ryder_22

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I'm thinking of purchasing an AMD x2 4200+ with a 7600GT and using a $20CAN power supply.
$19 400W ATX12V PS w/+12VDC 4pin Connector
I have owned computers for 4+ years that I used heavily on cheap no-name PSU with no problems at all. I don't see why new CPU's are any different. With computers, I figure if it lasts for a year, it will last a lifetime. That has been my experience anyway. If the computer is bound to blow up, the likely hood will be in the first months of use. If it happens after two years, the PSU was most likely defective. The likelihood of PSU being defective for any brand is slim to none. Are those thoughts flawed?
As well, how can the psu mess up the whole system?
Some factual data on these topics would be appreciated.
 

pwnage

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Sorry to say you have a BIG misconseption. A crapy PSU can cause your mobo and other componets to POP and SIZLE. I have seen machines that have run fine for two years and then the capasitors on the mobo blow up taking the proc with it.

It is best to spend the extra dough and get an enermax or a PC Power and cooling. these guys have stellar reps for making kick a** PSUs

i have one of PC Power and Coolings 1K in my machine and i love it. im not saying you need that, a simple 500W or 600W will do fine.
 

ryder_22

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"A crapy PSU can cause your mobo and other componets to POP and SIZLE". If that's going to happen, isn't it most likely to happen in the first year you have a computer? Why would they even both producing $20 PSU's if they have a potential of destroying the MB and CPU?
I still don't know how the PSU can cause damage; perhaps someone could explain.
 

pwnage

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"If that's going to happen, isn't it most likely to happen in the first year you have a computer?"
yes and no. If the machine dies in its first year of use it is because of a faulty part. outside of that, most of the time, it's more of a ware and tear type of break down.

"Why would they even both producing $20 PSU's if they have a potential of destroying the MB and CPU?"
they manufacture the cheep PSUs for people who dont want to spend a lot of cash and the manufactures get away with it because people dont know.
Dell had this problem a while back with some of their machines. they were using crapy PSUs and machines started to die just outside their warenty.

"I still don't know how the PSU can cause damage; perhaps someone could explain."
A lot of the time the cheeper power supplies will have voltages that are incorrect.
when this happens it causes the sesitive parts of your machine to become...unstable. the longer the voltages are unstable the faster your machine will bite the dust. Im NOT saying that every cheep PSU will take the mobo and proc with it all the time. this was just one of my experiances. But a good majority of the time the mobo dose go. since the mobo is the first thing to recive power, and provides power to the other parts, it is the most subseptible to these voltage changes.
 

helms

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I had problems with a cheap powersupply a long time ago with a pentium 200mhz, the computer would restart for no reason every half an hour when playing games, back then I was a noob and bought the computer from a system builder. Very annoying that the system builder gave me a power supply that couldnt handle the work.

Because the computer only restarted when playing games I didnt notice the problem until like a year later because it didn't restart with the lower end games of the time. I didnt know the powersupply was causing the restarts either.

3 yrs down the track the computer was getting old and therefore it was slow, so I decided to open it up and mess with the hardware. I overloaded the old cheap power supply somehow and then bought a $10 cheap power supply to replace the previous cheap one. This one didnt give me the restart problem and I came to the conclusion that the other power supply had problems.
 

woodchuk

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Please get a good one, the Antecs are good and not too expensive. These guys can recommend a specific good one. They pay for themselves in the long run and hardly ever fail. You don't need a high wattage one either, unless you run multiple harddrives or plan to overclock extensively. They can crash and burn anytime, just believe it. I build for other people and don't play the wheel...
 

waylander

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I'm thinking of purchasing an AMD x2 4200+ with a 7600GT and using a $20CAN power supply.
$19 400W ATX12V PS w/+12VDC 4pin Connector
I have owned computers for 4+ years that I used heavily on cheap no-name PSU with no problems at all. I don't see why new CPU's are any different. With computers, I figure if it lasts for a year, it will last a lifetime. That has been my experience anyway. If the computer is bound to blow up, the likely hood will be in the first months of use. If it happens after two years, the PSU was most likely defective. The likelihood of PSU being defective for any brand is slim to none. Are those thoughts flawed?
As well, how can the psu mess up the whole system?
Some factual data on these topics would be appreciated.

So what you are trying to say is you'd rather see your psu blow up your cpu and motherboard in the first year rather than later? I'd rather not have mine go at any time thanks. Also, capacitors age over time losing efficiency, this can cause issues after 2-3 years.

The discussion on the voltages is correct but you have to realize that 400w was overkill for most systems, still is, but a cheap one can have stability problems with high loads at high temperatures. Most cheap psu's test for their max output at 25C, your psu operating temperture is probably closer to 50C, do you think you are getting the max output listed on the psu at 50C?????
 

simonyee04

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Aug 8, 2006
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take your heart out and put a not so good one.

Time will tell if the psu will kill everything inside the computer.
wrong perception nothing will go wrong

Wear and tear
noisy fan
slow system
sudden hardware failure

are those good enough reason?
 

calyn

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A bad PSU can cause alot of issues, I had the unfortanate experince with two as well. The later one failed to boot regularly, had random crashes and so on. Luckily it never burned out for this one, but that may happen as it did with the previous. That one took 2 PII's and a MoBo with it when it died. Ok, the rig was 5 yrs old at the time, but still...