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Power supply affecting performance?

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by kahless1972 1 view

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I was hoping someone could settle an argument between me and a coworker.We have just built a machine for in office fun out of spare parts.Anmyway to make a long story short this machine is a 1.7 gig pentium, with 640 megs ram gforce2 64 meg video,52x cdrom, burner,and several usb devices.Also we added some fans and some col cathode lights.My coworker decided to install a 150w powersupply and i thought he should use at least 250.Anyway the machine seams to work as intended but my question is will the lack of available power affect the machines performance?

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

well, even 250W doesn't sound big enough. (i am lazy about doing the math, I just put in at least 450W) i don't think it will affect performance, but it'll probably fail quicker than a properly sized power supply. i believe this is because of power draw spike at startup...but i would like to hear what the real hardware-savvy folks say about this...

by timwalsh

Electronic components don't work on the principle of less power, lower performance (like an electrical motor, for instance).

If they get the current they need to operate, they operate at spec. If they don't get the current they need, they just don't work-period.

Frankly I'm surprised the system is working as configured. Has the computer actually run any software? You will know when you've reached the limit of the current power supply, because the computer will start doing strange things like crashing, spontaneous reboots, etc.

by kahless1972

actually the computer is running windows xp, office 2000, and several others without issue.On late evenings we even play some graphically intensive games like everquest and the like (at least until the powers that be find out)but thank you that helps a lot we have decided to go and get a 350w antec dual fan power supply just to help out with longevity.

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