PSU gone pop?

julianhj

julianhj

julianhj

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I put my desktop PC on this morning, used it for a bit, then pottered around the house. On my return, the PC was off, and refused to switch back on.

I have a six year old Tagan 400W PSU, and I suspect this has given up the ghost. I tried the power cable on an amplifier, and found the fuse has blown. I tried a working cable with the PSU - no luck.

So, I need a new PSU, but I don't want to spend a bundle (six year old system, not massively power-hungry) so can anyone point me in the direction of the current flavour of the month for budget(ish) PSUs? When I last considered a new system around a year ago, BeQuiet seemed to be where the sensible money was going - is that still the case?

Finally, is there likely to be any consequential damage to the rest of my system?
 
Well if the fuse went then maybe you got lucky. Either way you are going to need a new psu to be able to establish what is and isn't working. It is worth posting the specs of your computer because although unlikely it is possible that you 400w tagan psu didn't have enough juice. Use this wattage calculator to work out roughly how many watts you will need, bear in mind that calculator is nearly always a worst case scenario it is nigh on impossible to completely load every component under normal usage.

Next thing you need to decide is whether to go for modular cabling or non modular.

For non modular I would go for Corsair 400w CX. As it always gets good reviews and is considered as far as I know the budget psu. It is also on offer this week :).

If you want a modular one then the Antec Basiq 550w is usually considered your best budget bet that won't blow up your computer.

If you are on a budget and just wanted a stable psu that offers a reasonable amount wattage for a standard desktop setup I think those are the two that most people would recommend.

Obviously if you are willing to spend around the £65+ mark you can get some very quiet psus that offer modular cabling, more wattage and ampage and often better efficiency. Just a question of what you want really. I got a CM whisper quiet M or something psu. 600w, decent ampage on a single 12v rail plus an amazingly quiet fan. I got that because I am more fussed about noise than anything else.
 
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Cheers! Are the above options likely to be quite noisy? My Tagan was certainly not quiet, so it's not a top priority.

Furthermore, thinking ahead to when my P4 3.0Ghz eventually goes pop, what is the minimum recommended wattage for mid-range systems? I'm not a gamer, and never will be, but I don't want to upgrade the PSU again if the MoBo or CPU packs up next (or were killed when the Tagan blew)...
 
If you're not a gamer then the Corsair will be fine for any 'mid-range' system, even with a Quad core, lots of hard drives, DVD drives etc. It's also pretty quiet as they use a decent fan.
 
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