P4 Power Requirements

cgarvey

In the process of getting a P4 2.GHz and Asus P4C800. Are there any guidlines/rules of thumb for PSU requirements?

The m/b manual says 230-300, I have a 250W, will that do?

TIA

.cg

Col_Loki

Think the recomended for a P4 system is 300watt's - AFAIK. Mite be a bit dodgy using a 250w one. - See what the other guys have to say. Just as a BTW its not a dell PSU is it??

Creamy Goodness

why not get a 400w then your set they're cheap enough

BigEejit

I'd say 250W is a bit low ... and you will definitely be in trouble if you use a powerful graphics card or a few cd drives/hard drives

cgarvey

Well the gear has arrived, and lo and behold, there is a power problem!!! It powers up for < 1/2 a second and just goes back to standby. Interestingly, the standby/power LED on the m/b stays lit all the time. That's with just a graphics card, no drives attached. So off I go to get a better PSU. (It wasn't a Dell BTW!)

cheers

.cg

Col_Loki

I would pay a little extra and get a 380w or 400w, means you can use that one in the future.

Carnate

P4 2gig and above really requires a 350+ watt power supply

i have a 520 watt! Just in case, and the rule of thumb always get

x2 the recommended power supply as you will be adding extra

hardware.


There is a downside tho the higher the wattage the noiser the

psu gets unless u get the "quiet" psu.

RicardoSmith

Since the shuttle systems have a 200w PSU and you can stick a 3ghz into them why do you all think you need mega power supplies? The problem usually is not the amount of power but the quality of the power it produces. A crap 1000w PSU would likely give you problems whereas a good quality 250w would be fine.

Generally people have dire quality PSU's that they get from some yellow pack PC maker from god only knows where.

rabbitinlights

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=24474&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=10&GrpID=10&s=sr

Would the above be good enough for the following:

P4 2.6Ghz 800Mhz
Abit IC-7
1024Mb DDR Dimm
Skyhawk Case

Also do those Cold cathode lights use much?
Sean

xen

Check how much current is required for each voltage rating.

I know people that have had smaller power supplies work over so called "bigger" power supplies.

Dooom

just out of curiosity - would q-tec psu's be considered good? or crap? or moderate?

Col_Loki

Think the fact that it has a brand name is a start anyway. You can generally get a good idea by the weight of it. Have an Antec True power True Blue 480watt and its about twice the weight of my old 350watt no-name PSU. Granted it was about 5 times the price , but its all relative.

Carnate

Originally posted by rabbitinlights
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=24474&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=10&GrpID=10&s=sr

Would the above be good enough for the following:

P4 2.6Ghz 800Mhz
Abit IC-7
1024Mb DDR Dimm
Skyhawk Case

Also do those Cold cathode lights use much?
Sean

Tbh No, in my experience of building pc's you always over compensate for power.


Yes the cathode tube use energy but its small relative to other hardware

you can find what power is required for a any device, but i cant remember where, maybe some of the other posters may know..tired atm brain fuzzy.

RicardoSmith

Qtec and Antec seem to be decent PSU's.

Gerry

Absolutely Ricardo. I think a lot of hardware sites are a bit shocked by the fact that shuttle pc's seem to work fine with 200w psu's. Not many of them are saying anything though.
I think the problem with this 250w psu may be that it doesn't have the 12v AUX power lead ( an extra lead which plugs into a square connector, 4 pins ). Thats whats making the machine power down. A 250w psu with that lead would work fine, the graphics card uses 3.3v line normally and p4 cpu voltage regulators use 12v and 5v ( mostly 12v ).

cgarvey

Spot on Gerry, top marks

Sorted now. Mind you with 3 graphics cards, 2 cd/dvd and 2 hdd, plus a couple of powered USB devices, 250W probably wouldn't be up to it.

.cg

Gerry

3 graphics cards!!! you still got a 3dfx or something?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by cgarvey
Spot on Gerry, top marks

Sorted now. Mind you with 3 graphics cards, 2 cd/dvd and 2 hdd, plus a couple of powered USB devices, 250W probably wouldn't be up to it.

.cg

Err that might be asking a bit much. You can't stuff that much in a Shuttle of course. But then again my AMD K7 terminator has a CD and a CDRW 2xHDS, a floppy, modem, SCSI card, (sound/VGA/LAn are all on the motherboard) a power hungry 1Ghz Athlon, all on a 150W. Very stable, running 98/XP and Mandrake 9.1.