How much Power am I using?

A

ancientpaint

New Member
How can I tell how much power my computer is using? My computer has 300 watt power supply. I took an old 256mb ram card and placed it into my pc. When I turn my computer on, my monitor does not turn on. When I take out the old 256 mb Ram card, everything is fine. Is this because the power supply does not have enough power to run everything including the 256 ram Card? Or is this because the 256 ram is bad? I know the ram and my mother board are compatible...or at least i think so.

Mother Board

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...t=426755&dlc=&docname=c00196251#c00196251_doc

Old ram

Nanya 256MB DDR 266MHz CL2.5 PC2100U

thanks
 
What are your system specs other than your Mobo (CPU, Optical drives, video card, etc.)? It's probably a compatibility issue with the RAM or a bad card (stick?).
 
here are the other specs. It is just an old off the shelf computer.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00215418&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=&product=426755


It is quite possible that the ram is bad. The old computer I removed it from did not work. I was told the old computer I tooke the 256 Ram from had a bad motherboard. Maybe it fried the ram to. I was just thought not enough power could be the problem. Also in the future it would be nice to know how to check how much power I am using.
 
It's highly unlikely to be a power issue, RAM uses very little power. Most likely a bad stick of memory. There's no software tools that can tell you how much you're using, although you can purchase a device such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001 which will do the job. There are also a number of online PSU calculators that will give you approximations with varying degrees of accuracy, all you need to do is enter your complete system specifications.
 
That will only give a very approximate estimate, less accurate even than some of the online PSU calculators since it can't detect and calculate all your hardware.
 
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