Power Supply?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Smith
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John Smith

I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2 MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card? TIA.
 
John Smith said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2
MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My
question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card? TIA.
Click to expand...

Power supply + your entire PC.
 
John Smith said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2 MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card?
Click to expand...

Is your 250w PSU a 300w? (Hint: 250w is less than 300w)
 
The 9800 Pro is a power sucker, yes, you need it, and I would do better than
300.
 
John said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea
geoforce 2 MX 400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro
128/256 card. My question is My power supply is at 250w and ATI
recommends at least a 300w power supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need
to upgrade my power supply to run this card? TIA.
Click to expand...

yup
 
John said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea
geoforce 2 MX 400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro
128/256 card. My question is My power supply is at 250w and ATI
recommends at least a 300w power supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need
to upgrade my power supply to run this card? TIA.
Click to expand...

Actually, it will depend on the quality of your existing 250W power supply
and how many devices you have attached to your power supply. Many cheap 300W
power supplies will be no better than an average 250W power supply.

My opinion: try it and see if it works. In all likelihood it will. Video
card manufacturers tend to overstate the power supply requirements to keep
themselves "safe".
 
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2 MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card? TIA.
Click to expand...


Depends on the quality of your existing PSU. A good quality
250W PSU would power the card, but then if you have multiple HDDs, and
CD/DVD drives, it may not be enough. All you can do is try. If not,
then get a larger PSU.
 
John said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2 MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card? TIA.
Click to expand...
speaking from experience, get a bigger psu, i put an ati 9200 card in my
machine with 2 hd,s and a cd-r/dvd and i had intermittent problems with
random reboot and power offs until i got a 350 watt pus.

it cost me around $60/$70 and was worth the expense.
 
John said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2 MX
400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My question
is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w power
supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to run this
card? TIA.
Click to expand...
Dell's psu's are rated according to steady output, where others are
rated according to max output. That Dell psu may be rated at 250w, but
in actuality, it's max output is about 350w. I would still upgrade your
psu anyway for the 9800pro. But you will need a Dell specific psu, as
the power connectors for the Dell mobo won't connect to just any psu.

You can get upgraded Dell psu's here:
http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/products/power_supplies/selector/
 
John Smith said:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea geoforce 2
MX 400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro 128/256 card. My
question is My power supply is at 250w and ATI recommends at least a 300w
power supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need to upgrade my power supply to
run this card? TIA.
Click to expand...

Why do you ask? you answered your question already!
 
Larry Roberts said:
Depends on the quality of your existing PSU.
Click to expand...

Yes, anyone who says anything other than "it depends" isn't telling you the
truth. When Dell makes computers, they have the luxury of knowing pretty well
the specific configurations they will build, which will work together, and how
to get the cheapest components possible that will fulfill the requirements and
give decent reliability. But that doesn't count upgrading your machine - that
wasn't part of the bargain, and Dell would lose money in that extremely
competitive business if they put too many extra $ in their machines. Not all
250W power supplies are created equal. Some will supply more power and some
less. Some will supply more for 5v than 3.3v, etc. Just try it. If your power
supply goes up in a puff of smoke, you really haven't lost anything - just buy a
better power supply. Or if your system starts becoming unstable.
 
Trout said:
Good thing someone finally told him this. This is the No.1 reason not
to buy a Dell computer.
Click to expand...

I would argue that at this point in time, it's not the no. 1 reason. Which is
not to say it's not a good reason.
 
John Smith:
I have a Dell 8200- Pentium 4 2 Gig, 768 RD Mem, with a Nvidea
geoforce 2 MX 400 64 MB vid card. I want to upgrade to a 9800pro
128/256 card. My question is My power supply is at 250w and ATI
recommends at least a 300w power supply for it's 9800pro. Do I need
to upgrade my power supply to run this card? TIA.
Click to expand...

I am running a 5900XT in a Dell 4550 w/ 250W PS. Initially I received a
message that the card would be throttled back because it wasn't getting
enough power, but shortly thereafter I discovered a faulty hard drive and
the card is now running full throttle with no problems. If you check the
Dell message boards, there are dozens of posts from people who are running
newer high power cards on Dell 250W PS. The short answer is 'try it',
nothing bad will happen.
 
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