Changing the power supply

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undefeated56

New Member
Hey guys, im new here.. Hope you guys could help me a little here..
I'm want to change my power supply from a 300watt to a 480 (or 450) watt power supply.

I've bought a new GPU, which needs a 430+ watt power supply. (Its an ATI HD 4670 with 1GB DDR3).
Since the original power supply is only 300watt, will it be ok to change it to a more powerfull one? And if it is, will my computer work any better? (even if only sightly..)
What i'm asking is.. Is is safe to put a more powerfull power supply? And, will it be noticeable in my computer's performance?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that it is a HP computer, so its not a custom built PC.. If that matters....
 
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A higher wattage power supply won't increase your performance unless it provides more power to the graphics card which you'll get better gaming out of. The system will only use as much power as it needs to run, so there is no such thing as putting in too big of a power supply.
 
undefeated56 said:
EDIT: Forgot to mention that it is a HP computer, so its not a custom built PC.. If that matters....
Click to expand...

It could matter. It would help to know the model name and number. If it's one of those slimline PCs, then there's no way you'll fit a standard ATX PSU inside the case.
 
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I finally bought a new PSU, it's a 500 watt psu. After changing the old one, as soon as i started the computer, all the fans went crazy, they were running at maybe 2 times faster than usual, and the screen stays black all the time. After removing the new PSU and re-installing the old one, the problem persisted, and this time the GPU's fan wouldn't even spin...
I'm really worried since the warranty is over.. Is it bad?.. Is there any way to fix it?
Hope to have a reply soon.. Thank you..
 
Try removing the GPU and plugging the old one back in. Lets see if we can get you back to the old status quo before moving forward.
 
So, i've just tried to run the computer with the old components (old psu and gpu) and this time the fan of the gpu would spin, but way faster, and the screen still stayed black...
I forgot to mention that the computer turns on immediately after i plug the cable into the psu. And the leds arent working.. Pressing the on/off button on the pc does nothing...
 
That seems to be a bad GPU. as for turning on by itself, that's a BIOS setting I believe. It's got to do with power loss. I think what's happened is that it's set to power on the computer when you plug the cable in, because it thinks it didn't shut down properly, if that makes sense.

I think the setting is called Power After AC loss or something similar. Make sure it's set to "off" and not anything else.

Normally it's used so when you lose power the machine will turn itself on when power is restored.
 
I've always had the Power On After Ac Loss feature off.. I have no idea what's going on.. Is it possible that the motherboard had a voltage "blocker" only allowing the original PSU to "feed" the pc components?.. Since it's from HP...
 
That's doubtful.

Did you make sure to plug in the CPU power cable? Should be either a 4 or 8 pin connector...the socket is up by the processor. Leaving that unplugged will cause it to not boot, but spin the fans.

Out of curiosity, what power supply did you get?
 
I've plugged in every single cable there was to plug.. I bought a "2HIX Jet" (ATX) Power Supply.. I didn't want anything extreme.. So i bought it on sale... Probably wasn't a good idea...
 
I have the same "No picture on my screen" problem, can this be a PSU problem?
I bought the whole PC in parts and got a 430W PSU, the thing is everything seems to work inside the compute the, even fan on graficscard is turning, but there are no signal out from the video card it seems.

Have been trubleshooting, reading, reaconnecting and heascratching this problem for a week, tried EVERYTHING! (Atleast of what I have read) So unless enyone here got a good sulution it seems I need to get a new PSU ^^
 
undefeated56 said:
I've plugged in every single cable there was to plug.. I bought a "2HIX Jet" (ATX) Power Supply.. I didn't want anything extreme.. So i bought it on sale... Probably wasn't a good idea...
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1. Get rid of that power supply as soon as you can, burn it, tip it, bury, return it, whatever, just get rid, it is more harm than good.

2. Get a decent unit. Because of your specs a 400W unit would be enough, Antec, Corsair, Silverstone, SeaSonic, Be Quiet! and Enermax are brands you should be looking to use for low wattage units.

3. Make sure that all of the cables are in the correct place:

1 4 pin CPU power connector (between teh CPU socket and I/O panel on your motherboard)
1 24 pin connector (far right of the board)
1 to each hard drive
1 to each optical drive

4. Make sure that you didn't accidentally remove or loosen the front panel connectors. They should be plugged into the pins at the very bottom right of the motherboard

5. Make sure that the power cable isn't plugged into your power supply, and wait 20 secs or so for all power in the system to discharge, then remove the motherboard battery and leave it out for about 15 mins, then put it back in and try again
 
Is it really that horrible? =/
Either way.. It stopped working a few hours ago... I'll just return it.. But the main problem is that even if i put the old PSU, the pc won't boot... Is there any solution at all?
 
If you mean the power supply is not working, because your power went out, its most likely that the PSU needs to be replaced. But there's no need to worry, because they go for cheap nowadays. If you go on TigerDirect you can probably get one for cheap (depending on your computer).
 
undefeated56 said:
Is it really that horrible? =/
Either way.. It stopped working a few hours ago... I'll just return it.. But the main problem is that even if i put the old PSU, the pc won't boot... Is there any solution at all?
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yes, it is really that horrible.

Made from cheap parts, it will be rated at peak wattage, which it won't be able to sustain, and because it is made on the cheap and isn't rated at how it can actually perform, it will end up blowing, and when that happens, it will most likely take out other components too, so you will be out of pocket for a power supply, and whichever other parts it managed to clear out in the process
 
Having problems. Try unplugging it. Hit the power button on the case a few times to discharge it. Reset the bios by the jumper on the board, if no jumper take the boards battery out for a minute. Replace the battery, plug everything back up and try to boot. See what happens.
 
Removing the battery didn't do much (when i plugged the cable to the psu, the computer didnt start up by itself, only when i pressed the power button... But after that the power button is useless again..).. I tried resetting the bios by the jumper.. But it didn't work either.. Any other advice?
 
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