power supply

my HP puter is a pent4-2gig,w/1024sdram,it had a nVidia G Force mx/200 & I upgraded to a GeForce4-ti-4400/128mb/ddr/ram,& soon after the monitor(envision15"LCD)went nuts & the pc quit,took it back & was told the mother board was bad,had it back 1 month & BOOM same thing,put the orig. video card back in & took it back again,was told again the motherboard(AsusP4b-la)was bad,everythings been fine for 5 months w/ the orig. card.My powersupply is a 185w-200max so I figured the new card was using to much power as the box said 300w-350recomended power supply, but HP told me not to change the power supply or I might blow it up,so now I have a $300.00 card I'm scared to use! any sugestions???I'm still learning so I dont mean to sound dumb,thanks,Rob oops forgot this the processer is Intel & the chipset is a Intel 845
specs are:
Asus P4B-la mobo,1024mbsdr,slot is AGP,dvd rom,dvd r/rw/cd/r/rw combo,(AGP is 3.3v?)creative Extigy/24bit/100db snr/monsoon 5.1 suround speakers, thanks in adv. Rob<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by RobertSMoore on 11/30/02 01:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

thanks Hammer,I'll pull the side off & check the dope on the power supply box

Hammer wasn't completely accurate. While Dell uses a nonstandard power supply, HP uses an ATX power supply and ATX boards. The only difference is the size of the power supply housing, which is shrunk to fit the shorter HP case. So in order to replace the power supply with a full sized unit, you'll likely be left replacing the case as well. Newegg has a nice small Chieftec unit that's only slightly larger, and comes with a 450W PS, for $55. They also have several other nice cases you might want to look at, the black Inwins look awesome (my friend just bought one).

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Thanks for the correction. I just re-checked my HP Vectra and it has a standard pinout. I must have missed something the first time I checked it.

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No, that would be impossible according to a basic law of physics, which is the basis of electrical theory, V=IR (is that Ohm's law or Amphere's law?), which states that for a given voltage and resistance, amperage will be the same no matter how big your power supply is. If an undersized power supply is used, the voltage will drop because of the lack of adequate amperage, maintaining V=IR.

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Ah, there you go. It's been a long time for me! Anyway, the law does show that you will use a given amount of current for a given resistance at a given voltage. So that oversized power supplies will not "overpower" a computer.

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Yep, a component will only 'draw' the current it needs. So if your power supply can supply 30A but you only actually need 25A, you will only draw 25A, not 30A. The PSU controls the outputted voltage but the load (in this case your computer) controls the current draw.

thanks Ihgpoobaa, it was getting around 50c/51c this summer,someone told me I have a warning buzzer or something like that in here that'll let me know when things get to hot, I have been looking into different types of fans,just read the one that has the magnets on the ends instead of a center motor,they claim a 30 percent decrease in the cpu because the center spool is smaller