300w rated card.. 250w PSU

[ghosstt]

My psu is only 250w. My new card I bought says that it reccomends a 300w for system stability.. what do you yall think? Is it OK as is?

[dragonhead]

eh most of those ratings are BS. go ahead and run it. if you run into problems, get a new psu. theyre cheap enough nowadays.

[bassmasta]

eh most of those ratings are BS. go ahead and run it. if you run into problems,get a new psu. theyre cheap enough nowadays.

fix'd

[marshallh]

I haven't seen a 250W PSU since I worked on pentium 1 machines.

[timmeh87]

Yeah if that thing is 250W its probably old as hell, get a new one

[bicostp]

Depending on how old it is, it might not even be pushing 250 watts anymore.

Of course you can't solely go by the rated wattage, because it could very well mean the 5v line is capable of supporting a high amperage while the 12v line is not (making it pretty much useless for video cards). A lot of the dirt-cheap manufacturers do this so they can somewhat-truthfully say "get this 900 watt power supply for $20!".

Your existing power supply might be able to support a bus-powered video card, but it's definitely a good idea to just get a new one anyway. They're not terribly expensive, are easy to replace, and the new one will be much more efficient than the old one. (However if you have a mid-2000s Dell you might be stuck buying a special power supply or an adapter because they used proprietary PSU pinouts for some stupid reason.)

[nevermind1534]

Unless it's a decent name brand (and new), I doubt that it can even do 250W. If you put the card in, it probably either won't work at all, or the PSU will die very quickly. Go to newegg and look for a PSU from a respected name brand (i.e. antec, corsair, ocz, pc power & cooling, etc.). If you get a cheap one, trust me, it won't last. I stopped buying cheap PSUs a few years ago. The voltages nearly always drift out of tolerance.

[ghosstt]

It's a dell slimline vostro. I just got it about a month ago. (was sent to me in the mail from someone. )

it says

"The maximum continuous combined output power for the main supply is 250W"

I ran the card for a bit last night, as right now too, and the PSU isn't getting hot or anything,

[nevermind1534]

The PSU won't get hot, but it will die prematurely. I say a few months of regular use, at most, depending on what the specs of the computer are. The problem will be finding a replacement if it's smaller than a regular ATX PSU. There's only a few mATX ones.

[hailrazer]

You guys are seriously over exaggerating. I have a HP Slimline that is 2 years old with a 225 watt power supply that has been running a 300 watt "required" GeForce 8400Gs card for 2 years. Lots of small form factor pc's have less than 300 watt power supply. And yes that includes Pc's being sold in the stores now.

Most graphic cards state what are "suggested" power supply needs. But the cards do not pull or require that much power. They are assuming you have 2 hard drives, a dvd rom a cd-rom, 18 Usb hubs, etc, etc , so they give you a very over rated power supply figure.

You can usually get away with running it off a much smaller power supply.


And no it won't make your power supply burn up faster. A power supply will only supply so much power. And it will supply that amount for the rated life of the power supply. If you have to many items trying to pull power the worst that will happen is one or more items just won't work because there is not enough power for it to run.

[nevermind1534]

And no it won't make your power supply burn up faster. A power supply will only supply so much power. And it will supply that amount for the rated life of the power supply. If you have to many items trying to pull power the worst that will happen is one or more items just won't work because there is not enough power for it to run.

They can burn up faster if they have too much stress, because they'll get too hot.

[hailrazer]

And no it won't make your power supply burn up faster. A power supply will only supply so much power. And it will supply that amount for the rated life of the power supply. If you have to many items trying to pull power the worst that will happen is one or more items just won't work because there is not enough power for it to run.

They can burn up faster if they have too much stress, because they'll get too hot.

No. They are rated to deliver a set amount of max power. And they are rated to deliver that power effectively for a set amount of time (lifespan). They can not and will not deliver more than that set amount of power. You can hook as many devices as you want to it and it will still only put out a set amount of power. And they are made to effectively cool themselves at that set amount.

So no, they won't burn out early and no they will not get to hot.

[timmeh87]

Its common sense that running something at full power all the time isn't going to be good for it. Especially if it came out of Dell computer. And yeah, some of them do get hot in places. Ive opened a few old PSUs and seen burn marks and melted stuff. I also use an old PSU to power my "experiments", and the noises it make when its struggling to output 110% power are somewhat concerning.

So does the 300w rating mean that the TOTAL power in your computer should be 300W? That's WAY different from the card alone using that much power. And thats also pretty confusing because there's no way they'd know what else is in your computer...

[nevermind1534]

And no it won't make your power supply burn up faster. A power supply will only supply so much power. And it will supply that amount for the rated life of the power supply. If you have to many items trying to pull power the worst that will happen is one or more items just won't work because there is not enough power for it to run.

They can burn up faster if they have too much stress, because they'll get too hot.

No. They are rated to deliver a set amount of max power. And they are rated to deliver that power effectively for a set amount of time (lifespan). They can not and will not deliver more than that set amount of power. You can hook as many devices as you want to it and it will still only put out a set amount of power. And they are made to effectively cool themselves at that set amount.

So no, they won't burn out early and no they will not get to hot.

I have witnessed this phenomenon on multiple units; it does happen if they're delivering as much power as they possibly can. They have a peak load and a regular load. If the constant load is what the PSU's peak rating is, it won't work, or it will die a premature death. Or, if you try to draw more power than it can possibly put out, you usually get nothing.


If you draw more current from a wall wart than it can handle, it will get too hot or not power the devices properly, or a combination of the two. Most computer power supplies, however, have protection against short circuits built in, though (in case you draw way too much) so they don't burn out or explode.

[hailrazer]

I was not talking about Chinese made junk. LOL
I think the majority of the power supplies out there can handle their rated load just fine as I have witnessed multiple times.

And wall warts are supposed to have a circuit built in so they only supply a set amount of max current.