Eilt

I've done several computer upgrades in the past, but the power supply is something I've never messed with before. I've been reading on here and other places and honestly, I'm completely lost from info overload. I hope you all can help me out by telling me if I need to bother with a power supply upgrade.

Ok, here's my situation. I've got two Dell PCs here. One has been upgraded with a video card in the past, and I'd like to upgrade it again. The other has not - I want to take the old video card from the first PC and put into this second PC. I'm concerned that both PCs might need a bigger power supply to handle these cards, though.

This is the current set up of the first PC:
Dell Dimension E310
2GB DDR2 RAM
Pentium 4 3GHz
1 Hard Drive (I think this is a SATA drive - it's not IDE, at least)
1 DVD-RW Drive
1 DVD ROM Drive
1 Media Card Reader drive
ATI 9250 PCI video card
1 PCI wireless network card
230 Watt power supply

The new video card I want to put into this is a ATI X1300 PCI card, replacing the current 9250. The X1300's box says a 250 watt power supply is required, but so does the current 9250's box and that's not given me any trouble running on the 230. As far as future upgrades, the only things possible for this PC would likely be a different video card or a second hard drive. It's pretty much maxed out on the specs already. My plan is to use this pretty much exclusively for gaming.

The second PC's current specs are:
Dell OptiPlex 170L
Pentium 2.8GHz
1 GB DDR RAM
3 Hard drives (IDE)
1 CD-ROM drive
Wireless network PC card
250 watt power supply

This computer would be getting the ATI 9250 from the other PC. I'm a bit worried that the 250 watt might not be enough to handle that plus the hard drives (and possibly a future RAM upgrade to 2GB). This PC runs rather noisy already.

So, do you think I need to upgrade either of these computer's power supplies before putting in the video card(s)? I was thinking about getting one of these if I do need one, as this is the only local store that sells power supplies to my knowledge:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/browse/...000&N=2158280/

I've read about some Dell PCs having proprietary power supply models, but I can't find any information regarding that and these PCs on Dell's website, so I'm guessing they're standard power supplies.

dai

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...corsair%2b550w
dell have used standard atx psu's from the p4 onwards

TheShadowFl

I'm sorry I can't give you a link, but there are places on the internet where you can find wattage calculators that you can use to determine just how much wattage any computer would need.

On the other hand, Dell is famous for not installing enough ram in their computers and for installing power supplies that are really TOO SMALL for the stock system and hopelessly inadequate to accommodate any upgrades to the hardware.

Then you also need to know, that the wattage posted on the side of the PSU like 250, for instance, is the Maximum Peak Wattage, not the all day running wattage. That peak is good for about one to two seconds while the system boots up and the capacitors on the motherboard are charged, drives and fans started, etc.
Derate that maximum wattage by -30% or more for the all day operating wattage.

For the systems you outlined in your post, I'd go at least to a 480w supply on the economy side and 600+ on the up side.

My own system is very heavy on the hardware list and I've been getting along without PSU crashes with a 480w supply. But I've just added another 2 gigs of ram and I'm going to install two more SATA2 hard drives, so, I'm upgrading my PSU to an "Antec Earthwatts 650".
It comes with every possible power plug for the newest motherboards and video cards.

Going 'cheap' on your PSU, is foolish at best. A failing or even marginal PSU can cause you all sorts of Grief, from HD errors to a total system meltdown.
I've seen that twice with cheap supplies (Codegen 300) and it ain't pretty!!!

My advise is, get the best power supply that you can afford.
You'll be glad you did.

Good Luck,
The Shadow