PSU Replacement / Upgrade

[Audioaltima]

Hello,

Recently my PSU took a turn for the worse.
It had since been making a buzzing sounds, which seemed to be the fan. CPU fan worked fine and noise was not emanating from it. When the PSU fan would start to buzz, a light tap on the PC casing would set things straight again.

The other day though, it had shut down on me, I rebooted but the PSU fan wasn't spinning. It powered on, and tried to load the drives, but said no drives were available, and to insert a valid boot drive and hit any key. This has happened before in the past. After letting it cool, and rebooting a few times, it would boot back up. Back then though, the PSU fan would spin up right away.

Anyways, thats pretty much where I am as far as background story. I'm just hoping the damage is limited to there.

What would my upgrade options be for my PSU? I realize that it was under powered straight from the manufacturer, so I was hoping to upgrade to at least a 400W+ model.

Specs are in the link below.
https://www.cnet.com/products/gateway-dx4831-03/specs/

Can I use a 20+4 pin PSU as a straight swap (Motherboard is 24 pin)? I am trying to be budget concious, as it is a 5 year old PC. It has been running good, apart from a few minor read/drive access slow downs... which I now think may have been related to the power supply.

Hope someone can help.
I'm in Canada, so will either go local, or look on tigerdirect.ca or newegg.ca

 

[MatthewGB]

This should do the trick. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438038&cm_re=400w_psu-_-17-438-038-_-Product
It comes with a 24pin too, but even if it did have only 20pins on the motherboard it would still work fine.

 

[Audioaltima]

This should do the trick. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438038&cm_re=400w_psu-_-17-438-038-_-Product
It comes with a 24pin too, but even if it did have only 20pins on the motherboard it would still work fine.

Thanks Matt.

I have 2 followup questions.
1. It looks as if the Fan faces upwards. On my current PSU the exhaust is out the rear. Is this going to be an issue?
2. Is 400W sufficient for the setup? Everything I have read says 300W wasn't enough, and many people ran into shutdown issues with the factory PSU. Also, I want to be sure I have enough connections internally to have everything hooked back up. Does this PSU provide that?

 

[MatthewGB]

1. Fan orientation doesn't matter. You need to make sure that the air input isn't obstructed when installing.
2. Yes, your computer uses very low power components, and shouldn't use more then ~250W. 400W is plenty. Additionally, the PSU that came with your computer is likely to be of far worse quality compared to EVGA.

 

[Audioaltima]

1. Fan orientation doesn't matter. You need to make sure that the air input isn't obstructed when installing.
2. Yes, your computer uses very low power components, and shouldn't use more then ~250W. 400W is plenty. Additionally, the PSU that came with your computer is likely to be of far worse quality compared to EVGA.

One last question Matt.
In reference to my 1st point.
I haven't really taken apart PCs since I was about 16-17, back in the 486/Pentium early days... Will the mounting be standard in this case? What I mean is, I know it will lineup, but would there be any options to perhaps move it down a bit?
It does not look like there is much room for air circulation above the PSU. Here is a picture off the web of the internals of the tower. Mine is pretty much identical.... (except possibly mine has a little more dust, which will get cleaned out when I rewire).

In case image doesn't how, link:
http://www.computershopper.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/media/images/gateway-dx4831-03-inside/575870-1-eng-US/gateway-dx4831-03-inside_maxwidth.jpg

 

[MatthewGB]

PSU's have barely changed since 2000's. The ATX standard has ensured that all the manufacturers use the same connectors. You'll need to plug in:
- 20pin Motherboard connector
- 4pin CPU connectors (On motherboard)
- SATA Power connector(s) (On HDD/SSD/Optical Drives)

If you're ever stuck, just look up some tutorials online, it's easy and safe to replace PSUs. One last tip; make sure you ground yourself before starting, as if you have any electrical charge in you and touch a PCB you could fry one of your components.

You can't move the PSU, if thats what you mean. It must be in the place designated in the case.

There doesn't need to be space for circulation above the PSU, the fan side of the PSU MUST be facing downwards, otherwise it will indeed be blocked.

 

[Audioaltima]

There doesn't need to be space for circulation above the PSU, the fan side of the PSU MUST be facing downwards, otherwise it will indeed be blocked.

Holy Crap was that a dumb question! hahaha... thanks for the non-judgemental answer.
I got it now!

Thanks for all your help!