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OMG - I decided to open up my Gateway AMD system today - it has a 200W POWER SUPPLY!!!!!

Ryan

Ryan

Lifer
😕 I never really payed any attention to the little sticker on my PSU, so today I decided to take it out an read it. My system is running off a 200w PSU! I surprised I can even boot up! I have a Athlon 1.2ghz, a video card, sound card, network card, an HPNA 2.0 card, cdrw, dvd, floppy, hard drive, USB keyboard, USB mouse, and a USB card reader. Man, this just boggles my mind! 😕

 
Companies like Dell and Gateway can use lower rated power supplies because they thouroughly test their systems to ensure stability. Also, a lot of times their power supplies are rated low in terms of peak wattage, but the rails (3.3v and 5v are quite strong).
 
My friend runs a homebuilt athlon xp 1600+ off an old 235 watt psu. Personally, I think the whole "You need at a least a 400 watt brand name psu" deal just isn't true.
 
Basically the only reason you should be surprised is because so many people here say that 300W PSU's should be the minimum.

You must remember that those people overclock, and you certainly don't want a 200W PSU when overclocking...
 
AGodspeed wrote:



<< Basically the only reason you should be surprised is because so many people here say that 300W PSU's should be the minimum.

You must remember that those people overclock, and you certainly don't want a 200W PSU when overclocking... >>



Overclocking has little to do with it. AMD recommends 94 different power supplies for a 1.2 GHz Athlon. Only seven of those are 250W, and none are 200W.
 
Alot of the older Emachines had a 165watt PS in them. There were alot of dead PC's after the PS units started dying on them.
 


<< My friend runs a homebuilt athlon xp 1600+ off an old 235 watt psu. Personally, I think the whole "You need at a least a 400 watt brand name psu" deal just isn't true. >>



Agreed. It's QUALITY, not quantity. 300w (of AMD APPROVED) is more than adequate, except for those running a ton of devices.

D.C.
 
i do agree w/ most of posts regarding over hyping of ps here on these boards. i've built, oc'd and run a lotta computers w/ the 300 watt PS from COMPUSA.

 
With mine I've powered 2 computers and 3 aquariums at once. 😛
If it's good quality then it should take a little more abuse. Some newer components take less wattage than before.
 
I've been running an Athlon 1Ghz on an Abit KT7 mobo, with a full SCSI rig, including 2 10,000 RPM drives, 1 7200 RPM drive, and two SCSI cd-drives on a 235w PC for over a year now. No problems at all, knock on wood. 🙂

That doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.. I just ordered myself a nice 300W case from NewEgg today. 😉
 
I worked on an old Gateway G6 PII 450 recently. It had an 80 watt PS! The thing was tiny, like 1/2 the size of a normal PS. It had a fan that kind of pointed at the PII which had a HUGE passive HS.
 


<< Personally, I think the whole "You need at a least a 400 watt brand name psu" deal just isn't true. >>



I tend to agree, I just think a few factors come into play, like the 3.3 V etc. rails on the amperage etc...

 
I have an original Athlon 750@1000Mhz, Asus K7V mobo, 2 x 80mm case fans and 1 x 60mm case fan, 128Mb RAM, CDROM, 4.3Gb HDD, Matrox G400 graphics card running on a generic (read cheap'n'nasty) 225 watt PSU - never had a problem with it!
 
Most computers don't even use that much power.

Engineers that design prebuilt computers measure the power consumptions on each rails, give it a little headroom and some room for expansion and order a power supply with closest spec to their demand or if not avail and it is cheaper to do so, they'll place a custom ordered power supplies in order of 10's of thousands.

 
my sparkle 180w p4/amd approved psu powered up my dual xp1600/1gb ddr/tyan mp/75gxp just fine
All it had was a video card (pci), and it installed win2k just fine
 
So many people on this forum (I'm not going to mention names) claim that a P4 can only run with a 400W minimum power supply. Dell sells many business P4 machines with just 165 Watts (even the more power hungry .18 P4 chips). There are two possibilities:
A) Dell sells unreliable computers to the customers who care the most about stability, or
B) People in forums can't always be trusted.

I think if I had the choice between blindly trusting some stranger on a forum or trusting a large manufacturer with thousands of satisfied customers - I'd choose the latter.

Basically your 200 W power supply is more than enough for so many users. Sure some people will get unreliable results if they add in 4 hard drives and two processors - but that isn't the typical computer either.
 
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