Help - power supply question

[Matty81]

Just lost my power supply for my main desktop. Its a 3 year old home built job with an original 350W supply that came with the case.

I have old scrap heaps in my house with 250W and 150W supplies and Im wondering if I could get away with just plugging one of those in. I would prefer not to have to ante up the 100 bucks for an entirely new one.

Any advice appreciated!

Its one of those socket 939 cpus the AMD 64 single core with 2 gigs of ram and i think a low-mid end ATI graphics card 256 mb or something. one optical drive, 2 hard drives.

[badnarik]

You don't need to spend $100. You can get one for under $30
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...nd&Order=PRICE

I bought a cheap one and it works fine.

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by badnarik

You don't need to spend $100. You can get one for under $30
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...nd&Order=PRICE

I bought a cheap one and it works fine.

Wow 450W for 15 bucks, I think I will even get that 600W one that is 20$ so I can use it after I finally ante up and get an I7-mobo package later this year.

The only place I have locally that stocks this kind of stuff en mass is future shop and the cheapest they have is about 80 bucks.

Thanks! Appreciate the help.

[Hack&Lube]

Keep in mind, these are all no-name/off brands and while they would work as a stop-gap solution, I wouldn't chance a new expensive computer with one of these in the long term in case the next time one of these cheap ones dies, it takes the system with it.

That 600W one also has only 1 sata connector, no PCI-E power connectors, and only 24A on the +12V rail.

There's a bunch of big name PSUs on sale @ NCIX right now. An OCZ 650watter is only $59.

http://ncix.com/promo/promosale.php?webid=spring2010

[Matty81]

That is a good consideration, if I do buy a low end one then I go lower wattage and will not move it over, that 600w doesnt even have the crossfire plugs anyway so its definitely not a long run solution.

I just found a local guy selling a sparkle 400W for 20 bucks in the classifieds as well so I might just grab that, I think those are pretty solid. I am still tempted to stick the 250W in there and see if it works but I do not wanna destroy the system.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Matty81

That is a good consideration, if I do buy a low end one then I go lower wattage and will not move it over, that 600w doesnt even have the crossfire plugs anyway so its definitely not a long run solution.

I just found a local guy selling a sparkle 400W for 20 bucks in the classifieds as well so I might just grab that, I think those are pretty solid. I am still tempted to stick the 250W in there and see if it works but I do not wanna destroy the system.

I take it you're not in Calgary or you could have my extra brand new Sparkle 400W for $20 too, and I think I've got an Antec Trupower 430w in a cupboard somewhere.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I take it you're not in Calgary or you could have my extra brand new Sparkle 400W for $20 too, and I think I've got an Antec Trupower 430w in a cupboard somewhere.

Yeah, those are good PSUs and good deals.

I'd say 95% of those under $30 ones in Newegg are garbage, not that Newegg doesn't carry quality products.

Here's a couple of other PSUs that will work well in a mid level computer.

Corsair 400 watt for $50 - $15, with one PCI-e connection.

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...r&promoid=1230

Silverstone 500 watt for $50, with one PCI-e 6 pin and one 8 pin connection and 80 plus certification.

http://www.bestdirect.ca/products/22...logy/ST50F_ES/

[Matty81]

Thanks for the links Vulcan. Yes Hakan I am in Kelowna, great place to live but a hard place to find good computer peripherals apparently - nothing to compare to a Memory Express type place where I can find lots of stock.