Can I find the "Wattage" of my PowerSupply?

F

Forky

Geek Trainee
Hi, I have downloaded everest home edition and ran a test to see my hardware profiles, that's an amazing program and answered most of my questions, but I don't see anything in the 90 page report that says the wattage of my power supply. I've opened my pc and there are no stickers or info on my power supply which says the how many watts it has. I searched on google but haven't been able to find out how I could check the wattage of my power supply either. I also looked in the bios but didn't see anything.

Is there any way I can check this either in windows or with some type of program? Thanks in advance for any help with this.
 
You can't find out the model of your PSU from software, so you're going to have to try and find it on your PSU. If you can't then its probably a generic type.
 
Hi Addis, thank you. Well you mentioned that I can't find the "model" of my power supply through software, but how about the wattage or power info? I'm not so much concerned about how manufactured it as much as I am how much max power it has. Any suggestions or ways I can find that info out some way? TIA
 
You'll have to open up the computer and check. The info should be on a label right on the power supply. It'll give you a list of the 3.3, 5, and 12V (usually both + and - rails), the Amperage of each, and the total wattage amount. This is in addition to the wattage rating it may have.
 
man, between you big b and addis you both knock out from what I see the majority of responses on this forum. You're both to the point and friendly as well. This stuff is very tough to find on the web as so much other junk comes up. I didn't see any sticker at all on my power supply when I opened my PC this morning, but i'll check again.


I do have one question though. The reason i'm asking this info is my PC is about 2 and 1/2 years old. It was made by a guy who had a small company in my area but he isn't that good anymore. My PC is fine for the most part but if I see a solid deal on something for example this Power supply from MAD DOG that is Free After Rebates in Compusa for the next four days.

It's a 350w POWER Supply here: http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=315200&pfp=SEARCH


Being that my pc was built almost 3 years ago I'm just guessing that mine isn't as powerful, however, from the google searching i've done it appears some of the lower powered power supplies hold their own, but i'd rather ask here.

Being that this thing is Free After Rebates, would it be worth it for me to take mine out and put this in? I mean it is after all "FREE" and you can't get much better than that. But my dilemma is that nothing seems wrong with my current power supply so at the least i'm thinking I can keep this around in case I need it in the future or in case something does go wrong.

Whaddya think?
 
I'm not really too sure on MadDog products as a whole. For some stuff, like optical drives and sound cards, they're cheap and not the highest quality you can buy, but they serve the purpose. When it comes to power supplies, I tend to get a little picky. I've tried looking up the info with Google, and finding the amps doesn't seem to be listed. One one hand it's got a peak output of 400W, but they do list it as a 350W unit. I don't know the weight of it, but if it feels fairly heavy, that's a good sign as it's an indicator of them using lots of components for good, clean power.
 
BigB, thank you once again. Well since my last post I decided to just take my power supply out and see if I could find the wattage anywhere, and sure enough there was a sticker on the "right" side which was pressed against the case so I couldn't see it unless you take out the PS as I did.

To my surprise, my current Power Supply is "450W", which I did not expect as I got this almost three years ago. Here's the thing though, the current 450W power supply works fine but it is obviously generic. I was thinking of making some upgrades to my motherboard and Ram, maybe even a better video card.

The Mad Dog power supply has an additional Fan "2 Fans in Total" and is much heavier then my current Power Supply. So by your assessment, the Mad Dog power supply is using good clean power, right? The mad dog uses 2 bearing fans which I am not familiar with. I don't know what the one I use now uses but I don't think it is bearing.

I guess the question I am asking is whether I should take out my my powerful "generic" light weight power supply and replace it with the more heavy, less power 350W Mad Dog Power supply?

Any thoughts or advice on this?
 
Probably better. Probably. Again, without knowning the amps on the rails, weight is at best a good indicator. You could probably test it with a multimeter and figure it out, but you might wanna ask someone a little bit more knowledgable about that stuff. I used to know how to do it up, but I can't remember how to now. I don't know if MadDog actually makes their own products or rebrands them, and I suspect the latter based on other products I've seen by them that look an awful lot like a few other units from other vendors.
 
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