Is my PSU under powered?

  • Thread starter Thread starter supergallas
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supergallas

supergallas

hi people i got all the information here for my power supply can you help me out and tell me if its powerfull enough for what im running.

1st of all its an atx PSU 400 watt
+3.3v +5v +12v -5v -12v 5VSB
28A 40A 17A 0.3A 0.8A 2A

I have 2dvd RW
140 gig HD
radeon x1300 AGP
2x 512 slots of ddr ram
2 case fans

if you could help me id be greafull, also if you no of a good place to get more powerfull PSU's.

cheers
liam
 
A 400W PSU should be more than sufficient to run what you have, especially as though you are running an AGP card.

Are you having any problems or were you just wondering?
 
i was just wondering mate, i used to have a 250 watt and i lost 2 x7oo cards with it, i no now they were well under powered just didnt wanna have the same thing happen again, just that when i turned my pc on it came up on the monitor no video input then it went away, that was the sign i had b4 when my graphics card went. i only had my x1300 a couple of weeks so just wanted to make sure i had a good power source for my machine
 
its a cheap psu, i'd say its not good enough, u need at least 25 amperes on +12V (on a proper 400 w) , u can see its a poor psu by the high amperes on 5 and 3 volts while poor ones on +12v

Get a psu with mroe amps on +12 V , a proper psu of 400W should have around 29 amps on the +12v line(s)


Better psu's:
ocuk :p


Get one of these brands if your pc seems unstable and if when stressed the voltages drop by too much (below 11.5 V or something):
Enermax
Tagan
Seasonic
Antec
Akasa
 
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It isn't necessarily a poor PSU, could just be old but most decent PSUs nowadays have far more power available on the +12v rail than that one. It would definately seem like you have a dodgy one if you got it recently, even a 300 Watt PSU from a decent brand would have more power than the 400 Watt you have there.

For the specs you have listed 17A should be enough but you don't mention what the CPU or motherboard is. Though having the power available doesn't mean the PSU is going to be stable.
 
aye, renember q-tec ? :D
25 amps promised on +12V
Voltage on +12 V when stressed = 11.1 :p


Try using asus pcprobe or everest or speedfan to monitor voltages when your pc is stressed, shouldnt drop more as 0.3 volts when stressed (from idle ) (the +12v line)
 
Yes, but Q-tec always quote 'peak' load, if you half what q-tec claim your about right.

Most other brands, even cheap ones do actually quote full load ratings.

Considering the spec of his rig, with a low end AGP card, it should be no problem at all.

If the system is stable, and isnt suffering from frequent/random crashes then the PSU will be more than sufficient for the job. Most likely its just an older design, where the CPU would have drawn its power via the 5V rails (AMD XP series, P3 etc)

However, its worth pointing out that the PSU wont be able to tolerate much in the way of system upgrades, current mid/high end GPU's draw a lot of extra 12V power.
 
Cheers for all the replies guys im going to look into getting a new PSU i need an ATX power supply with a 4 pin +12 v plug on it, can anyone here reccomend me a good ATX PSU please from this site?

cheers

Liam
 
sorry forgot to mention as well is there a difference between ATX and ATX 2.0 PSU's?

cheers again
 
ATX 1(.x) are the old standard and have a 20 pin ATX connector for the motherboard as well as (standard on ATX 1.3 up I believe) a 4 pin aux (often called P4) connector. They don't all have SATA power connectors either.

ATX 2(.x) are a newer standard and use a 24 pin ATX connector for the motherboard (often the 4 extra pins are detachable or an adapter is included, for backwards compatibility with 20 pin boards) and again, a 4 pin aux (often called P4) connector. In addition to that some also have an 8 pin aux (which is usually used for dual processor, server and some of the newer LGA775 boards, it is sometimes referred to as EPS12V).

ATX 2(.x) PSUs will include SATA power connectors as standard and may or may not have 1 or more 6 pin PCI Express (graphics power) connector(s).
 
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