I am fixing some stuff on my old cheap 2005 computer my old friend assembled for me.
The power supply went out and I put a new one in for the first time. I hooked up the hard drive wires and it all worked. Does it really matter which power supply sockets I plug my hard drives into?
I bought the new power supply from best buy mostly to diagnose why my computer was randomly shutting down. My old one was 300w and the new one is 400w.
I was hoping to find a cheaper one on Newegg. Best buys was $40. I don't really know what factors into a less expensive alternative. Any advice?
>>958805
Also I need a new hard drive because I'm out of space. What do I look for on my motherboard to see if it supports sata?
Not it doesn't
>>958806
SATA connectors. If it doesn't have them you can use a PCI sata controller.
>>958817
I found them now. There's 4 of them and one is still empty
I bought this power supply from best buy:
http://www.amazon.com/Insignia-400W-ATX-Power-Supply/dp/B00PKTPKJ2
Are any of these less expensive ones just as good?:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007657%204093
>>958835
You can simply add another hard drive and plug it in the last sata port.. No it doesnt matter which plug on the power supply you use, only one type of termination will actually fit.
>>958843
Cheaping out on a power supply is the worst thing you could do.
I wouldnt even want the shitty Insignia one in there, definitely not a good idea to go cheaper.
>>958935
I should also point out, that if your PC is actually from 2005, you can get refurbished business PCs with Core2Duos that will outperform it for 50$.
Literally 50$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7RB38R5907&cm_re=desktop-_-9SIA7RB38R5907-_-Product
>>958937
What is there to explain?
Did you want a tangent about dirty mains power and lack of an active power factor protection?
Poorly made overcircuit protections that dont work when the power supply fails will fry all the other components?
The fact that the +12v on budget psus are almost never to spec of whats on the box?
Back when I worked in a computer shop, the majority of the time they came in with bad power supplies. And trust me, OEM power supplies arent great but they are better than the dirt cheap newegg PSUs. Half of the time they fried the rest of the hardware.
The others were mostly bad hard drives.
You know what can really kill a hard drive?
Noise and line fluctuations from poor power supplies.
Especially when they arent up to spec, so they are running at a real high load when they shouldnt be.
Being a cheap ass is going to bite you, the only "benefits" of buying a higher end PSU is reliability.
>>958805
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026
Just spend the money... PS will probably outlast every other component you have.
>>958843
Here is an older review of the Dynex branded 400w power supply, which is identical to the Insignia with a different logo on it.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/05/13/getting_best_buy_on_power_supply/2
Its pretty damning, but not all that surprising.
>The components that were included were of poor quality with the best thing we saw in the unit being a few Teapo capacitors as the rest were TL and Fcon.
>Adding insult to the injury, the unit’s PCB indicates that the power supply is supposed to be a 200-300w unit.
>This 200w-300w marking turned out to be prophetic as the unit was capable of doing 200w's but was capable of destroying test equipment when 300watts were attempted.
>>958995
This is a better PSU for your same 40$
Its about as cheap of a power supply as id put in your PC.
>>958944
Well I've been building computers here and there since about 1997 and I've not had an issue yet so I'll just presume you're right and I'm having a 20 year run of good luck.
>>959010
US?
>>958944
Europe?
I actually have huge issues with a power supply cause I am an idiot.
I have an LC Power LC6550G model, 550W PSU. Inside of it is a Huntkey HK400-12AP, which is a 400W PSU. Which can deliver 400W peak, and 300W sustained. So essentially I have a 300W PSU....
And I brought -12V DC from another ATX supply onto the fan connector, that goes to the PSU board, which caused it to promptly start whining and the fan connecter to stop working. Changed all the large capacitors for new ones, but couldn't replace a couple of the smaller ones.
So now I power the large, 14cm 12V fan that is supposed to run on 250 mA, from the working end of the power supply. It actually consumes 12V at 2.1 amps.... Dunno how long it will work...
BTW I was using a 300w iso brand psu that lasted 11 years
Greetings from /v/, here's a nice chart for future reference psu purchases.
>>959234
Well take your chart back to V with you and return with sources.
We don't fuck around with brand name master race bullshit over here cucklord.
>>959148
>And I brought -12V DC from another ATX supply onto the fan connector,
Why did you do that?
-12VDC is only there as a nod to the initial ATX spec, which itself only included it because the XT spec needed it for some ISA cards, and some AT motherboards still had an ISA slot.
It it's even present in the PSU at all, it provides a token amount of power; it shouldn't be a surprise that it can't drive a fan.
>>959234
Heya /v/, can I use an NJ520 in a Core2 Quad/DDR2 tower if I cut a hole in the top of the case for it to convect through?
>>959239
The list looks pretty good too me, the first two tiers at least. I don't recognize most of the low rated ones.
If you would have actually read it it isn't a vague brand loyal thing. It's showing different models from different brands
>>959276
I read it. You must be very easily swayed, women must love you.
>>959279
What does this even mean?
Most of the tier 1s are gold and platinum rated efficiency with japanese caps and 6-8 year warranties.
Most of the tier 2s are bronze efficiency with 5-6 year warranties with jap caps.
They are all good power supplies depending on what you need.
I dont understand the being proud to be ignorant sentiment some people like to show on here.
>>959252
I wouldn't cut my tower if I could avoid it. If you are deadset on that psu I'd just install it anyways and see how it's temps do - it doesn't have a 120mm fan on top blowing air or something so it would probably not even matter if it was covered or not. Looking at pics of it it still has a giant ass vent plate on the back too so you should be fine.
>>959285
>150$ for that psu
Yeah scratch that, get a nice 700-800w fanned modular psu for like half that price, fanned psu's make so little noise it's basically moot to worry about it. Especially if you are only using 500 watts.
>>959252
Sure you could, not really recommended though if its in a top mounted case.
Do remember that even with a moderate amount of airflow the heat from your CPU GPU and whatever else is going to be at least partially flowing through it.
Its meant to have very low ambient temps with a water cooled setup, or its meant to be in the bottom where the moderate case airflow will pull cold air from outside the bottom of the case through it.
You are bound to overheat it up top if you dont have a good setup. And the fact you are trying to cut up your case makes me think you dont
>>959293
Oh, I have a good setup.
But obviously mounting a PSU that cools itself convectively through the top is not going to work in a case where the PSU mounts in the top. And I'm not changing a perfectly good case when I could just cut a hole in it.
My question was more an electrical one: has the ATX standard and the typical load on a PSU changed enough in the past decade that driving a SLACR would be too weird for it?
>>959287
I already have that.
The whole point was to get a fanless PSU.
I'm aware of what fanless PSUs cost and why.
I have no need of 450w of headroom on a machine that only does storage and compute.
But thanks for the advice: it's probably correct in the general case.
>>959362
It will run it fine
The only changes in the last decade have been higher efficiency and better protections in lower wattage power supplies.
Think about much more efficient CPUs and GPUs are nowadays, people realize you dont need 140 volts on your +12v rail to run SLI and crossfire cards anymore.
So that ultra high wattage market has dwindled immensely, so all the features and stuff have went down to lower wattage supplies that have taken their place.
>>959250
I am sorry, I think you misunderstood me.
>>959559
Wow, we found someone that fit a square peg in a round hole.
>>959623
I-I am j-just... a maverick!
