Is there a way to know if a computer power supply is not powerful enough? Can the computer tell you internally how much is being drawn or if it is not getting enough?

Thanks for your help,

speedfreak227

the best way is to measure your voltages under load (with a multimeter dont trust anything your mobo sensors tell you)

No,your computer cant show it to you.
Why you are asking about it?Going to upgrade/build new PC and dont know how much power PSU you need?

To measure how much draw your PC is possible with watmetter which can be plügged between the PC and wall socket.

1 way to tell if is your computer shuts down on you (happened to me, replaced the supply with a more powerful one and worked fine)

Quote from DEVIL 007 :

No,your computer cant show it to you.
Why you are asking about it?Going to upgrade/build new PC and dont know how much power PSU you need?

To measure how much draw your PC is possible with watmetter which can be plügged between the PC and wall socket.

Eeeeer! Wrong! -Fail.

Quote :

To measure how much draw your PC is possible with watmetter which can be plügged between the PC and wall socket.

^^ testing on that side of the transformer only gives mains input current.
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@ OP, I own a 220V 'griparound' ampmeter,
This kind>

its handy for reading 'current'.eddys on a house mains system to check load on different circuits but I dont know if a 24v model exists.

As you know THE ONLY way of checking current/amps is to break that circuit and place your ampmeter 'on that cricuit'> gives current reading, so its chop-chop or buy some nice tools m8

Handy little PC power supply calculator. Gives a pretty god estimation of what you should need
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Or just get one of those 600W power supplies. Should be plenty anyway. And, they aren't really that expensive either.

yes, but a really cheap 600w PSU is not the answer to all your problems.

Moral is - never cheap out on a PSU or a mobo!

Quote from Xaid0n :

1 way to tell if is your computer shuts down on you (happened to me, replaced the supply with a more powerful one and worked fine)

This is the situation I'm in now, that's why i suspect that's my problem.

speedfreak227

There are general rule of thumb calculators on the net, though not 100% correct, give you a general idea. But it is always better to buy a bigger and better PSU then you need for a few reasons, two being 1, it uses less power (If your PC needs 300watts, and you use a 300watt PSU, it'll be running full load all the time, if you get a 1,200watt PSU it'll only be 1/4 load, so runs cooler and draws less power to get the required output) 2, if you want to upgrade your PSU will have the balls.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

it uses less power (If your PC needs 300watts, and you use a 300watt PSU, it'll be running full load all the time, if you get a 1,200watt PSU it'll only be 1/4 load, so runs cooler and draws less power to get the required output)

thats wrong actually as psus usually have the best efficiency around the 80% load mark and lose quite considerably to either side of that ... so in other words if you care about efficiency and buying a "green" psu
a) buy one that fits your load
b) dont buy any of the overclocker market psus as they tend to be black

thats a pretty typical graph:
http://www.planet3dnow.de/arti ... 006/highend/img/41_09.png
load on x and efficiency on y

Quote from Shotglass :

thats wrong actually as psus usually have the best efficiency around the 80% load mark and lose quite considerably to either side of that ... so in other words if you care about efficiency and buying a "green" psu
a) buy one that fits your load
b) dont buy any of the overclocker market psus as they tend to be black

thats a pretty typical graph:
http://www.planet3dnow.de/arti ... 006/highend/img/41_09.png
load on x and efficiency on y

Hmm, different to what PC P&C told me (though reading it again, I think I got the wrong end of the stick), but then not the first time I was fooled by the lies.

The colour of the PSU doesn't really make any difference so point B is moot.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Hmm, different to what PC P&C told me (though reading it again, I think I got the wrong end of the stick), but then not the first time I was fooled by the lies.

thats not necessarily wrong as their example means some 75% load on the bigger psu compared to 100% on the smaller one
efficiency only really drops if you massively overspec your psu like in your example with 25% load on the psu

Quote :

The colour of the PSU doesn't really make any difference so point B is moot.

read it again some 4 or 5 times maybe you get it then

It is totally over my head, unless it is meant to be some sort of black guy joke (and even then I don't get it), I don't get it. Too much drinking beer and staying up all night watching all three Terminator movies (did you know the third one didn't have a token black guy in it?).

Finding the right power supply is tricky with so many out there. I would recommend going for a 600w psu for a normal system. Unless you are going to be running quad processors with sli, 600w should be plenty of juice for your pc. All modern hi end graphics cards have a minimum 450w psu recommendation on them but I don't quite know how to read into that. Honestly I've never tried to find out, I just always bought a psu few hundred watts over what they recommend.

I bought this psu when I was building a computer for a friend of mine. It was a nice psu with a very quiet fan. A worthy investment as psu is the core of any system. I would strictly avoid buying a cheap one as this may hurt you later on when your pc suddenly BLOWS UP. I once used a psu that came with the case and about a year later I started to develop problems, when I actually checked the voltages via the motherboard sensors ( i know they aren't too reliable) i had the +12V running at 14V and pc was seriously unstable. Bought a new one and no problems ever since and I am still using that same system....

mad

my super overclocked CPU and graphics card all quit comfortably work on a 580w Hiper (not that good of a PSU), so a quality 550 or 600 will do you fine

You can run a Core Duo chip with a x1950xt / 7900xt perfectly fine on a good 300W powersupply. Recently some people managed to draw 600Watts for their pc. It had:

- Two amd Fx74 dualcore processors (i.e. no quad core single cpu, those are likely to be more efficient)
- two 8800GTX cards
- the usual rest

When they put those cards in a Core duo (or was it a quad core..) the load already dropped to 500W. How many people are crazy enough to get TWO 8800GTX cards? With one you'd be looking at 380W, and that would be a top of the line pc!

Check a list of configurations here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page4.html

The Pendium D 950 is a hotter chip than todays dual core ones, and the x1950xtx is a pretty hot card. Total power drawn? 256W.

If you focus on brands:
- Fortron
- Enhance
- Seasonic

you'll find their 300W powersupplies to outperform MANY of the 500 / 600 / 700W rated cheap models.

Powersupplies is one of those areas where marketing and lack of legislation made everything go beserk..

550watt psu(power supply unit) : 50€
then you olso can go for 650watt, and the'll look like this:
http://www.techsolo.com/produc ... _supply/TP_400W/index.php

i got a vid card that requires a minimum of 300watt psu...
good card tho and cheap:
msi 7600gtx 185€
512mb ram and 1 hell of a card

u call 185€ cheap?
i want ur money

a 7600GT uses about 35 Watts. I don't know if there even is a GTX version but it won't be a lot more..

Quote from Niels Heusinkveld :

a 7600GT uses about 35 Watts. I don't know if there even is a GTX version but it won't be a lot more..

gs serie xcuse me
it was a xmas present
alltho, i'm saving bout 400€ for a new pc
allready got 300€ from this year

Quote from The Moose :

Handy little PC power supply calculator. Gives a pretty god estimation of what you should need
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

According to that, my power supply is 100W short of turning my PC on. Works fine though...

back to ME ME ME ME ME and MY PROBLEM:haha:

i bought a 600W power supply to replace my 350W supply today. I've been playing warcraft all afternoon and not one crash or lockup. the problem seems to be solved.

all are happy and i'm kinda drunk.

goodnight to all,

Steve

Quote from Bob Smith :

According to that, my power supply is 100W short of turning my PC on. Works fine though...

Yeah, I really don't put any stock in those silly calculators at all.

Here are some numbers from AnandTech on some very high end systems running a single 8800 GTX with various CPU's.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch ... owdoc.aspx?i=2933&p=9

speedfreak: Glad to hear your problem is fixed. Now don't tell me you were playing WoW instead of LFS...