psu question

newbiemodder

hi there

another question from a newbie

you know the way you see psu's and they say suitable up to p4 2.4 what does that mean,

does it mean that it won't power a 2.8 p4 or am i mixing this up with p4 fans and cooling

just looking at different cases and psus

thanks

BoB_BoT

to be honest that's an inproper way of labeling psu's. Check to see how much power the psu supplies. 400watts is a good psu and will power your cpu, graphics card, drives and some fans and lights, if you search for threads on psu's in the tech forum you'll come up with loads. Psu's are also judged on their "rails", search for that aswell. I have a 300 watt noname powersupply that was great, it could power my machine no problem. At the moment i'm using a 360 watt chieftec and it could power a p4 no problem. Remember, go by watts and not "suitable up to a p4 2.6"

newbiemodder

thanks for that what does rails mean?

the noisy part of a system is the psu i gather

i like std dells cos they are so quiet

BoB_BoT

there are a good few silent fans and psu's out there, so if you're building a machine it can be very quiet . The rails are how the power is distributed to your machine, I don't know that much about them myself, read here and have a look around the tech/hw teaking forums there's some info about railshere

gl,
Rob

Dempsey

I have an Antec 350W True Blue running my p4 2.8c. No voltage problems. All depends. A good brand 350W is better than a poor brand 450W (e.g Q-TEC)

newbiemodder

i sense antec are good then

the noisest part of a pc is the psu i take it?

what do dell use that make their pcs so noiseless?

thanks

r

Dempsey

The TrueBlue's aint quite but there are one's that are. If they are quite, they will be advertised as silent psu's. Dell's aint quite either, my 8200 is like a hoover

OfflerCrocGod

The Dells in our Uni are totally silent - I don't know how they do it but - in a room with near 40 Dells you can hear a fly fart!.

Col_Loki

A very big ammount of PSU's say "silent" "ultra quiet" etc etc but arent at all.

Generally antecs are quiet PSU's but it depends on load. The quietest one being the 380w single fan model (fitted to the sonata) and it will power high spec rigs.

Some of the quietest PSU's would be Zalman's, be-quiet's, Antec's TruePowers.....

1) If price is a real consideration then you could get a fortron 300/350w (produces much more power than rated for) and mod the 120mm fan to run @ 5v

2) Next up is the be-quiets, very good power supply's and very quiet. They have huge heatsinks (compared with others ive seen) so the fans only need to rotate slowly to cool it...... thus it is much quieter

3) Zalman , a little more expensive but great PSU. Zalman are known for quiet/silent pc products and the PSU's are no exeption.

4) Antec's , said to be one of the best power supply brands (up there with PCP&P) - quiet operation.


be-quiets -> www.hitide.ie
fortrons / Zalman / antec -> www.pc-look.com
Antec's -> www.elara.ie


All of the power supply's above have great rails, and are very good quality.

Hope this helps a little....

Loki

tman

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
The Dells in our Uni are totally silent - I don't know how they do it but - in a room with near 40 Dells you can hear a fly fart!.

yeah, it was the same in my college
bloody weird considering the noise any other dell machine that i've used makes

newbiemodder

hey thanks for all the suggestions not sure what is meant by railing still though!!

so the psu you get with a standard case might not be the best, i bought a case from discount computers in northern ireland, the psu is quite noisy but its a nice case

just getting into all of this, jeez went to emerald.ie where they sell "designer pcs" ah lads the price was something else

as for dells find that a problem that you can't fart when they are in the computer lab, bit of a pain!

Col_Loki

Basicly voltage rails are a measure of the powersupply's voltage output .

Ie you have a 12v rail, a 5v rail, a 3.3v rail etc etc....

The better the power supply the closer the actual voltage output will be to the stated (ie 12v -> 11.96v actual is very very good). Also when the PSU becomes under load, the better quality ones will have stable voltage outputs and wont change much. With lower quality ones the voltage fluctuates and this can lead to ram errors, computer re-boot's etc.
Also the lesser quality models tend to skimp on the heatsink inside the PSU's and thus have to remove more air to keep it cool (ie there will be alot of air comming out and it wont be that hot) and thus is noisier. Better quality ones have big heatsinks to take heat away from vital area's and have lower speed quieter fans cooling it.

For a huge ammount of cases try www.xcase.co.uk , they dont stock any good PSU's (last time i checked) but have a fantastic range of cases.

Enjoy !!

tuxy

Originally posted by newbiemodder

just getting into all of this, jeez went to emerald.ie where they sell "designer pcs" ah lads the price was something else

ya they seem very expensive and the cases they call designer arnt even that expensive to buy seperate

the hardware they use is old. stay well clear of them

newbiemodder

thanks for that, so if i understand correctly power rails are all the little bits that you plug in to power fd hdd etc? are am i totally out

yeah have ordered a case from xcase and that pclook was nice, nice keyboards but they are azerty which is not much good unless you are typing in french

thanks again

r

Woden

Originally posted by tman
yeah, it was the same in my college
bloody weird considering the noise any other dell machine that i've used makes

is it because the colleges use the desktop dells ya know the ones that ya **** the monitor on thats the ones we have, i presume there is only two fans in the system, the cpu one and the psu?

to further Col_loki suggestion i also recommend antec's, my 12v rail for example is at 11.74v. you mightn't think that is very good but i'm sure i've seen reviews of psu's with 12v rails off by nearly a volt and as loki mentioned fluctuation is important. that 11.74v doesn't change weather the computer is 100%load or idle its stable as a mofo.

the 5v rail for example is round 4.89-4.92 this fluctuates but does so regardless of the load so again i consider it very stable.

not sure about the noise from my antec 480w trueblue but i'm don't get very concerned about noise

regards

data

Col_Loki

so if i understand correctly power rails are all the little bits that you plug in to power fd hdd etc? are am i totally out

Sort of..... the power for lets say the "little bits" you plug into your hard drives, cd drives etc comes from the 12v part of the PSU, so its rail is a measure of what the actual voltage comming from the 12v section of the PSU (which filters through to where 12v is required on your mobo - through the connectors), this voltage is constant accross all the little connectors.

The closer the actual rail is to its rated voltage (ie what it should be producing) the better. Generally it is worse to have the voltage over the stated rail than to have it going under (by realitively large ammounts i mean) as you can dammage your equipment if its overvolting.......

newbiemodder

ok kinda getting the picture

now i bought a case a week or two ago just so i could replace the mobo from an olds pc i had into this new case

the old pc was a gateway 2000 p II (i did say it was old) it had a 200wat power supply the new case had a 300wat or 350wat psu

there's no danger of blowing the mobo or anything else is there?

Dempsey

The board should fit. IS that motherboard and PSU ATX Form Factor? Can anyone answer that one.

If they are NON-ATX then you cannot use the New PSU because the wiring is different on the power connector for the motherboard. Nothing to do with the Power Rating of the PSU.

If it is ATX Form Factor then your fine the PSU will give the Power as the Motherboard demanded it. the PSU will probably use 200W of its 350W ability. If ya add more drives or something the PSU could be pushed to give 250W

newbiemodder

Dempsey

since i am new to this i used a saw, some double sided sticky tape and a hammer and to answer your question yes the board now fits

ah its working grand execpt its an old pc with windows 98 and only 64mb ram, may put linux on it or something else and run it as an mp3 server for the up and coming network i will build sometime in the not so distant future when i have all my other mad cap ideas finished

:ninja:

Dempsey

Originally posted by newbiemodder
Dempsey

since i am new to this i used a saw, some double sided sticky tape and a hammer and to answer your question yes the board now fits :ninja:

Good Man

Your using the new PSU? Did the screwholes line up with the board? What was the problem, the I/O Backplate?

newbiemodder

actually attaching the expresso maker mon!

nah it works grand just had work to do one night and said feck that and decided to try to transfer everything across from old case to this new case so i did

it worked now will try to see what was on the computers hdd as i have not used it in ages

any recommendations on an os that would work which is not windoze
its a pii 450 i think with 64mb ram

at this stage you will say DOS!

Dempsey

Get more ram and i would recommend Windows 2k Pro
With that i recommend Win98SE or go to linux

newbiemodder

any particular version of linux that you would recommend

what about lindows

Dempsey

Wouldn't know about Linux, maybe someone could recommend ya there