Techie question: PC building
 

I'm installing a 1.2 GHz Athlon processor and motherboard in an ATX case with a 300-watt power supply. The local tech guy said not to go with anything lower than 350 watts, so I went and bought a case with a 350-watt power supply (the salesman claimed) but when I got it home and opened it up I found it to be 300 watts. I can't take it back; the store's too far away.

Now am I going to run into problems immediately or what?

Hmm gotta calc that but 50 Watts isnt that much, worst case it could reset when its getting too hot, just make sure plenty of ventilation fans etc

you will not have any problems.

The other thing you can do is go to a store close to you and get another fan to add in there.

I wouldn't worry about it

1.47 works on 300 so you wont get trouble, just dont add 5 hd and 10 dvds :)

No problem.. It will work fine. What kind of VGA card you're gonna use ?

He's wrong it will work just fine.

300 is just fine.


But there is a diffrence between a 300 store brand

and 300 Antec

Yours will probably be a lot better then the one comming with the case so don't worry too much

It's an NVidia GeForce 4 but I can't remember the exact model.

Thanks everyone. :)

I've heard various stories of hard drives exploding when people drop to the 300 when speced for a 350 watt. The best way around this is to power down every 40 minutes and let it cool for a bit.

What you could do is in your BIOS alter the cloak or the bus speed abit so this way there is more power for the other things and your computer will overheat a lot less.

LOL@hard drive exploding. I've been building pc's for over 20 years. I've never seen this happen.

if you do have problems it's more likely to happen when the power supply is older. just figure you need an extra 50 watts for every two harddrives or CD/DVD drives.

Whatever you do, I'd be on the phone with that store and that salesperson and demanding they ship me the proper unit free, with a return ship for the wrong one, overnight. Even if they refuse or whatever, let them know they did you wrong and you're not going to roll over and take it in silence.

Neither have I.... ;)

When shopping for a power supply you should go for quality.. A quality 300W is 99% of the time much better than a cheap 500W.. And can handle more wattage..

yeah and by the way you'll be fine with 300. i would do a charge back on the purchase. call them and tell them your canceling the charges on your credit card. or they could at least refund the difference in price

As already stated, you will be fine. 300 Watts can handle 2 opticals and a HD and other stuff (USB needs, fans, etc.)