Power supply and external hard drive questions

[Laogeodritt]

I plan on adding and upgrading some components, but I'm not sure if my PSU is enough. I'm clueless on this stuff, so... would my 300 W power supply (according to the specs sheet included with my computeR) be sufficient for this?

In addition to:
- A P4 2.54 GHz processor
- 256 MB + 512 MB of PC2700 RAM
- 1 internal 80GB ATA drive
- 1 CD-RW / DVD optical drive
- 1 floppy drive
- (intergrated SiS 661FX graphics)

I plan on adding / changing:
- an ATi Radeon 9200SE AGP graphics card(which is enough for me)
- another hard drive
- a PCI TV Tuner

Would my PSU be enough or should I add a better PSU on my list of things to (eventually) buy?


Also, generally how long would it take to transfer, say, 10 GB of data from an internal hard drive to a USB 2.0 external drive?

 

[HomerSapien]

As long as it is a high quality one it should be fine. Here is a link to psu reviews for a comparison of quiet psu's. I assume this is going to be a htpc.

I would reccomend the seasonic tornado 300w. Just make sure to get a revision 3 of it...Revision 2 had some fan problems with it spinning up at odd times.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Laogeodritt
I plan on adding and upgrading some components, but I'm not sure if my PSU is enough. I'm clueless on this stuff, so... would my 300 W power supply (according to the specs sheet included with my computeR) be sufficient for this?

In addition to:
- A P4 2.54 GHz processor
- 256 MB + 512 MB of PC2700 RAM
- 1 internal 80GB ATA drive
- 1 CD-RW / DVD optical drive
- 1 floppy drive
- (intergrated SiS 661FX graphics)

I plan on adding / changing:
- an ATi Radeon 9200SE AGP graphics card(which is enough for me)
- another hard drive
- a PCI TV Tuner

Would my PSU be enough or should I add a better PSU on my list of things to (eventually) buy?


Also, generally how long would it take to transfer, say, 10 GB of data from an internal hard drive to a USB 2.0 external drive?

Should be sufficient, you might want to upgrade to a newer power supply though if you notice it's unreliable (if it's generic, it won't be unstable until you add more load). I had a AIWR9800 Pro, PIII 1.4GHZ processor, 3 DIMMS, 2 7200RPM drives, 2 optical drives, PCI TV tuner, Creative Audigy 2, Dialup modem and ethernet card on a 350 watt PSU. Though it was generic and I can't say how reliable the sysem was, because I soon change the configuration to what it is now (in sig) and of course changed the PSU to a 480 watt because when I used the old PSU or POS, it was terribly unreliable. If it's generic, upgrade, if it's not, you should be fine. Are you overclocking by anychance?

 

[Laogeodritt]

Eh, the PSU is the one that came with the computer, which has a cicero logo on the case and bought from Futureshop during the summer. That's all I know.

I'm trying to plan in advance since I wouldn't be able to afford a PSU in addition to the planned upgrades. By the looks of it, a 400 W Antec PSU would be about the price of the video card, $80 CAD... I suppose I could postpone the purchase of the TV Tuner card if I should need to upgrade the PSU.

I never overclock.

Hm, actually, I think I'll start by getting myself an external USB hard drive for backups... but I do have an old 5 GB 5400 rpm hard drive in my old computer which I could use, assuming it still works...

Also, generally how long would it take to transfer, say, 10 GB of data from an internal hard drive to a USB 2.0 external drive?

 

[ChrisQuintero]

Also, generally how long would it take to transfer, say, 10 GB of data from an internal hard drive to a USB 2.0 external drive?

[/quote]

Thats completely dependent on the speed of either hardrive or if one has usb2.0 and the other doesn't. If there's a limiting factor such as usb 1.1, or a very slow drive, it might not matter what the other factors are.

Oh, and if you want to know how many Watts you need for you PSU.. i mean minimum, here's a good calculator

Calculator

 

[HomerSapien]

fixed link
for the calculator.... it was adding an extra http into it.

 

[Laogeodritt]

Ah, thanks.

By choosing everything that I planned to have, except choosing a Radeon 9500 / 9600 instead of the planned 9200SE, I got 292 Watts. My current PSU is 300 W. What do you think?

As for the hard drive question:
- if you meant, by speed, the RPM rate, both are 7200 rpm
- the internal drive is an ATA drive
- my computer has USB 2.0