Upgrade PSU

edjal

December 3, 2009 5:04:33 PM

I am in the process of upgrading psu and video card. I have a midtower desktop compaq 8000T-P8657A P4 3.0(HT)Ghz 800mhz 3Gb pc3200DDR Asus P4Sd-Le mother board (has P4 connector).
OEM psu= Hi Pro ATX 250- 12. pn 5187-1098. The P4 connector is used the P8 is not used. Stock video card AGP 128mb 9800Pro with molex connector. I have 2 hard drives 2 opticals, pci sound card and 3 other PCI's in use, Floppy drive ans 6 USB devices. I would like to upgrade to a 80+ effecient psu if possible. Possibly the Corsair 400cx or the OCZ 400watt. My dilemma is I notice the OEM has a lot of power on the 3.3v 20A, 5V 30A, and the newer psu's have much less. Example: Corsair 400CX 3.3v 20A 5V 20A. The corsair would also need a molex to P4 adaptor cable. Do I need all that power on the 3.3v and 5V rails the OEM provided? What would your recomendation be for a 512mb AGP card and a PSU. Thank you edjal

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masterasia

December 3, 2009 7:25:39 PM

That Corsair should be fine. It doesn't need the P4 adapter. All new power supplies now should at least come with a 4-pin or a 4+4 pin EPS power. Some come with both a 4 and 8 pin.

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edjal

December 3, 2009 8:49:05 PM

Are you concerned at all about the much smaller amount of power on the 3.3 & 5v rails as compared to OEM?

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technuttso

December 3, 2009 8:55:38 PM

get the 450 vx version. is real goo choice and have nice rebate on neweeg.

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edjal

December 3, 2009 9:14:50 PM

Thanks so much for your replies. Do I understand correctly that the eps 8 pin connector can be split and used in place of the P4 connector? No one has addressed my question about the power differences on the new supplies. Corsair 450VX or 400CX 5Vrail has 20A output OEM 250 watt has 30A on the 5V rail. This power difference concerns me. Hopefully the 5V power was not necessary as I really would like a Corsair or other 80+ effecient PSU

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edjal

December 4, 2009 1:21:34 AM

jsc said:

Do not worry about the difference of the 3.3 and 5 volt rails. Modern computers do need much from them.

The 5 volt output now only needs to power motherboard and drive logic. Something like a GA-EP45-UD3P (medium sized ATX board) needs less than 5 amps or so. Add 3 amps for a couple of hard drives and an optical drive. The 3.3 volts powers the memory. 2 GB of RAM needs about 3 amps.

Do you consider my Pentium 4 6yrs old, modern enough for the the newer 5V requirements?

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edjal

December 17, 2009 10:12:45 PM

edjal said:

I am in the process of upgrading psu and video card. I have a midtower desktop compaq 8000T-P8657A P4 3.0(HT)Ghz 800mhz 3Gb pc3200DDR Asus P4Sd-Le mother board (has P4 connector).
OEM psu= Hi Pro ATX 250- 12. pn 5187-1098. The P4 connector is used the P8 is not used. Stock video card AGP 128mb 9800Pro with molex connector. I have 2 hard drives 2 opticals, pci sound card and 3 other PCI's in use, Floppy drive ans 6 USB devices. I would like to upgrade to a 80+ effecient psu if possible. Possibly the Corsair 400cx or the OCZ 400watt. My dilemma is I notice the OEM has a lot of power on the 3.3v 20A, 5V 30A, and the newer psu's have much less. Example: Corsair 400CX 3.3v 20A 5V 20A. The corsair would also need a molex to P4 adaptor cable. Do I need all that power on the 3.3v and 5V rails the OEM provided? What would your recomendation be for a 512mb AGP card and a PSU. Thank you edjal

I replaced PSU with Corsair 400cx and it worked out well. The Compaq CPU case was proprietary and had an adaptor plate for the PSU. I had to modify the adaptor plate to accept the Corsair PSU. The cabling was long enough and had all of the plugs I needed. Very Quiet unit. I'm very happy with it. Computer no longer boots randomly. Edjal

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