Page 4 - How to Choose A Power supply

yeah ill add it, but its hard for me to easaly change something because i dont have the edit option because my post is old so well each update i gotta contact a mod with the update... but its okay, ima do a big update on it soon

I used eXtreme Power Supply Calculator in order to come up with a number which was 315 WATT. I have a dimension E520 Dell Desktop with 305 WATT PSU. so still it lacks for 10 WATT!! but I thought to myself maybe I should give it a try with new graphic card on the same PSU and see wheter it works or not, the problem is that I don't know what happens if it's not enough powerful for that, I mean is it going to cause damages to the computer or it simply restarts?

Usually it'll just be unstable and reboot a lot, but sometimes the PSU can really go for it and die in most "inelegant" way, hehe, and can sometimes send spikes of voltage down other rails before finally giving up in a blue flash and some smoke. These spikes can kill anything that is connected to the PSU at the time..

So it's not recommended to take a chance on these things if you value your computer

its a dell whats there to value????


Anyways maybe we should get an update on this thread and list

so a weak PSU may cause damages. how about a really strong one?!I mean is it going to be okay for my motherboard or other components to use for example a 600 WATT PSU or there are some limitations for choosing the maximal power of PSU according to the type of the motherboard?

A strong psu is great, well a quality psu. If its a bad psu putting out too high of voltages then it can be very harmful. But a good reliable psu, even if it is a lot more watts then you need it will be fine. Wattages won't hurt your computer, voltages will.

Yeah, a computer will only use what it needs. a 600W PSU won't be shoving 600W into your machine all the time, that'd be insane... It's just capable of giving 600W should the need arise

thanks man! I am a little bit dumb in Electronics!! also I wanna spend money which I have to work for! so I want to be sure about the PSU I wanna buy, here I wrote down the information of my current PSU on my computer which are:

DC OUTPUT : 305 WATT
INPUT: 100-120V~/9A 50-60 Hz
200-240V~/4.5A 50-60 Hz
OUTPUT: +5V ===/22A MAX -12V===/1A MAX
+5V(FP) ===/4A MAX +33V===/17A MAX
+12VA ===/18A MAX +12VB===/18A MAX
COMBINED POWER ON +33V AND +5 RAILS NOT EXCEED 150W.
COMBINED POWER ON +12VA AND +12VB RAILS NOT EXCEED 264W.
MAX CONTINOUS TOTAL DC OUTPUT POWER SHALL NOT EXCEED 305W.

and the diemensions are:
100 (mm) Height*140 (mm) Length*125 (mm) Width
which the case can afford longer Length too.

in the case I want to buy a good OR great PSU which is at least 500W what would you suggest me?

There are a lot of good brands listed at the beginning of this thread. It really depends on how much you want to spend. You can get an antec or enermax for relatively cheap, newegg had (not sure if they still do) an OCZ silentstream on sale, those are great psus.

your PSU doesn't seem to be a too great one. It does work tough , right? . Anyway , It will depend on what are your computer specs. with something like a normal computer , a 400Watt FSP fortron Unit will be more than sufficient. Post up your computer specs. and why do you want to change the powersupply? , are you upgrading.

also my guide is really outdated, I should update it, I updated a while ago on another forum , I could take that one and make a couple of changes and then post it here. I have the week off so I'll probably do that!