Power Supply CheckThe power supply is included here because its importance and effect on system performance is often overlooked. How? A case in point - I bought an AMD Athlon 1800+ system that had a 350W
power supply. It worked well for almost a year but suddenly went dead. Since the system was under warranty, they replaced the power supply with an identical one, but that one went dead in about two weeks. In both cases I had to troubleshoot to figure out that the problem was the power supply. So I did a bit of research and found out that the power supply was limited, based on the power ratings of all the computer components in the system. Determining Your Power Supply NeedsYou can determine the adequate power supply rating for your computer by summing the power ratings for all the components and then multiplying by 1.8. Here's an example for an AMD XP1800+ 1.5GHz system configuration:
To determine the minimum power supply rating, just multiply the total by 1.8. For this example, we get 327.78 W. This means that a 350W power supply should be enough for this system. But wait! What if you decided to add more devices later on. You may need to add some USB devices, a modem card or a sound card. Or you could add more memory, upgrade your processor... It means that I would go with at least a 400W power supply for this system if there is the possibility that I may need to do some sort of upgrade later on. Give your internet computer some muscle. Get a power supply that will go for long hours, days, and weeks without getting tired. Power Supply and Air FlowChoose a power supply that will provide a suitable air flow through your system. By suitable, I mean a desirable, optimum cooling effect on the CPU. Notice from the example given above that the CPU is a big power consumer. Choose a power supply with dual fan. When installed, the intake (bottom inlet) should pull air from the direction of the processor. In the AMD architecture, the suitable power supply would normally have the intake at the bottom and the exhaust at the back (of course).
I use the Intel- and AMD-recommended 400W PS (with the Allied brand name). It provides the power, the system cooling needed. Also, my pumped-up home pc runs as cool as a sleeping baby.
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