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| An interesting note about power supplies |
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| DrewKaree:
To add to this, it's DEFINITELY a common thing. I'll add another manufacturer I've never had problems with, Enermax. Definitely true that you don't NEED a top of the line PS, but the quality of the unit will make all the difference in the world when you are troubleshooting a bad pc. Just as an experiment for yourself, lest a person think everyone saying it DOES make a difference...head down to your local computer shop. Ask them for their cheapest power supply, and one of the power supplies recommended above. GENERALLY, the better power supply will be the heavier unit. Why, you ask? Better heatsink, beefier coil, name the part, they use a better version which usually has more mass which contributes to the reliability of the unit. p.s. Unless you know who makes the power supply that came with your super-hot,phatty phat case, get one of the better ones and swap it out. If you've done ANY searching and wondered why they sell cases without a power supply.....this thread is why. Some manufacturers can barely do one thing well, much less two things. That's why they usually stick to what they know best and leave the "accessories" to someone else. |
| paigeoliver:
Actually the best (cleanest power, etc) power supplies are linear ones, and not switched mode ones as universally used on modern pcs. Too bad I gave away my spare rebuilt Cinematronics one and my spare clean working Midway 8080 class power supply. I would have loved to see if they could have ran a modern PC. |
| PaulG:
Absolutely about the replies. The power supply and the motherboard are the 2 least sexy things in a computer, but they're definety the foundation for everything. A lousy PS or buggy mobo will make your computer unstable forever. |
| paigeoliver:
Amen, and a GOOD motherboard will extend the service life of your computer for years longer than a shoddy one. That is because you can often make up for shortcomings via stuff that plugs into it. Buying top of the line stuff for your motherboard is expensive when it is new, but a few years later buying top of the line "for that motherboard" is really cheap. Like imagine you bought a new compaq some years back. Congrats, you have a piece of junk with all onboard stuff that won't take a processor faster than 233 and maxes out at 128 MB of 486 style edo ram (I used to have one like that). Or, imagine that you bought an actual decent super 7 motherboard. That same computer could now be chugging along quite happily with a 500 mhz k6, 512 MB of ram, an awesome video card (well, awesome for the computer, putting a current top of the line model in that computer would be idiocy, but a $10 Voodoo3 in a 500 mhz computer rocks the house), an awesome $10 soundblaster live card (ebay again), and the biggest hard drive you can afford (which can always be transferred to another computer later). |
| krick:
I had a system that I swore had a defective hard drive. It turned out to be a weak power supply that wasn't able to keep proper voltage levels during heavy drive activity. Fortron FSP power supplies are well made, low priced units. They are also sold under the Verax name. Verax is Fortron's distributor. Check out these articles at Tom's Hardware... http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/index.html I wholeheartedly recommend this model... Fortron 300W FSP300-60ATV ATX P4 http://store.yahoo.com/directron/fsp30060atv.html For $27, you can't go wrong. I have one in each of the three computers in my house. ... Krick |
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