Okay, Who's right???

Rhonda85

Senior member
Jan 15, 2001
230
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Everyone says that a 300w powersupply is needed for a newer AMD based system. I was at AMD's approved powersupply site & seen several that were 250watt. My case has a 250w & it was one that AMD approved. So what now? Will I damage my powersupply, system board or burn my house down if I use this 250w PS. Note, I will be using the following: DFI AK74 w/duron 800, 2 cd drives, 2 floppy drives, 1 7200rpm hard disk, USR ISA modem, voodoo3 3000 AGP & WinTV pci card. Is this too much power draw?

Please help me...



 

kgraeme

Diamond Member
Sep 5, 2000
3,536
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Is your system stable? If it is, then don't worry about it. The more drives and such you add, or if you have a faster or overclocked processor, then a bigger PSU may help. But as you've noted, AMD certifies PSU lower than 300W.

I'm no engineer, but that's my opinion.
 

Rhonda85

Senior member
Jan 15, 2001
230
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I have not bought the new board or cpu yet. I first wanted to know If I had to throw out my 250watt PS & spend another 30bucks on a 300+watt PS.
 

RPB

Senior member
Oct 16, 1999
335
0
76
i have a system running on a powerman 250 watt with no problems
MS-6167
slota 550 mhz
v3000
2 hard drives
1 cdrom
dlink nic
awe64
1 3.5 floppy
and 1 extra 80mm fan

 

Tweaked750

Member
Mar 8, 2001
32
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0
If your planning on overclocking get a new powersupply. I had a three hundred watt powersupply that bot pushed to far. My 750 classic athlon got pushed to 1100 with voltage set to the max. BUT.... my backup power supply was only a 100 watt powersupply. That 100w power supply lasted me a quite a while before I was able to save up for a better one. While I was using the 100w power supply it gave me no problems at all. But then again I wasnt overclocking with it. So it all depends on what your going to do. The 250 should be able to handle alot, but if your an extremest and want to o/c, get a better one, preferably a psu rated at greater than 350.
 

BP

Senior member
Sep 20, 2000
290
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will be using

So I assume that this isn't together yet...I'd say that's a lot of equipment for a 250w psu.You won't burn down the house but if the cpu doesn't get enuf power then you'll get errors and BSOD's or the worst case if the draw is too big ...no bootup.

Try starting with the minimum to get it running then add as you need the hardware,if you start getting problems then go for a 300 or 330w psu.
 

SammieC

Platinum Member
Apr 24, 2000
2,474
0
0
If Amd is approved then your fine, I personally have an approved 250 running a couple more things than that, and no problems...

The 300 would probably be most helpful in the overclocking dept, and/or if you had a few more peripherals.

BTW my Tbird is a 1 gig @ 1170

A reputable Motherboard would be good though, An Msi k7t turbo or equivalent, they really have the capacitors and filtering to offer a real clean voltage to your cpu.......Unsure about the DFI. This would definitely make a difference.....But probably in only how far you could push the Duron.
 

Gunther

Golden Member
Mar 6, 2001
1,292
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Just because a power supply says it 300 doesn't mean that its as good as a 250. There are really crappy 300 that are worse than a 250. It really depends upon how good of a power supply you have. If you have a real good 250 it should be fine, but if you have a real bad one then you might run into problems, same thing goes with 300+. I was using a 250w power supply before and was running:
950 T-bird
a7v
dvd
cd-rw
tv-card
geforce 256 ddr
75 gxp hard drive
network card

almost the same config as you, you should be fine, if you notice any instabilities, then you might have to worry, otherwise everything should be aok. If you are still worried, you can go overkill like me and get a 430 watt :)
 

Tsaico

Platinum Member
Oct 21, 2000
2,669
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If you are buying over 300w, then you don't need amd approved or not(unless you are running a lot of components). If you are buying 250, the only reason you need AMD approved is because when you boot, everything take s large amount of power, especially the CPU. After that it balances out. But with AMD's chips, they are a little more sensitive to voltage regularity, so a dip in the crucial boot-up can cause it to lock or crash. With the approved powersupplyies, the power is level and even, whereas in the cheaper ones, the 250 is often the peak, not the output, so it's performance is not so consistant.
As a side note, I ran a duron 800 in everything from 350w, down to 145w, and had no problems. I ran each rig with your base stuff, hd, floppy, cd-rom, and burner. Ran games and all setups ran fine. So I have a feeling the newer chips are not as sensitive as the origional athlons were or perhaps I was lucky my 800 was a super chip that could handle the adversity.
 

WarCon

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2001
3,920
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HEHE only reason I got my Enermax 330 was the cooooooooool fan. I think 250 watt power supplies are fine until you start adding any additional power pigs like cd burners (and then its the 12 volts that the issue not the 5 volts) and peltiers.

Maybe someone here will know, but doesn't the cpu only use the 3.3 volt?
Um my math is poor but a 50watt T-bird using 3.3 is how many amps? Something like 15, I think that would be more the factor than the overall rating. 15 amps is the rating on the 3.3 for my old powersupply, so who knows?

P.S. my old powersupply fan was making noise too. That was real reason I bought the enermax.
 

smp

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2000
5,215
0
76
yeah... there are other numbers involved too.. some are 150 and some are 160.. I forget what that number is.. it's late.. but yeah.. that is the diff too.. some 300 w ones are only 150 vs some 250 watt ones that are 160.. but I forget what those numbers are for anyways.