350 watt PSu - how many devices?

Discussion in 'Power Supplies and UPS's' started by Emu, Aug 10, 2004.

  1. Emu

    Emu Geek Trainee

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    Sorry for all the threads lately...

    I have an antec 350 watt power supply and i'm wondering how many devices it can support..

    its powering
    -an NF7 mobo
    -2500+ AMD (which i heard use a lot of power)..
    -2 hard drives
    -1 CD burner

    If i add a second optical drive (DVD), would that be pushing it?
     
  2. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    Off a 350W Sparkle PSU, which are on par with Antec---but less flashy, I run the following:

    Athlon XP 2400+
    Radeon 9600XT
    3 IDE hard drives
    1 SCSI hard drive
    2 optical drives
    5 80mm fans
    2 PCI cards
    cold cathode

    Personally, I'd say you're fine. If you were asking about a GeForce 6800, I'd say to look at something beefier, but not for an optical or hard drive. They use some power, but it's not major and you've got a good PSU.
     
  3. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

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    I had an antec 350W before and the only thing that made me buy a new one is my 9800 Pro.

    I also have 5 extra fans.

    You should be fine.
     
  4. Emu

    Emu Geek Trainee

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    Ok, thanks for the help... i have that same vid card and was wondering that it might take a lot of power.. but i guess not...

    Thanks guys.

     
  5. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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  6. Tim Wiseman

    Tim Wiseman Geek Trainee

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    Hi there,

    I would say you should be fine on a 350W PSU, but to be honest, it all depends on the quality of the PSU as much as the claimed Wattage. I have a 650Watt PSU and it gives lots of problems (Bluescreens when I insert ANYTHING PnP).

    From my experince, I have had lots of problems which were down to a low wattage, or poor quality PSU. Main ones being a reluctancy to power on after a reboot (this is because it 'trips' the PSU out if you are near the power limit- it will come back to life after ten minutes). Also a lot of hard drive problems, mainly "delayed Write Failed" which is a bad sign!

    If you are really bothered then if you search google, there are lots of websites which you can use to calculate it. I think some of the PSU manufacturers have some, but cant remember which.

    Like I said though, the quality of the output is as important as the output rating in terms of system stability.
     
  7. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

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    Excellent point. Yes, a quality PSU is much better than a generic one. A PSU should be reasonably heavy. Some cheapo PSU's are very light, and that's bad because there are less components inside to provide a steady stream of clean power to the devices.
     

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