New Power supply

[unhuman]

I have an AMD Athlon 1100, Geforce3 Ti500, 2 hard drives, 1 DVD Rom, 1 CD Burner, a variety of cards (TV Tuner, SCSI, Sound, Firewire). I think my power supply is going.... Sometimes it boots, sometimes not. Unplugging the DVD Drive and it all works fine, so I think I just need more power.

I am, thus, looking for an el-cheepo, powerful power supply.

I have my eyes on this:
http://www.buypcdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=pw-psu-pk-p500w

I could go down to a lower power supply, too... This company, however, highlights nicely the power output ratings. Are these good?

Thanks - Howie

 

[EeyoreX]

I would be leary of buying a 500 watt power supply for $19.00 I have never heard of PowerTek either. I personally would spend a little more and get an Antec, Enermax or Fortran/Sparkle. Yes, they cost more than $20 but they will work, will last a long time, and will not likely damage your other equipment should something go bad. Quality over quantity.

\Dan

 

[jackschmittusa]

I agree with EeyoreX. You've got too much in the box to risk on a cheapo psu. Cheap ones are not efficient, generate more heat, deteriorate rapidly, and may have poor regulation. They can also damage other components if they suffer a catastrophic failure. An extra $30-40us is cheap insurance and peace of mind. A good 400w psu is likely superior to a cheap 500w one.

 

[TheCorm]

I am not totally against generics because I have built many a system with 300W generic PSU's costing £5 to £10 each but it is a gamble....I have a fairly good Eagle PSU in my case, it's no Antec but heres how it stacks against that 500W PSU:

Eagle 350
+3.3V = 28A
+5V = 35A
+12V = 16A

PowerTek 500
+3.3V = 28A
+5V = 38A
+12V = 17A

As you can see, on the rails where it's important...it doesn't offer much more than my regular 350W....I imagine the Antec 400W offers more than this 500 as others have said.

So it's a twin fan that PSU?...odd having the 2nd fan exterior to the unit....and on the back rather than underneath....

Jamie

 

[VSEKH]

Look at the Antec Truepower brand. Antec makes great power supplies. I currently have a 550Watt. You probably don't need to go this high right now until you start upgrading your video card and CPU to the latest and greatest. A 480 watt power supply will most likely be sufficient.

 

[unhuman]

I'm now a bit confused. My wife just called and said it won't start.... I get all kinds of different situations:
1. Hard drives don't detect
2. Hard drives detect, but won't boot
A. I get no system on disk (rare)
B. I get HD Controller failure (more frequent)
3. System boots fine

Wondering if its power supply or the drives.... I need to look at how powerful my supply says it is now... It might be a 400 or 450, which I would assume would be enough. I had an old system that I had overtaxed that needed an external power supply for it to work prior to this, so I ensured I got a whopper.

Do power supplies gradually fail?

Thanks for all the help!

-H

 

[modedepe]

In my experience they just die all of a sudden, instead of it happening graudually. I agree with some of the other posts to get a better, more expensive power supply by a proven brand such as antec/enermax. With those you can be sure if it says 400w on it, it can deliver that much. With a generic cheapo a 400w might only do 250w.