Power supply

[cab4656]

I just bought a new, much more powerful graphics card, and I don't think my old 300W power supply is going to cut it anymore. I've never bought a power supply seperate - one always came with the case that I'd buy. Can anyone point me in the direction of a cheap upgrade?

Pricewatch.com has some up to 650W for less than $30. Seems cheap. Something I'm missing here, or are these just fine?

[Freakin]

Get a good, name-brand PSU. I like Antec & Enermax. I'd go for at least 430 or so.

Freakin

[TheTROLL]

Some pretty thorough stuff here (http://forums.legitreviews.com/about500.html).

[BBill]

I've purchased lots of PC items here Power supplies (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=106)
very trustworthy site. Just don't get anything with a rebate, their rebate department is a pain.
Usually a processor dictates when more wattage is required.
What kind of CPU do you have?

[cab4656]

[ QUOTE ]
I've purchased lots of PC items here Power supplies (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=106)
very trustworthy site. Just don't get anything with a rebate, their rebate department is a pain.
Usually a processor dictates when more wattage is required.
What kind of CPU do you have?

[/ QUOTE ]

I only have an Athlon 2600+ 2.08 gigahertz. But the problem started once I upgraded to my new graphics card and this card is the first I've owned that requires it's own connection to the power supply. The card is the Radeon X800 XL.

[BBill]

I have an Athlon 3000+ which requires a 300watt. I know that the 64bit AMDs require around 450W power supply.
Having more that enough power is not a bad thing though.
What sort of problems?

[cab4656]

[ QUOTE ]
I have an Athlon 3000+ which requires a 300watt. I know that the 64bit AMDs require around 450W power supply.
Having more that enough power is not a bad thing though.
What sort of problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

The main problem happens when playing a game (World of Warcraft, yeah I'm a loser). The game would crash, but my computer would continue running fine. I could restart the game, but most of the time it would crash again within thirty seconds or so. Rebooting the computer didn't help. Anyways, I fixed the problem by updating my motherboard BIOS. But now that I put this new graphics card in, I am getting the problems again.

One thing to know is that the error I'm getting has been compared to the Windows blue screen of death in that it is one error that can be caused by many different problems. A WOW support person suggested upgrading the power supply and it makes sense to me.

[BBill]

Sounds like a reasonable suggestion, I hope it resolves the problem. Possibly the existing PS has dropped below the required voltage specs.

I had a PC that crashed intermittantly for about a year. It worked great when it worked but certain resource intensive applications would cause it to slow down, lock-up or reboot.
I upgraded the bios, the chipset drivers (VIA,)the memory, power suppply everything possible.
I finally discoverd that the cpu heat sink thermal conductor was not conducting right and the cpu was running hot and it made the pc unstable.
I got a few thermal pads (it goes between the cpu and the heat sink) which cost only about 1.00 each and replaced it and it has been working great ever since.
It required 2 or 3 attempts to get the thermal conductor installed just right but it was worth it.

I also found out on another PC that AMD processors will burn up rather quickly if the heat sink is not insatlled properly. Many of the Intel chips will auto shut down to prevent heat damage to the cpu though.

[obsidian]

Don't go with tiger direct. They aren't very good. I like Newegg (http://www.newegg.com) and Performance PCs (http://www.performance-pcs.com/). I would suggest an Antec, Enermax, OCZ, or Seasonics (my current one).

[BBill]

Just curious, Why do you say Tiger Direct isn't very good?

I have found the quality to be very good, prices are very competative, I get an order within 2 days (continental US) with UPS ground, the tech support reasonable and the sales people knowledgable.

I have heard about newegg - haven't purchased anything through them yet though.