Power for an oddly specced machine

kn100

kn100

kn100

Associate
Joined
27 Dec 2011
Posts
142
Hey guys, Long time lurker first time post-er (Don't want to be confused with a paper based advertisement medium ;D)

I recently put together the following machine on a very tight budget,

AMD Athlon x4 640 3ghz
2gb Corsair valueram and 4gb Gskill something or other (had the 4gb stick from a previous pc)
Inno3D Gforce 8800gts 320mb (My budget for a graphics card was 40 quid and I got this off of ebay for 28..Good deal right?!)

ASRock 760GM-GS3 Motherboard

There's going to be two laptop sized hard disks in there and a single disk drive.


My question is this. I have around 22 pounds at the moment. What Will this power supply be adequate and if not anything else to recommend? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-238-CM


Oh I also just got the cheapest case I could find, some Asus case. It fits, that's all I care about
 
I would not run any system on that PSU, stick with the Coolermaster or the Corsair which is on special until tomorrow morning.

Forgot to mention, welcome to the forum op :)
 
kn100 said:
I've been looking at generics too..are the OCuk psus 'generics'? I am partial to a generic because I'm assuming my rigs gonna use more power than the average office PC.
Click to expand...

Since your budget is pretty tight, I would get a cheap generic one and then upgrade it in the future when you have a bit more money.

What exactly is your PC going to be used for? With that rig I dont really think you will be able to run many modern games.
 
Meh just general use and occasional gaming, it's run everything I've thrown at it almost perfectly so far including crysis 2 but all the games are restricted to 1280x1024 thanks to windows 7 breaking dual monitor gaming LOL.
 
And Please don't hate me but I decided to risk it and got an Octigen 500w power supply. It feels suprisingly heavy and seems pretty well put together, Voltages seem acceptable too and there hasn't been an issue YET. As soon as I get cash I'll be switching to a corsair cx430 or similar.
 
Hahaha I'm beginning to regret it. Been doing some x264 video encoding (I HEART QUAD CORES) and the cpu goes from pulling about 7w to pulling about 70w..PSU gets awfully warm and I'm scared it's going to explode.

Hey anyone know a bit about psus to be able to tell from a circuit board whether it's good or not? I can open it up and get a couple photos if anyone's interested
 
I used an Octigen 500W PSU for a couple of years on a 5 year old system and it worked ok. I had originally intended to replace it asap but the fact that it worked put me off that idea. I wouldn't let it near a newish system though. Just basically cheap tat.

I would have gone for the Coolermaster or spent more.
 
kn100 said:
Hahaha I'm beginning to regret it. Been doing some x264 video encoding (I HEART QUAD CORES) and the cpu goes from pulling about 7w to pulling about 70w..PSU gets awfully warm and I'm scared it's going to explode.

Hey anyone know a bit about psus to be able to tell from a circuit board whether it's good or not? I can open it up and get a couple photos if anyone's interested
Click to expand...

i can tell without looking at the PSU that its absolutely crap

just looking at the specs is sickening:
octigen 500W specs said:
+3,+5V and +12V total output power maximum is 486W
Total output of +3.3V and +5V shall not exceed 275W
this implies the 12V lines can only supply 209W :eek:
Click to expand...

that is not a 500W PSU, that is a 220W PSU rebranded as a 500W PSU
also, they claim its a 500W psu yet it can only supply 486W :confused:
 
I've lost count of the number of times I've said it, but never ever ever buy a poor power supply...
 
Reaper 392 said:
i can tell without looking at the PSU that its absolutely crap

just looking at the specs is sickening:


that is not a 500W PSU, that is a 220W PSU rebranded as a 500W PSU
also, they claim its a 500W psu yet it can only supply 486W :confused:
Click to expand...

hahaha I know what you're saying and completely agree, it's not so much about it being crap though, it's HOW crap..I had a blown power supply I replaced on a friends machine a while ago (HOW it didn't take anything else with it I don't know), the PSU came free with the case he bought, some CiT case. The PSU had absolutely no markings except for the load table. After it had blown I was curious so I discharged it and then opened it up. What I found was scary. Resistor legs touching, worst soldering I've ever seen, surface mount components literally raised OFF the board but still barely touching, and unbranded caps. Literally I wish I'd gotten photos but I'll have to illustrate in paint
RgVFt.png

It also weighed literally nothing, weighed less than a can of coke.
 
So just a quick update, the Octigen power supply I got stopped functioning, it just stopped providing reliable power to my machine. Still worked but machine wouldn't power on most of the time and when it did it would just hang. Knew instantly it was the power supply to ripped it out and ripped it open to have a look. Shockingly bad design in there, and hilarious oversights too. Capacitors with an inch (yes an inch) of leg above the pcb showing, bent around by the wires leaving the psu, GIANT heat sinks, and by giant I mean holy crap, HUGE heatsinks, and funniest of all was a bit of text on the bottom of the pcb showing what ratings the psu was capable of. 250w and 380w. No 500w there xD

What WAS surprising was the power supply for a crappy one wasn't actually that bad, there was input filtering, there were giant coils, but it all went downhill from there.

So I went and bought myself a http://rbmods.com/coolermaster-extreme-power-plus-550w/ but the 500w model for an absolute bargain £26 and my system is actually more stable. I put those crashes down to Windows, but turns out it was the power supply ;D

This power supply feels much better made, looks better, makes a LOT less noise, and I'm quite confident it won't catch fire in a few weeks, as it stays freezing cold no matter what I do to it, unlike the crappy Octigen.

Octigen sucks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom