power supply

[raven1]

Can someone set fill me in on power supplies? I got to thinking that maybe my ps wasnt enough for everything I had loaded.I had amd xp 2200+ mb with a xp1700+cpu, a 80 gig hd and 512mb ram.This barebones system came with a atx 250w ps.
whats a good standard power supply?
I was looking at power supplies and some say atx ps wp4 ready.Does this mean that this ps will work for pentium and atx mb?

 

[dumdum]

At this point in time the de facto wattage seems to be 300w for most new systems. I'd say with those specs you're right on the border. And since you asking at a forum like this I would tend to believe you are planning to add even more "stuff" to this machine. I would definately be running a 300w psu just to know I had the extra headroom.

When a psu is advertised as WP4 ready means it has a special connector used to power a P4 motherboard. And yes it also contains the standard atx connector too. We are always looking for new members at our computer forums:

http://forums.jlrforum.net

Please come join our community too.

 

[Mulga]

I would say 300 is the absolute minimum for any high end system. If you are planning on lots of extras like more drives, extra fans, high end video etc I would go even higher to 350 or 400. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[paparazi]

Yes I would agree!
250 watts on a high end system is really boarder line and as Mulga said 350-400watt is ideal. AMD recommended PSU's prefered. Enermex the best.
If it says P4 compatible it means "as well as" AMD's,
just means it has the extra connector for P4. Martin Please let members know if there advice has helped any.

 

[raven1]

Hey thanks guys! I appreciate the info!

 

[ceh4702]

I am not so sure about the power supply. I have an IBM Net Vista with a P4 1.8Gig Processor and it is using a sub-300 watt power supply and it has no problems. I wonder if having too many fans is a problem for wattage. I think possible some video cards use up a lot of power. It is possible the number of I/O cards also has a relation to power consumption. Some add-on high-end sound cards may use a lot of power also. If you have a motherboard and it has a fan on the chipset, and you have a fan on the video card, a fan on the CPU, and at least one intake and exhaust fan, that can add up after a while. I know the video is integrated on the Net Vista, so it may use less power.

I had a motherboard that kept crashing and when I replaced the motherboard it never crashed. Same processor, power supply, etc. I think a lot of times it might just be a lousy motherboard, or the motherboard was flexed or damaged during the installation breaking the traces or the messing up the circuits. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.