Can i upgrade my psu? Need sound advice!

T

towert7

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Dec 18, 2003
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I have a 3.5 year old dell computer. It has a 200 watt power supply.

I had purchased a Geforce TI 4200, but it says it requires "350 watts". I was able to use it for a few months, but then it stoped working correctly one day.

So, i have a backup geforce TI 4200, and would like to be able to use it with this computer.

The thing is, i can't seem to get a sound answer as to whether i can upgrade my PSU.

Some people at compusa said i could go from my 200 to a 550 watt. The people at dell said i can't upgrade AT ALL.

Could i safely add a, say, 420 watt power supply to my computer? Would anything be at risk?

I think you get the general gist of my question.

Thanks for you help!
 
From what I know, Dell used proprietary power supplies in some of their older machines. I'd call Dell again, just to make sure, but I think that you might be out of luck here. Sorry :(.
 
AFAIK, Dell uses their own proprietary standards for their PSU size and motherboard size. If I'm not mistaken, you can't upgrade your PSU without some modding. This is all assuming the Dell motherboard doesn't use some weird proprietary power plug, which also might be the case.
 
Yea, i know the mother board is by Intel, but i have never seen anything on the power supply execpt the power specs......... no name or anything.

Oh well, no biggiy. Ill just have to buy a new computer someday. (hopefully within a few months).
 
Try looking up some guides to building your own computer. I do believe there are some at overclockers.com and tweak3d.net . Building your own computer from chosen, bought components is usually more economical and upgradeable than OEM, store-bought, prebuilt computers.
 
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/power_supplies/selector/1h4c.php3?model=Dimension XPS Txxx

That looks like one that would go in your computer.

I wouldn't ever trust what the people at CompUSA or Best Buy or any of those places tell you about hardware cause 9 times out of 10 they just wish they knew what they were talking about lol.

I had the same problem back before i put togethor my own pc with an HP Pavilion 762 custom built and it only has a 200w Power Supply in it.

You would never need 420w on that rig. 350w will run the big full tower rigs with several hard drives.

If you build a new computer i would get a 350-450w PSU then but for right now you dont need to upgrade your PSU unless your having a problem with it working.

In that HP on 200w i have a 2.26GHz P4, 1GB PC2100 DDR, MSI motherboard, GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128MB, 32x CD burner, 52x CD ROM, 7200rpm Seagate Baracuda, 1 case fan, 1 cpu fan, floppy drive, soundblaster 5.1 live, modem, and a firewire card and i havn't seemed to have any problems with it. I have had it random reboot on me a few times a while back though but i think that was probably software reasons because i wasn't doing anything intensive at the time it would do it.

So my advice? Dont bother buying a new PSU and save your money to build your own rig in a few months.
 
Yea, i was really thinking of getting a new computer within a few months. Something That will last me 4 years when i goto college (or maybe 6 ^_^).

I was looking at a company called Cyberpowerinc (www.cyberpowerinc.com). Their computers are very cheap, and most of the components they offer are what i would buy seperatly.

The only thing is, im very new at building computers (best i can do is change ram/sound card/video card/ or change a hard drive). And i would be a little "scared" of building one from scratch that.

But, yea, its a consideration.

oh well............ yea, ive decided to not upgrade my PSU for my old computer.

~Thanks
 
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