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General discussion

Robert Proffitt, can't search, so can you tell me where

Mar 2, 2004 5:10AM PST

you get 400 watt ATX power suplies in the $20 or so price range.

Read a post by you many montha ago but can't find it now. May have been in the former forums.

TIA

Discussion is locked

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Re:Robert Proffitt, can't search, so can you tell me where
Mar 2, 2004 5:19AM PST

I would advise you getting a power supply that is so cheap. I've been burnt MANY times by those cheap power supplies. I recently bought a POWMAX 400W ATX power supply, and it burnt out EVERY time, even when the company replaced it. Right now, I'm running my system with an old 250W power supply and it has NEVER failed once, and it's more than 5 years old!! Be aware, I have: 80GB hard drive, DVD & CDRW drives, 2x256mb Crucial PC133 SDRAM, Geforce2 MX400, 5 system fans, and 3 PCI cards. Doing some recent power supply calculators, I should have at LEAST 350W to be safe. But this 250W power supply is just THAT good. Just because you can get a 400W power supply for $20 doesn't mean that you should. Go for something that is in the $40 and above range. Also, usually the heavier they are, the BETTER they are.

A good place to search for some 400W ATX power supplies is on http://www.pricewatch.com. Look for those primarily above $40-$50. It'll save you having to ship the power supply back and forth to the company over and over again.

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You may have left out a NOT in the first sentence. However
Mar 2, 2004 5:55AM PST

I agree with you totally. However, Robert has mentioned these so many times and he apparently has a large shop with big turnover. It seems that he wouldn't keep pushing them if he was having a bad experience.

I bought a powmax case with a 350 watt powmax. kept shutting down. The fan was drawing air in rather than exhasting it. {intel changed the ATX to have the supply exhaust rather than take air in a few years ago.}

With fan reversed the powmax case then had all fans, rear, side and top exhausting. System shut down alsmost immediatelty. I changed the side fan to intake air aimed right at the CPU and the system then ran fine. I still think that the fan in the powmax supply does not move enough air. They should have a higher rpm fan even if it would be a little louder [this one made almost no noise at all]. I think that the 92 mm side fan is forcing air through the power supply. The airflow design of the case the way they had it was absolutly poor design. I think that they expected the air from the power supply to immediately exhaust through the fan at the top of the case.

Others at newegg reported powmax power supply failures also.

For my own use I usually buy supplies in the 80 plus dollar range. I thought that I would try this case for a minimal system using an AMD XP 1800 + to give to a relative whose very old system died.

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Re:Robert Proffitt, can't search, so can you tell me where
Mar 2, 2004 5:28AM PST
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I checked those sites. I was hoping to use Robert's vast
Mar 2, 2004 5:57AM PST

experience with specific Mfr's units to steer me to the better of the low price ones.

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Re:I checked those sites. I was hoping to use Robert's vast
Mar 2, 2004 6:18AM PST

I always supersize the power supply and don't lose any except for a batch that were done in by the motherboard capacitor issue. Even that 550 Watt unit at http://www.compgeeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAS#Power%20Supplies isn't too expensive.

It is very important to realize that the numbers are highly suspect. I would never tax these cheaper units. But use them all the time and moving to the larger sizes seems to keep me out of trouble.

Bob

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Thanx Robert [and all others] Posted thanx 2 days ago.
Mar 4, 2004 1:00PM PST

Apparently got lost and I haven't been back until now.

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This is working so far!
Mar 2, 2004 12:47PM PST

Ray
I too, remembered some of Robert's posts on cheap cases and power supplies! I did some checking and come up with this. http://www.compgeeks.com/products.asp?cat=CAS#Power%20Supplies
I bought it and an Asus A7N8XE ultra Deluxe with AMD 3200+. I have the cpu running at 2200mhz instead of 2020, two hard drives, zip drive, CD & CD Burner and it has done great for a month now! I know that is to cheap for a PS & Case but I figure the case is worth more than that with a dud power supply!

THANKS ROBERT! I read these post a lot but don't say much, so that is my 2

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oops! wrong link
Mar 2, 2004 12:54PM PST