Can I add more power without frying the PC?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
R

roeland

Honorable
Jan 29, 2014
8
0
10,510
Hello everyone,

Here's what I'd like to know:

We have an older computer with an Nvidia GeForce 8200 mGPU. Originally, we thought it was a videocard, but when we opened up the casing, we saw it was an entire motherboard with everything integrated in it.

Now, we like to boost the video card power, so that the PC can handle a bigger game.

We have a video card, also an Nvidia Geforce (forgot the modelnumber) and we tried to place it in the computer. However, the computer didnt boot with the new video card placed. We figured it was a shortage of electricity. Correct me if i'm wrong...

So now, we started talking and asked ourselves: What if we supplement the power supply? Can we add a bigger power thingy that outputs more W's?

Or is there a risk involved that we fry the entire motherboard or drives, or break anything else?

Any advice will be greatly appriciated.

And I know, buying a new computer is much easier... But it's all about the adventure of getting it to work.

Thanks everybody
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
aevm

aevm

Illustrious
May 18, 2007
11,974
0
41,960
Buy a new computer anyway... Your old one would need a new motherboard/CPU/RAM, plus a dedicated video card. The video card will probably not fit in your case, or it won't be cooled properly, and it does need a new power supply. Basically you need to replace everything, even the case. It's no longer an upgrade.



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

roeland

Honorable
Jan 29, 2014
8
0
10,510
I allready have a new computer. It's not really about that.
It's about getting that old one to run again, but then with spare parts we saved up over the years.

I have learned to fix cars in this way. Just by looking at it, asking around on forums, get some spare parts from all kinds of sources and ending up with a running vehicle. We do this for a hobby.

Now we like to do the same thing with PC's. We dont need a computer to use, our computers are fabulous. We just want to learn about PC's by playing around with the old ones.

So could you please elaborate a bit as to why you suspect it wont work. In that way, I can learn from it.

Because the videocard fits and it has its own ventilator. Also the casing itself is not really that important, it doesnt have to be pretty or space effecient. It's all about the technics...



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

roeland

Honorable
Jan 29, 2014
8
0
10,510
Cool thanks!

We started with an Acer Aspire X1200.

This model has pretty much everything intergrated in the motherboard. Soundcard, Videocard all that stuff..

Power supply = 220W
Procesor = AMD Athlon X2 5000+ / 2.6 GHz
Chipset type = NVIDIA GeForce 8200
Graphics processor = NVIDIA GeForce 8200
RAM = 2GB

Now, as spare parts we have:

Power supply = 250W
Graphic processor = GeForce GT 120


The goal is to add the GeForce GT 120 and the RAM... But the PC refused to boot after de addition..
It does work with just the RAM only. So the RAM is up to 4GB now.

So now we thought we could add the 250W power supply to make the GeForce GT 120 work... But first I came to check here, before we blow up the entire thing.

If it's impossible... it's impossible... But if you have any ideas about how this 'might' work. I would love to hear it.

Thanks for your attention.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
aevm

aevm

Illustrious
May 18, 2007
11,974
0
41,960
All right. Replace the PSU, then see if the computer works. You can't blow up a PC by replacing a PSU with a larger one AFAIK - only the other way round. Then insert the graphics card, see if it boots now. If it does, your next step is to reinstall nVidia drivers.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom