Should I be worried?

[mastermind1297]

I have a 5 year old computer that has a few upgrades and I'm wondering if my power supply is in danger of crashing.

Stock the computer came with a Sempron 3200+ processor for the socket 939 and integrated graphics.
About 2 1/2 years ago I put an 8600GT in the computer to play strategy games that were running slow.

I was a little worried about my PSU then, but a few weeks ago I was a computer store and found a Athlon 4000+ single core
and bought it for $15. I put it in my computer and it seems to be working fine.

My question is will my stock, run of the mill, 250 watt power supply from my old computer keep up with the 8600GT and the Athlon 4000+
which I'm sure takes a lot more power than the Sempron 3200+.

Also if anyone can give advice on the normal temperature of the Athlon. I'm running it with the stock cooler from the Sempron. I'm monitoring the temperature
and the highest I've seen is 53 degrees C.???

 

[tecmo34]

1) Your best way to know if your temps are good is to run Prime95's blend test for roughly 1 hour and record the temps. If temps stay below 60C on a stock cooler, you should be good to go. Your current noted temps are within safe limits.

2) Your PSU, though most likely not best of quality, is strong enough for an 8600GT. If you start running into crashes or system errors during heavy graphic related items, you PSU might be hitting it's limit and should be looked to be replaced with at max a good quality 380W or 400W.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

+1 what tecmo34 said.

Luckily you do not have a power hungry system so you might be okay. Consider it a wait and see situation.

 

[mastermind1297]

I appreciate the help.

I believe that now was bogs down my system the most is the packed 80GB hard drive.
I was considering upgrading the hard drive but then I would have to reinstall windows.
Would my system run Windows 7 with fair speed? I really just play old games like
Age of Empires and Rise of Nations so I don't care about having a HD 5970 but a
little snappier desktop response might be nice.

 

[mastermind1297]

Best answer selected by mastermind1297.

 

[tecmo34]

First... Thanks for the best answer nod.

Second... What is the rest of your system specs (include current OS) so we can determine if it'll run Win7. As for a hard drive, I would look at the Samsung Spinpoint F3 or Seagate 7200.12 (500GB or 1TB)

Third... You can always look to try and Ghost your drive and transfer it to the new hard drive without having to do a fresh install.

 

[mastermind1297]

Currently I have Windows XP and my Athlon 4000 is running at 2.4 GHz
I also just upgraded to 2 GB of ram (DDR 400 of course.)

I'm not sure how to "Ghost" my drive with Windows XP...I'm sure there is an online
guide I could find.

 

[tecmo34]

I was looking for your motherboard make & model to review to see if it will support Win7 (updated drivers... Etc)

 

[mastermind1297]

My motherboard is an Asus A8AE-LE