Guess-timate on wattage...?

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dug987654

New Member
I am going to have to upgrade an old PC soon (must be pushing 6 years), that I don't have access to. Can anyone take a rough guess as to what the wattage of the PSU is going to be. It has:

Motherboard with 450mhz Pentium 3 CPU​
16mb nVidia graphics card​
13Gb harddrive​
128mb RAM​
CD Writer and floppy disk​
PCI modem​
I'm not sure if its mobo sound or a card​

I am planning on changing the mobo/CPU/RAM and maybe harddrive. I will probably scrap the modem/sound card/graphic card for onboard ones. I am looking at Athlon XP/Pentium 4/Celeron mobo/CPU package. All components I buy will be second hand/ very cheap - total budget £50ish. Will I need to get a new (old) PSU.

Thanks, Doug.
 
For that, I'd say it probably has around a 200watt PSU.

For your 'new' PC, I'd probably get at least 350watts, just to be on the safe side. It's obviously not going to be a power guzzler, but it's always nice to play it safe.

The PSU is maybe the most important part of a PC, so I wouldn't skimp on it too much, so something like this would be great!

However, if you didn't want to spend too much, this has pretty good reviews, and costs next to nothing!

Hope this helps.
 
I have a 6 year old computer: 2002, and it has a P4 3.06 . It came stock with a 250 watt.I agree with Kornowski with probably at least a 350 watt unless you are planning on rebuilding soon then I would buy a higher wattage better quality PS so you can reuse it on the new build.Old component computers arent too much fun though even for web surfing afterwhile you will have to just do a new build. Kinda like an old car when it takes more to keep it running than a newer one that would work better.
 
Thanks guys for your replies. The comp is going to be just a temporary one until I have enough money to buy a good one (will be next summer!). I am currently on a year internship so will need a proper comp next September when I am back at uni. Guess the comp is older than 6 years judging by your spec's Scubie (and my stupidity - its Windows 98 so will be pre 2000!)

Cheers, Doug.
 
The old PSU wouldn't even have an ATX12V connector, so no chance of running anything like a P4 on it. You'll need a new one.
 
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