Powersupply wattage question

[Mota331]

Can someone tell me why when I look at the recommended Powersupplies on AMD's site, some are 250 watt all the way up to 400watt? Whats with the big gap, How can you power a T-Bird with a 250 watt? How does AMD choose powersupplies that are so low in wattage?

I am trying to explain this to someone but I'm not doing a very good job at it.

Thanks

 

[Tsaico]

I think the amd power supplies aren't for their total wattage, it is for the stability of the output. as I recall, the origional athlons were very sensitive to power fluxes, so they would start to hang or crash on startup when used with generic powersupplies of low quality. I think the chips are a lot better now, as I got them to work on 145 watt ps and generic ps.

 

[Mota331]

Well I just upgraded his computer from a 500 K6-2 to a 1.33 Athlon 266FSB with a ECS K7S5A Mobo. Right now he has a 300watt generic powersupply and when you turn it on with everything connected, the computer takes forever just to post(beep) and turn the monitor on, and then when it does post and turn the monitor on and start searching for drives it only finds 1 HDD when his computer has 2 HDDs, 1 CD-ROM, and 1 CD-RW drive. Then if I disconnect 1 HDD and both CD drives it starts up really fast. If I take and plug just the CD-ROM and 1 HDD in, it still boots fast but when I try to play sould in Win98 you can barely hear anything coming out of the speakers when the volume is tured all the way up.

Could this be a powersupply issues, not having enough power?

 

[flyerI]

Did you do a fresh OS install or did you just pop in a new mobo and cpu? Have you checked the settings in the BIOS. Are all drives on the same IDE channel as before? Is it looking for a drive at a location where it use to be and is not there now or finding drives in places where there was no drive before? 300 watts will normally power most systems but since I do not know what else is in the box I can't tell you if that is enough or not. Give us a little more info please.

 

[Mota331]

All I did was pop in the new Mobo and CPU because he didn't want to lose any info on his computer.

1.33 GHz Athlon 266FSB
ECS K7S5A Mobo
64megs PC100 (yes I know)
LG 8x8x32 CD-RW (i believe)
Generic 32X CD-ROM
ATI Xpert 128
40gig Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 7200 rpm
Onboard LAN
Onboard Sound
300watt Generic Powersupply

Lets just say its the budget pc.

 

[Jen]

also brand of powersupply your useing and the wattage per line would help us better to help you




Jen

 

[Mota331]

Ok heres what I can make out on the poweruspply

At the bottom of the stick it says

+5V $ +3.3V Total Output 160W

Then in the center it says

Red +5V 30A
Yellow +12V 10A
White -5V .5A
Blue -12V .8A
Purple +3.3V 14A
Brown +5 VSB 3A
Orange P.G.
Black Ground
Grey Power Supply on

On the unit it says Model: MPT-301 if that helps

 

[Mota331]

I just looked up the thing on the AMD's recommended site and its only recommended for an Athlon up to 900 so I guess it is the Powersupply.

Do you recommend any Powersupplys that would work and fairly cheap? Pricewatch has 400watt generic brand for $13 but I don't know if it would work well with all the stuff he has

 

[Mota331]

Does anybody?