Is a 200W PSU enough for this PC?!

[m25]

I was just having a look at the new PC a friend of mine ad bought and found out the PSU was rated at only 200W!!! The case is pretty compact and the build is not a gaming or power PC but still, is 200W a safe figure for this build?! The specs are:
-AM2 Athlon64 X2 4200+ (the 65W version)
-Asus M2N-MX board (uses onboard video)
-Only one HDD and one DVD-RW drive

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Safely, yes.


Google "PSU calculator" if you want conformation.

 

[IcY18]

I think we've come to the day when people think that every PC needs a 500W psu just to run. no offense. When in reality nearly all PCs from Dell/HP run on 200-300W PSUs.

 

[blunc]

well...yeah...for anyone that wants their new computer to run reliably for more than a year a 500w power supply is nice.

Dell/HP design most of their systems with barely enough power supply to work during the warranty period with no changes to the system, some people think they can buy a cheap low end Dell/HP then install more drives or better graphics card...then they wonder why the system gets flakey or just dies.

Yes, that 200W power supply should work fine on that persons "E-machine" as long as the hardware never changes or the room it's in never gets very warm and it's in a dust free environment.

 

[Glacier]

Dell/HP design most of their systems with barely enough power supply to work during the warranty period with no changes to the system, some people think they can buy a cheap low end Dell/HP then install more drives or better graphics card...then they wonder why the system gets flakey or just dies.

Gateway seems to design their systems like that too, at least with the computer that I bought from them. The power supply didn't even meet the requirements for the equipment that came with the computer.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Um Ya. All our dells and hp's (100k of them) have a 3 year warranty and they are the same as what you as a consumer would buy (many of them).


The PSU is fine (250/300watts) for them.

 

[IcY18]

How many people add or change equipment in there emachine/dell/hp. Lets just assume with no factual data to back up that it is probably under 10%. Since Dell never advertises there desktops to be able to run a 8800GTX why would they include psu's over the necessary spec. Through all the HP machines i, in my youth, and my parents have gone through i can say that no psu has gone up. So i can say that HP has accurately rated there system to safely run on psu's rated at 200W.

 

[locky28]

I'd rather have spent my money on my Seasonic running at 40% of it's maximum capacity than saving money on a cheaper, lower capacity PSU running at 75% with lower efficiency.

Less load = less heat = less noise with the smart fan to.

 

[locky28]

Any chance you could explain that breifly to me or is it a bit of a long story...

 

[blunc]

well....speaking as a person that spent a year in phone tech support HELL for HP pavillions, there are many people that buy an entry level system then try to "upgrade" it with parts that quickly exceed the power budget of that "entry level" unit and then want it repaired/rma'd for free. :roll:

this is not speculation, this is personal experience.

fortunately for the people around me I no longer do phone tech support.

 

[Zorg]

Who made the PC? Who made the PS? If the PS was made by Chin Cheng, Choing Chu, Phing Phang or some other shady PS maker, that can't be found on Mpilchfamily's PS list, then get a new one quick before it blows up and takes the MB etc. with it.

 

[joefriday]

I was just having a look at the new PC a friend of mine ad bought and found out the PSU was rated at only 200W!!! The case is pretty compact and the build is not a gaming or power PC but still, is 200W a safe figure for this build?! The specs are:
-AM2 Athlon64 X2 4200+ (the 65W version)
-Asus M2N-MX board (uses onboard video)
-Only one HDD and one DVD-RW drive

Sounds fine for stock configuration. At max load it would probably only draw about 110-120 watts. Probably idles (with cool and quiet enabled) at about 55-65 watts. 200 watts is plenty for what's in that rig.

My Dell consumed 100 watts idling and 150 watts with both cores loaded during a CPU intensive task, and it contained the following:

D805 @ 1.15 vcore
GF3 Ti200 (10 watts idle)
2 sticks DDR ram
2 Seagate Baracudas (7 watts each)
TV capture card (5 watts)
DVD burner
DVD rom
Asrock 775i65G mobo
Sound Card (5 watts)

Removal of the sound card, capture card, one hard drive, and switching out the graphics card in favor of the onboard IGP reduced idle power consumption to 73 watts, with CPU intensive tasks once again adding 50 watts (25 watts per core) to the total. This setup would be similar to your friends, and as you can see, power consumption is only 123 watts max cpu load, and that's at the wall, meaning more like 92 watts at 75% PSU efficiency.

 

[m25]

Thanks a lot to you and all the other guys who helped me out; for me, I'd have gone at the store and asked them to replace the PSU (and they's have done it because they know a sh!t about these things).
P.S: I actualy kinda lied on the CPU because it's a standard 89W part, only that I undervolted it from 1.35 to 1.20V with RMClock, found it perfectly stable after Prime testing and left it like that :mrgreen:

 

[IcY18]

I now take back my statement, you do need a psu replacement since you lied about the cpu, that is a huge factor and i'm sure your system could go up in smoke soon.... 8)

 

[m25]

:? ..... :lol: