Dunno how powerfull my psu is

[Blis]

Ok noob question,

Is there anyway to find out how powerfull my psu is other than taking it out and looking?

I want to get a new graphics card but i dont know if my psu will be able to handle it.

[FozzyBear]

Might say on the back of it :dunno:

[Shadowryche]

Been in my experience that if you've already got a graphics card, your computer should be able to accomidate another. Unless of course your going from say a GeForce 3 to say maybe a GeForce 6600. But that is probably not the case.

Should your computer have trouble once you do upgrade though, it really isn't expensive or difficult to replace the PSU. Just four screws and plugging cables in the right place. If you need a new power supply make sure you get at least a 450w.

[Blis]

I would be going from a 6200 to a 7800GS+(which i think is a 7900 adapted for agp) although my computer originally came with a radeon 9800. But i've also added an extra hd and dvd drive.

I just wanted to check because one of the customer reviews said it made his 450watt go bang.

dont know anything about power suplly issues except i cant afford a new one plus the card so i figured i should make sure i've not got a really crap one first.

I'll just open it up and have a look.

------

Damn its a 250 watt.Think i should give the new card a miss ?

this is it http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=42J3&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,42220000&InMerch=1&v=1#infoarea

[Shadowryche]

That isn't a propriotary machine is it? Gods above! I wouldn't trust a 250w on any modern hardware.

If your computer is propriotary (Dell, HP, etc etc) you may want to make sure that a new PS will mount up first.

But definately yeah, your gonna want to upgrade your PS before you upgrade your video card. Also worth noting, make sure your PS doesn't say 250//500w as I've seen some do lately. That PS might be rated for 500w just misunderstood.

[StevenNevets]

your gonna want to upgrade your PS before you upgrade your video cardexactly...
and you can always go with a 6600/6800... should be cheap enough for you to get a psu you too

If not you should wait till you get more money

[Blis]

That isn't a propriotary machine is it? Gods above! I wouldn't trust a 250w on any modern hardware.

Yeah its a dell so i dont want to throw too much money at it if you know what i mean. I should have enough cash to build myself a new one in about 6 months.

I was thinking. I've got an old 486 sitting about some where.

Do you reckon i could use its PS to power my vid card?

Keep it outside the case but run a power cable in the back.

[KAstickboy]

I was thinking. I've got an old 486 sitting about some where.

Do you reckon i could use its PS to power my vid card?

Keep it outside the case but run a power cable in the back.

That is the exact definition of Ghetto rigging! HAHAHA! :rofl:

KA

[Shadowryche]

Yeah its a dell so i dont want to throw too much money at it if you know what i mean. I should have enough cash to build myself a new one in about 6 months.

I was thinking. I've got an old 486 sitting about some where.

Do you reckon i could use its PS to power my vid card?

Keep it outside the case but run a power cable in the back.

Uhmm... From a hardware standpoint I suppose that would work. Considering those old AT PSU's used a plunger switch, it would be easier than using an ATX PSU. I'm sure the power supply would be sufficient enough to accomidate your video card.

Just take great caution in not breaking the insulation on the wires going into the case to your video card. Providing any juice even to the case of the computer even by mistake can actually be detrimental to the machine.

FWIW: I have actually seen cases modified to accomidate a second power supply in the bottom in recent years. Namely a friend of mine here in Michigan who had something like 16 hard drives mounted in one of them old school tower cases. He installed the plunger switch just below the normal power button. Last time I talked to him, he's got close to 3tb worth of hard drives. Tends to upgrade with the times. One of them types with far to much money to blow.

[StevenNevets]

KAstickboy']That is the exact definition of Ghetto rigging! HAHAHA! :rofl:

KAnaa I've seen people opening cases and sticking *real* fans next to it:slap:

Not sure about that Blis

[Shadowryche]

naa I've seen people opening cases and sticking *real* fans next to it:slap:

Not sure about that Blis

Whats bad is people not willing to buy a "real fan" and mounting four 120mm 10k rpm fans on the side of their case. Dang thing would blow the cat off the table.

[KAstickboy]

Dang thing would blow the cat off the table.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: I can just see kitty scratchin at the table tryin to get some grip! AHAHAHAHA!

KA - BTW, i like cats...

[sir_digalot]

i often wondered what the implications of runnig a second power supply to poer things like graphics cards are... bearing in mind that the graphics card does receive power from the pci/AGP/PCI-e slot anyway, and the additional power is because the bus cannot supply enough power to the card... now in a normal setep the supply is supplying all the power, and if you use a second supply for peripherals like hd's and such then they are pretty much self contained (only receive power from the connector not the mb itself, so, my thinking is what is the implications of adding the second supply to a peripheral that is already receiving power from a different source, and would this cause an issue with the eceltronics and shorten the life of the card, or one of the power supplies, obviously the 2 sources are not seperate on the peropheral and althouhg dc does nt really have a phase issue there is the possibility of additional current being drawn through one device over the other which could cause problems later...

the funny thing was i realised a little while back after a got my new psu that my old one was only 250w, it managed to power my p4 with cd and dvd burners, (both running) 2 hd's a full pci bus ( luckily only 3 slots) and a 9800 pro i was very suprised the thing did not flake out on me...

i gave that to my wife with her 1.8 p4 and a 9250 as she does not use her pc for much other then web surfing...

[Gruthar]

Err, does the 7800GS not run entirely off of AGP power? What I mean is, does it have a plug for a power connector?

If you're gonna use that 486 PSU, it would probably be easier to connect your hard drives/optical drives to it. Dunno how many you have total, but each of those is worth around 25W or so. You mentioned adding an extra DVD/Hard drive, so I'll assume you have 2 of each. If you run all of those on the 486 PSU you'll be taking about 100W or so off of the current PSU. I don't know how much power the 7800GS draws, but, subtracting from its consumption that of your current card, it'll almost certainly be far less than 100W.

That said, you should probably just do it 'right' and wait until you have enough for both a new PSU and a new card. If your current PSU really is 250W, it's probably pretty damn near its limit now.

[sir_digalot]

i thought the 7800 does have a power plug... the 6600 does, agp gives you what 75W of power throught the bus? any more then that and you need bigger warp engines

[sir_digalot]

my badit is 46 watts for the agp bus not 75

[Gruthar]

i often wondered what the implications of runnig a second power supply to poer things like graphics cards are... bearing in mind that the graphics card does receive power from the pci/AGP/PCI-e slot anyway, and the additional power is because the bus cannot supply enough power to the card... now in a normal setep the supply is supplying all the power, and if you use a second supply for peripherals like hd's and such then they are pretty much self contained (only receive power from the connector not the mb itself, so, my thinking is what is the implications of adding the second supply to a peripheral that is already receiving power from a different source, and would this cause an issue with the eceltronics and shorten the life of the card, or one of the power supplies, obviously the 2 sources are not seperate on the peropheral and althouhg dc does nt really have a phase issue there is the possibility of additional current being drawn through one device over the other which could cause problems later...


Ah, beat me to the punch. I can't say for sure what'll happen if two PSUs are used to power the same card - I've never tried it. I'll gladly speculate and say that there'll most likely be no problems. But my reason for wiring up the peripherals on the 486 PSU- aside from it being safe, self-contained, and the drives will just idle - is that the secondary power connector on the video card probably won't use all that much power, so that not only would it waste the added power of the 486 PSU, but the main PSU may still be overloaded by the card - I have no idea if the current video card has maxed out the AGP's power supply or not.

[Gruthar]

i thought the 7800 does have a power plug... the 6600 does, agp gives you what 75W of power throught the bus? any more then that and you need bigger warp engines

It probably does have power plug. :dunno:

Back in the day, my Radeon 9700 (basically a 9500 pro with 256 bit mem interface) needed a plug, but the 9600XT did not. I don't know how efficient the 7800GS is, or if it's been downclocked or whatever. I probably could look it up, but, meh...

[sir_digalot]

i think it does from what i have read

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/bfg_geforce_7800_gs_agp/

[Blis]

Thanks for all the replies. +rep to everyone who it will let me

What you saying seems to make good sense to me.Less risky to hook it up to my dvd drives.

If i go down this route i'll probably do that.

My rad 9800 needed a plug but my 6200 doesnt.I just assumed thats because my 9800 had a fan and my current card doesnt(the extra power being for the fan) but admittedly that assumptions is based on no actual knowledge of anything(i'm a noob).

I'm startin to think maybe my meager PS plus all the stuff i added was responsible for my last cards problems.I'm pretty sure it was regular overheating that caused the damage.

If I go ahead with this i'll make sure to post some pics of my "ghetto rig" :)

[Gruthar]

Is that old card of yours fried for sure? Had I known about the PSU being kinda weak... those artifacts may've been caused by the PSU and not the card dying. The card may actually still be good. :(

[Blis]

hmm, food for thought. I might try hooking it up again along with a second PSU. I'm think i prolly fried it though because at first it wasnt that bad so long as i didnt play games.But i kept playing css and it got worse and worse until i couldnt even use it to browse the internet.