The TP430 is a good PSU, but you can get more quality and amperage with one of the units I posted in this thread (bottom) for roughly the same price as the TP430 (Super Flower being even cheaper than a TP430, but still lots of oomph). FYI most of "wattage calcs" I've seen around the net usually exaggerate the required wattage, as quality PSU's are actually underrated and can also provide a peak wattage far and above what their label tells you. Research is key HTH

 

[Ultraman]

Try this link to another thread on the topic:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1367300&enterthread=y

 

[Research]

Thanks for your responses..

Actually I have an old dismantled HP pavilion with 16o watt power supply. Do you think it's a good idea to use that as a separate power supply for my fans and drives?

Any mounting ideas?