Hi, I am looking for a new PSU for an old PC for my brother. The PC is about 5 years old, it is 3GHz Pentium 4, GA 81848PM motherboard, 2GB Ram, 7800GTS 512MB, AGP, No Sata - you get the idea. However the PC still runs quite fast and he doesnt want to throw it away so Im looking at getting a cheap PSU. Any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Ive seen this PSU, any good? - http://www.corsairmemory.com/products/cx400.aspx The Hard Drives are IDE so would this PSU be OK? Anything as good but cheaper would also be good. The reason I want a new one is the current one is an ATX one I think with huge green cables which just dont fit in the case properly!
I use the 500W version of this which is out of stock at the moment - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119226 Ok it looks cheap and nasty but it's been running the pc in my sig for over a year and been absolutely fine, for the price you cant really beat it. If you dont like no name brands then forget about it but if you dont mind, then grab one. You might need a 24pin-20pin adapter for the mobo though (might be other way round not sure lol)
It's a new model and there's always a risk there but Corsair is pretty good about testing things before they release them. How much does it cost there in the UK? Any system bought in the last ten years or more is going to have an ATX PSU but uhm what's wrong with the cables? Too long or too green?
Thanks for the reply. To be honest I have read some bad reviews about that PSU and Im wanting a brand name to be honest! Hoverver Im glad it works for you but I just beleive that they wont all be of the same quality. lol The cables are really thick! Because the case is so small its a very tight squeeze! So much so that I can only fit one disc drive in! Could somebody maybe suggest another PSU please? The Corsair is around £40 and I dont really want to pay that much to be honest. What about this one? Would the connectors fit my motherboard? http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/psus-300-500/x-red-psus Also, stupid question but do PSU's come with IDE connectors or do they connect to the motherboard? Im pretty convinced they connect to the mobo lol
naw the Xilence is an over-rated low quality unit like the "value" thing too. You can get an Antec EA380 for a bit less than the Corsair here: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=38127&source=googleps It's a low end Seasonic made unit like the Corsair 400...rated at 50C instead of 40C so it's actually a bigger PSU. Only the main 20/24 pin cable is sleeved though. <shrugs>
Cool! If thats good then Ill have a look at it! Will 380W be powerful enough for the system I put on the first post? Also, IDE connectors are connected from the mobo to the HDD arent they? They dont come with PSU's do they?
yeah with 380W and 12V@27A your peak loads will be about 50% of total capacity...that's a 7800GS I assume right? The IDE data cables connect between the drives and the mobo and dont come with PSU's...the IDE drives are powered by the standard Molex peripheral connector. So you won't be using the SATA cables nor the PCIe cable but it's a single rail PSU (the label is wrong) so all of the 12V power will still be available to you thru the cables that you do use.
Just an Update to say I got the Antec Earthwatts PSU as reccomended and Im very pleased with it! I fitted it to my old PC for my brother and everything is running perfect! To be honest I was pleased to get the old one out so I could clean the mobo and reseat the memory as I think the second slot wasnt connected properly. It was BSOD'ing all of the time and now it never does since I reseated it! Here is the PSU I used to have - http://www.ultraorder.com/product_details.php?cPath=42&pPath=296&productID=302 Looks cool, but not meant for a small case! The 20 Pin Mobo cable was so big that it had to go where a second DVD drive would go! Plus it was making a really high pitched noise all of the time which seemed really dodgy! Thanks for all the help and suggestions! :thumbup:
Hi, I made this thread a few weeks ago and since I have had the new PSU in my Brothers PC there had not been a problem. However, yesterday all of a sudden the PC wont switch on. The wierd thing is that after messing about a bit I got it to switch on, it worked for the whole night and then my brother went to switch it on today it wont work again? If the PSU had gone surely it wouldnt work at all? Any ideas? There is a 7800GS GPU, 2 HDD, 2 Disk Drives, and one extra fan? Funnily enough the fan was making some noise last night, could there be some sort of electronic problem? Its just a small cheap fan to take a bit of the hot air out of the system? Thanks in advance!
