Dell Upgrade Advice

[BlackKnight]

I have no idea about how much each component uses but Ill list em-

 

P4 3.06Ghz

1GB DDR

120gb SATA HDD

250gb SATA HDD

1 DVD+RW

SB Live 5.1

 

and the 6600GT (Currently a FX 5200).

 

Is that a lot?

Edited November 12, 2005 by DragonKeeper

[Weirdy]

aren't there usually labels that tell you how much power each needs?

[ken_cinder]

aren't there usually labels that tell you how much power each needs?

 

Yes, they're listed on drives labels. THings like motherboards you'd need to look in the manual/safety panflet though.

Judging by what he listed though, 2 SATA drives and a DVD+RW......250w might not be enough. Really depends on the draw from the drives though, the motherboard will draw a consistent ammount of power regardless of the number of expansion cards in it.

And a P4 3.06Ghz draws a fair bit of juice, personally....I wouldn't even be running that setup with just a single hard drive on it's own, without at least a 350w PSU.

 

Suffice it to say, I think you should try and find another PSU and hook it up externally to power the 6600. All you need is the lowest wattage one you can find, but theres a catch here, you can't use an ATX PSU, you MUST find an AT one.

Why you might ask? Well you can't turn on an ATX PSU without it being hooked up to a motherboard (At least not without alot of hassle). An AT one however, you just flip the switch on.

Find a really old computer with an AT PSU, and use that.

 

btw, if you're buying a PCI-Express version of the card, you're SOL. You'll need to replace the PSU in your PC, as only the AGP version gets it's extra power from a secondary connection. The PCI-E version is supplied all of it's power from the PCI-E 16x slot.