PSU Advice Please...

kaleycoops

kaleycoops

kaleycoops

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Joined
1 Dec 2005
Posts
42
Hi guys I wrote on here the other day about no power coming from my PSU. Well I was moving it about last night and connected it and got a little crackeling from it, but it still didnt work. I am considering opening it. But I am not sure if I should. I am looking to buy a new power supply, the ones on certain sites are no less then £30 and thats without delivery, however there are some of the same w-age on ebay.

The model of the PSU is fsp-250-60GTV
Its 250w
The AC input is :230v-5A 50Hz if that makes any sence.

So my question is can I buy and 250w PSU.

My pc has a floppy drive, a cd rewriter and a dvd rom. It also uses SATA.

Please guys any help from you will make me so happy, thanks... :)
 
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first things first - remove the references to OcUK's competitors ;)

next - I'd not advise you to try and open up a PSU, that can be pretty dangerous if you dont know what you are doing.

finally - I'd probably look at more than 250W even on a pretty low-end system. You can pick up decent 300-400W PSU's for a reasonable price these days :)
 
Depends on your motherboard, cpu and graphics card. If it is fairly new/decent kit i doubt even a good 250w psu will cope with it and i wouldnt recommend anything less then 350w really anyway. You might have to pay a little bit more but you just need to think to yourself would you prefer to pay £60 on a PSU and have a stable/safe system or spend £20 on a PSU and have an unstable system and run the risk of it blowing and destroying the rest of your kit as well.
 
HI guys thanks for the input, see I got my pc back in college, its a few years old now, it was top of the line when I got it, 2.4cpu, 512RAM, 64MB g-force4 graphics card, 80 hard disk. So thats why it has that psu. But get this I have found the identical model on a particular auction site so I think that should be ok, see I dont ind spending more cash but I am not sure if it is defo the psu... So the same one should work shouldnt it...
 
No higher W doesnt mean it will put more power into your system, just that your system will have a bigger "pool" of power to draw from. If your system only requires say 250W at full load then a 350w psu will only put out 250w.

Hope that clears it up a little bit. basically you want a PSU that has a higher potential output then what your system requires, that way if you add any new bits it will still run ok and you wont be running on the edge of your PSU's max output. Personally i always look at what protection circuits the PSU offers too. Some cheaper ones might be able to put out close to the same power as a more expensive one but it might have very little protection against power surges, over volting which could damage your whole system. (i have seen PSU's blow and destroy everything in the PC).
 
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Well let me explain what happened, I opened up my pc and it was covered with dust so I used an air duster to clean it, when I reconnected it, there was no power. I spoke to someone and they said air duster spray at extreme force and could have loosened a wire with the psu. It does sound this was to me as there seems to be some crackeling from the unit, like a wire is loose, if that makes any sence. Thing is I dotn want to spend big amounts of cash as I want to get another pc soon anyway and have two rather then adding my current hard disk with my new PC. Thanks for the info on the power of the psu. Ill prob post when I get it if that doesnt work lol, I managed to find the identical model of PSU for only £5.99... I hope this works. Hey I might even put up a request for spec my PC lol... ;)
 
kaleycoops said:
I managed to find the identical model of PSU for only £5.99... I hope this works. Hey I might even put up a request for spec my PC lol... ;)
Click to expand...

i know people have said this already but I'll say it again!

ONLY BUY A CHEAP PSU IF YOU ARE PREPARED TO ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES!

You may have lost your psu this time and its annoying to have to replace it - but if you buy another cheap psu to replace it and things goes wrong again, then NEXT TIME YOU MAY BE REPLACING YOUR WHOLE COMPUTER!

By all means go ahead an buy that psu - it may be fine. But if it isn't then you should understand that it MAY cause IRREPAIRABLE DAMAGE to the REST OF YOUR MACHINE, if the psu fails again!
 
Yeah I know what your saying and you are right but I have had this machine for nearly over 4 years with no trouble, the only reason it has gone like that is beacuse I was stupid enough to spray the air duster directly into the fan end of the PSU. I admit that is stupid, but I am considering now if to go for a higher w...
 
I'm not trying to scare you into spending more money :)

Just making sure that you are aware of the importance of a GOOD PSU! :)

As I say - it MAY be fine and then you've only spent £5 or so.

BUT if things went wrong and you lost your motherboard and cpu (for example), would you be annoyed at yourself for not spending say £30-40 on a better PSU?

No one can say what's going to happen in the future - even the most expensive PSU's can go wrong - its just that in GENERAL, good PSU's fail less often than cheap ones, and when they fail, they fail in a less catastrophic way than a cheap one might!

I can't tell you that the £5 PSU won't be any good - because i just don't know that for certain.

I'm just trying to let you know the way PSU's work and what the risks are.

hope it helps you decide one way or the other :)
 
If you think you're saving money, think again. Sod's law is that the PSU will fail, damaging the rest of the components. I've seen this for other hobbies, ie save a few quid with a cheap servo or don't bothter with failsafe, if fails and slams into a brick wall trashing £800 model car.
 
It's not wasting money

Think about it, your saying your computer is old now and you don't want to spend money on it.. OK that's all well and good. But the thing is if you decide to upgrade or build a whole new machine your gonna need to buy a better PSU then anyway. If you get a good PSU just now, you can take it with you when you do eventually upgrade or do a new build.
Also if your the kind of person that doesn't like to tinker inside their machine too much and just buys ready built systems, chances are the PSU will be some cheap ass oem free with the case jobbie.
 
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