Absolute bare minimum

Matt

Matt

Oblivion Junky
If someone was absolutely not in a position to afford to buy a name brand power supply, could one use a 350w generic psu for the following sort of system.

MSI K9N Neo nForce 550
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
XFX PV-T73P-UDS Xtreme Edition GeForce 7600GS
512 ram
160gb sata2 7200rpm

I have advised him not to go with this option but he is dead set on running his system on this for now and he will buy somethig beter later on

What can the consequences be?
 
It's very possible that may work out fine. I too wouldn't advise it, but I do believe that the 7600GS requires just a 350wt psu. Granted being a generic brand I wouldn't expect there to be the greatest set of amp ratings but if he's not going to budge then it may be the only way to go. Probably what will happen if something does go wrong is he'll get some lockups, random restarting, or artifacting in games. It is highly unlikely any perminant damage would be caused by this but it's worth keeping that possiblity in mind as there's a lot at stake.
 
A faulty power supply can cause intermittent lockups, rebooting, or even (in very extreme cases), fires. More importantly, and probably more commonly affected, are the power supply capacitors on your motherboard. Those are the big cylindrical components generally located near the CPU. Your CPU doesn't like it when it doesn't get steady, consistent power. These power supply capacitors on the motherboard basically filter out any noise given to them by the power supply. If these capacitors are regularly abused by your power supply, they will wear out faster. When they are dying, you will normally see them start to bulge at the top. This can affect the stability of your system quite dramatically. I have seen this happen with an old Abit board I had run in one of my systems just about constantly for 2.5 years or so. I have it relegated it to a corner of my desk, loaded with windows 95 and all those classic DOS-era games that I am so fanatical about. (Mechwarrior 2 is still the best of the series!). Anyway, basically what happens with it, is it will reboot intermittently - not very often, but it seems more likely to do it when the power in my room fluctuates a bit - the lights dim for a second, and bam! Down goes the legacy box!
Click to expand...
Source:Puget Custom Computers: PC Power Supplies - Will It Give Me More FPS!?
 
Well, the pure 350W are enough, I think (considering that even the 7600GT asks for a PSU w/ 350W in minimum specs). I'm saying this because I have a similar system and it work fine.
 
Depends on the unit. You probably could do it with a quality (FSP, Antec, Enermax) 350W, but I'd be a little leery of a generic unit...Remember that wattage isn't a good indicator, but amperage. If he want's a good budget brand, have him look at Hiper or FSP 350-400W units. Your right that he doesn't need a 600W unit, but trying to go with the lowest wattage PSU isn't a good idea. You don't want to add another hard drive to find out that you don't have enough power or you'll start crashing. Components use more power when in use than at idle, and you need to account for that.
 
i realise all this and i will only use antec, enermax(not liberty), and thermaltake(no so much though) in all the systems i build (these are the only decent names we get regulary supply of in S.A. I wish they brought Hiper here...)

What im asking is if he uses this generic unit untill he can afford a decenct antec basiq or sartpower 400-450w unit, is there a good chance of something happening that can permanantly damage the other components in the system.
 
Generic units, like ones found in a case, typically go with the lowest bidder, like Q-tec, Logisys, Aspire/Apevia, InWin, PowMax, etc. They're not made with good parts and may not even be able to put out the advertised ratings. If the system doesn't get enough power, then you get instability. They could blow up with the first use, or they could last awhile. I am absolutely not confident in generic units. If he values his hardware at all, he should wait to get a decent PSU that will at the very least produce the advertised ratings and use decent capacitors. I can't guarantee that it will be problematic, but I will say you stand a much higher chance of having problems than without. For all I know, it may not even power the system. You get what you pay for. The thing to keep in mind about crappier PSU's is that they have a nasty tendency to take other parts with them when they go, along with putting on a show. Doesn't mean it always happens to them or that you never see it with good brand PSU's, but this tends to be a side effect of low-quality units.

There his parts, but I strongly advise that he not run this system until he has a decent PSU. He's better off to wait for a good PSU than risk having to replace those parts because he couldn't wait for a good PSU.
 
True. best to wait a few more months rather than having some hard saved for componet blow up with a cheap PSU. I'll copy this whole thread and print it for him, just to prove im not a crazy idealist who cant stand generic hardware.

As they say, quote a friends 6 year old sister "patience is a virgin"
 
Somethings you can get away with if there generic, but power supplies aren't one of them. It just depends on where the costs are cut. Getting a cheaper, plain motherboard left with whatever features sported by the chipset and few accessories versus a DFI LanParty or Asus Striker board isn't a bad move. Going with a Club3D Radeon instead of an ATi-build card (thanks to companies using the reference design in many cases) isn't bad either. It all just depends. Like I said, FSP (also, Fortron & Sparkle) or Hiper will probably be your best bets for cheap power supplies that don't use cheap parts.
 
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