Will my power supply work with my set-up

Rit

Member
So I have an Antec TruPower 430W Power Supply

What I'm about to put together is...

MSI K8NGM2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64x2 4200+
MSI R3850 LINK
2 - 1GB DDR-400 PC-3200 RAM
2 - 80 GB Sata HDs
1 - DVD/CD Burner
1 - DVD/CD Reader
 
Ok... I was going to buy a 500 watt power supply, but funds ran a little short this week so I have to wait for next pay period (2 weeks). And I want to make sure everything works since some of the stuff I got was used.
 
sounds good.. then did i spread the thermal paste ok?

mms_picture.jpg
 
To much. Either put a rice grain size in the middle and let the heatsink spread it out. Or spread it thin and even with a Credit card or DL.
 
It will probably be fine though, rather than waste the paste. A 4200 doesn't throw off a lot of heat.
 
you don't need to spread it anyway, just put a grain of rice size in the middle and whack the heatsink on, it will spread itself into whatever gaps it finds
 
Well I guess everyone has their own way of doing it. I googled it and saw to spread, not to spread, put it on and twist it, etc... so kinda did a little of both.
 
Well I guess everyone has their own way of doing it. I googled it and saw to spread, not to spread, put it on and twist it, etc... so kinda did a little of both.
Spreading does not allow even distribution, increases chances of foreign particlulate contaminating the thermal interface medium, air bubbles form, and generally hurt the thermal performance. Recommending a credit card is a pretty bad idea, especially if you keep it in a wallet like probably 99% of guys do. The main heat source is the center of the processing unit, which is why you should put the thermal interface material in the center(or in the case of a thermal pad, it goes across the entire surface but that is a different type of medium).
 
Test it first and then remove and inspect it (then clean and redo what works). I tried a few diff methods and then removed the cooler to see the contact until I found what worked for me. The spread method did not give me good contact.
 
Well the computer has been up and running for about 2 hours now, just doing updating. But according to Speccy the CPU average temp is about 33C :good:

Other problem, my power supply doesn't have a 6-pin connector for my 3850 vid card :(
 
i would get a atleast a 600 watt power supply if i was you

LOL, for a 65w cpu and 75w video card? ....and you build custom computers? :eek: Do you use $20 power supplies in your builds or something? If so I can see why you would recommend 600w, because sure a $20 400w power supply may blow up, but not an Antec.

With the 430w that still leaves 290w for powering the mobo, hard drives, and dvd burners...hmmmm Even if you take 50w for powering the mobo, and 10w for each component (each ram stick and each HD and each DVD rom) which is way plenty of coverage for those components that STILL leaves 180w excess.
 
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LOL, for a 65w cpu and 75w video card? ....and you build custom computers? :eek: Do you use $20 power supplies in your builds or something? If so I can see why you would recommend 600w, because sure a $20 400w power supply may blow up, but not an Antec.

With the 430w that still leaves 290w for powering the mobo, hard drives, and dvd burners...hmmmm Even if you take 50w for powering the mobo, and 10w for each component (each ram stick and each HD and each DVD rom) which is way plenty of coverage for those components that STILL leaves 180w excess.

This guy knows little about power supplies if he thinks this PSU can provide the wattage he claims. Its about amps. Without EPS2.91 cert, that PSU relies on 32A for the 12V system minus the CPU dedicated rail (12V+1 IAW ATX design standards). That is 384W. Its a good PSU don't get me wrong, but the wattage calc made by 87dtna is simply wrong.

I think you will also find that at load the 3850 will consume closer to 8A (100W) leaving 24A for the rest of the system. That is 288W, which should be oodles.

The thing is though, add capacitor ageing, heat related inefficienies, voltage related inefficiencies in USA etc and then add a new CPU next year and other gear, you may be wishing you got a more powerful PSU.

It will work fine for now, however any upgrades I would suggest you get a new quality and more powerful psu.
 
You could use a calculator like:

http://www.silentmods.com/modding/PSU_Watts_Calculator.html

to give you an estimate of the amount of power usage your system will have.

I haven't checked that one specifically but you get the idea I hope, that just came up top on google.



As for paste on your CPU pertty much what everybody else has said, just put a blob in the middle and put the heat sink on, you may notice your CPU temps dropping slightly over time as the CPU/heat sink heat and cool spreading the paste but it's likely to be a negligible change. The point being; it spreads itself.
 
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