Building PC. Need advice. (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Jacobson]

Well, this computer I was going to build was for my parents, because their old one was having problems. I reinstalled Windows on it for them and got the old one working, so they said they didn't need the new one. (That was a few months ago.) But now they've decided to go ahead and get the new one again.

I'm still a bit confused about all of the power supply rails. If I just get a 450W power supply, will that be okay? Or are there certain 450W power supplies that wouldn't have enough power on a certain rail?

Here is my revised list of components:

- AMD Athlon XP 2600+ "Barton", 333MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor – Retail
- ASUS "A7N8X-E Deluxe" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL
- Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 – OEM (x2)
- ATI RADEON 9000 Video Card, 64MB DDR, TV-Out, 4X AGP, -OEM
- Hauppauge PCI TV/FM Tuner Card, Model "WinTV-dbx(WINTV401)" -RETAIL
- Hitachi 120GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model HDS722512VLSA80, OEM Drive Only
- Lite-On 16X DVD Dual Drive, Model SOHW-1633S Beige, Retail
- Microsoft Windows XP HOME Edition With Service Pack 2 -OEM
- Samsung Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model SFD321B/LBL1, OEM Drive Only
- 56K modem, Mouse, Keyboard
- Possibly an HDTV card in the future

Thanks again for any help.

 

[Kelvin Tucker]

Looking at your list of power eaters - (Video, Tuner, 1 HD, 1 DVD) - I doubt if you will really need 450w. But then again, power supplies are cheap insurance. (I'm running a AMD 2200, with 2 DVD drives, floppy and 4 HDs using a 420w with no problems.) Get a 350w minimum, and you will be fine.

To answer your question - Get a QUALITY power supply and you should be fine. "eric_thr" posted a link above to a good power supply article, but there are plenty of others floating around. Antec and Enermax are examples of quality companies - that can provide a case / power supply combo, which I strongly recommend.

K

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I read the power supply article that eric_thr posted a link to. After reading it a few times, I think I understand how the calculations work. But where do I find the power requirements for each component?

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Here's the case I plan on getting now:
ENERMAX Silver 10-BAY ATX Mid-Tower Case(Aluminum Front Panel) with 400W Power Supply, Model "CS-EN5171LBFS-S" -RETAIL

It comes with a 400W Power Supply:
+3.3V: 28A, +5V: 40A, +12V: 17A,
-5V: 0.3A, -12V: 0.8A, +5VSB: 2A

Does anyone see any problems with this case and/or it's power supply?