Yet another power question...

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jexjexjex

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May 5, 2014
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Hi Troops,

I've "inherited my old PC from work and my plan is to use it almost as a home server.

I've been given an MSI N250GTS Twin Frozr 1G card by a friend to slot in, but I don't have enough power (According to the box, it needs a SYSTEM power supply of 450W and I only have 375W).

Now, I can easily rock in a separate power supply just for the card but my question is, exactly how much "additional" power will I need for this card?

I don't want to have to pull out the original power supply and fit a larger one, as there's nothing wrong with it.

I assume that there's no point in adding an additional 450W when I'm not actually doing any gaming with the card?

All ideas welcome...
 
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Eggz
Not really. I think you'll be fine. Just sit with the computer for the hour you run the tests I mentioned. There's a 99% chance you'll be fine, a 0.8% chance the computer will shut down, and a 0.2% chance you'll smell overheating electrical equipment. If you smell anything, unplug it right away. If it shuts down, you'll need more power. Other than that, you're good to go, man. I'd bet $10 it's going to work reliably without issue.
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Eggz

Eggz

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If it's just as a home server, try using the setup you have. It might be fine. Put it through the ringer by running Prime 95 Small FFT and a graphics stress test at the same time. If those will run for an hour without the system crashing, you'll be fine.
 
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lowriderflow

lowriderflow

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your 375 will be fine... firstly,y they always reccomdned on the HIGH side since they have no idea what CPU you have and how much wattage it uses.

secondly, those figures take into account it running at full load.

it would probably only use 50watts idling and like 200 at full load.

since youre using this machine as a media server, it'll will basically just be idling the entire time.
 
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J

jexjexjex

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May 5, 2014
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Thanks for the prompt answers.

I should probably have given a bit more information about what the existing powersupply is running.

The PC in question is an HP 7600CMD workstation running XP Pro on Service Pack 3, 2.8GHz processor, 3.25Gb RAM. Current graphics is only 128Mb onboard (Hence the question...).

Currently, the 375W power supply runs the motherboard, CD-Rom, floppy (Remember them?) and 3 x SATA HDDs (2 x 80Gb and 1 x 2Tb).

Is all that likely to make a difference?
 
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Eggz

Eggz

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Sep 3, 2013
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Not really. I think you'll be fine. Just sit with the computer for the hour you run the tests I mentioned. There's a 99% chance you'll be fine, a 0.8% chance the computer will shut down, and a 0.2% chance you'll smell overheating electrical equipment. If you smell anything, unplug it right away. If it shuts down, you'll need more power. Other than that, you're good to go, man. I'd bet $10 it's going to work reliably without issue.
 
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