Building a New Computer - What capacity power supply?

[Ziggy]

I wasn't implying that spending more money on a PSU would get you a better one, never did I talk about money. I'm talking more about brands, and the ones that I trust from my own experience. And about people reviewing computer parts.... there's a lot of us out there that will build or upgrade a PC, that doesn't mean they know what they're doing. Any idiot can put a computer together, that just means they can plug parts into one another. And being that every thing is keyed now, you really don't even need instructions if you just take a long hard look at everything. So again, just because you can do this, doesn't mean you know anything about computers.

There's also the fact that people tend to only review a product when its bad, more often then some one reviewing a product thats good. And just because some one on the internet says a PSU fails, doesn't mean it was the PSU's fault. There's plenty of things that could cause it to fail, and the person just assumes wrong. Perhaps an electrical surge, perhaps the person didn't have it plugged into a surge protector, perhaps the wall outlet is faulty, perhaps other parts in the PC are faulty, perhaps the person was sucking more power out of the PSU then they should be along with one of the other possibilities.

And what I said about people only reviewing bad products... a lot of times a product will have a small failure percentage from production flaws or what ever the case may be. For example, a company can put out a new motherboard and start selling them on New Egg. Then, about 100 boards were made wrong and all shipped to New Egg. The problem is known, and the company usually fixes or replaces it. But then there's all these bad reviews of the product that keep popping up on New Egg that say "if you buy this board you'll get it DOA!!!" Mean while, the problem has long since been corrected, and the current made boards are of great quality.

I just don't trust reviews a whole lot, but thats just me. Lol, and maybe 90% was a little high, but I really feel that there's a lot of people out there putting computers together that don't know a whole lot other then how to plug stuff in.


edit: Forgot the part about luck when buying, its so true really. Not just with PCs but any electronics. Game systems, TVs, toasters, anything. Its a pain in the ass.

[Mozgus]

But the motherboard, in most cases, will LONG out live the graphics card.

Just posting to disagree with this. My boards always start failing within 2-4 years. My video cards never really gain any issues down the road. Sometimes they arrive with issues though.

[Ziggy]

Well I was talking about the technology, not the parts failing. But wow, I can't believe your mobo's fail that soon/often. What brand mobo's were the ones that failed?

[Mozgus]

Well I was talking about the technology, not the parts failing. But wow, I can't believe your mobo's fail that soon/often. What brand mobo's were the ones that failed?

Gigabyte and ASUS. Gigabyte especially fucked me. They dont do anything to an RMA'd board. They send it right back to you and ignore communication attempts, and waste your time and money. At least ASUS replaces my bad boards.

Oh and before that it was a PCCHIPS board.

[sakicfan84]

I wasn't implying that spending more money on a PSU would get you a better one, never did I talk about money. I'm talking more about brands, and the ones that I trust from my own experience. And about people reviewing computer parts.... there's a lot of us out there that will build or upgrade a PC, that doesn't mean they know what they're doing. Any idiot can put a computer together, that just means they can plug parts into one another. And being that every thing is keyed now, you really don't even need instructions if you just take a long hard look at everything. So again, just because you can do this, doesn't mean you know anything about computers.

There's also the fact that people tend to only review a product when its bad, more often then some one reviewing a product thats good. And just because some one on the internet says a PSU fails, doesn't mean it was the PSU's fault. There's plenty of things that could cause it to fail, and the person just assumes wrong. Perhaps an electrical surge, perhaps the person didn't have it plugged into a surge protector, perhaps the wall outlet is faulty, perhaps other parts in the PC are faulty, perhaps the person was sucking more power out of the PSU then they should be along with one of the other possibilities.

And what I said about people only reviewing bad products... a lot of times a product will have a small failure percentage from production flaws or what ever the case may be. For example, a company can put out a new motherboard and start selling them on New Egg. Then, about 100 boards were made wrong and all shipped to New Egg. The problem is known, and the company usually fixes or replaces it. But then there's all these bad reviews of the product that keep popping up on New Egg that say "if you buy this board you'll get it DOA!!!" Mean while, the problem has long since been corrected, and the current made boards are of great quality.

I just don't trust reviews a whole lot, but thats just me. Lol, and maybe 90% was a little high, but I really feel that there's a lot of people out there putting computers together that don't know a whole lot other then how to plug stuff in.


edit: Forgot the part about luck when buying, its so true really. Not just with PCs but any electronics. Game systems, TVs, toasters, anything. Its a pain in the ass.

I agree with you on pretty much everything. Was just trying to tell the OP that if he wants to try to save a few duckets on a power supply, it probably won't bite him in the ass. If he was thinking about getting dual video cards or maxing out on overclocking, I'd definitely be pushing for him to go with a higher reputation PSU thats proven to be able to withstand being pushed.

Good point on the negative review thing; I know I'm mostly like to put a review in when something I get something and it's complete f'ed up. I've gotten plenty of parts that had quite a few negative reviews, and most of them turned out fine for me. Also, I never just look at what the percentage of negative reviews is for a product, because sometimes a high portion of the negatives will be complete bullshit. I've seen people give negative reviews for video cards because the card didn't come with a game despite the fact that it was pretty obvious the card wasn't supposed to come with a game.

[Ziggy]

No, I see what you were saying about the PSU, I'm just saying that I'd still go with a trusted brand name even if it isn't an expensive model. The Enermax I'm using now was about $50, and the one I upgraded it with (still being used in a 'spare parts' PC) was another Enermax that was only $30.

Well I was talking about the technology, not the parts failing. But wow, I can't believe your mobo's fail that soon/often. What brand mobo's were the ones that failed?

Gigabyte and ASUS. Gigabyte especially fucked me. They dont do anything to an RMA'd board. They send it right back to you and ignore communication attempts, and waste your time and money. At least ASUS replaces my bad boards.

Oh and before that it was a PCCHIPS board.

Well I'd like to call it just bad luck, like we were talking about before, for the Asus and Gigibyte. But PC Chips, I've had my own bad experience with. And while googling answers and tips for it, I found a lot of people that hate PC Chips and even more people warning to stay away from them. But I've actually never had a motherboard fail on me, which is why I'd like to call your experience with them bad luck.

[Mozgus]

No, I see what you were saying about the PSU, I'm just saying that I'd still go with a trusted brand name even if it isn't an expensive model. The Enermax I'm using now was about $50, and the one I upgraded it with (still being used in a 'spare parts' PC) was another Enermax that was only $30.

Well I was talking about the technology, not the parts failing. But wow, I can't believe your mobo's fail that soon/often. What brand mobo's were the ones that failed?

Gigabyte and ASUS. Gigabyte especially fucked me. They dont do anything to an RMA'd board. They send it right back to you and ignore communication attempts, and waste your time and money. At least ASUS replaces my bad boards.

Oh and before that it was a PCCHIPS board.

Well I'd like to call it just bad luck, like we were talking about before, for the Asus and Gigibyte. But PC Chips, I've had my own bad experience with. And while googling answers and tips for it, I found a lot of people that hate PC Chips and even more people warning to stay away from them. But I've actually never had a motherboard fail on me, which is why I'd like to call your experience with them bad luck.

My most recent issue with the ASUS is that it freezes on the bios screen unless I flip the PSU switch off and on before powering on. Maybe a capacitor is malfunctioning? Now I just rely on sleep mode as much as possible. I'm out of the warranty now, I believe.

[D.D.D.]

I don't know what you guys are doing to your PCs but I have never had anything go bad on me, parts or PC-wise. OK a cooling fan started to make noise but other than that, nothing.
I use Soyo mobos, Hitachi drives, Pioneer optical, Intel CPUs, Creative sound, ATI video, and Antec cooling parts. I've had nothing go bad on me. And for reference, my PCs are on 24/7 unless for a reset or maintainance (and monthly de-dusting).

Do you guys not ground yourself and keep yourself grounded with a strap? Seriously, why all the bad luck?

[ImportBoy]

I don't know what you guys are doing to your PCs but I have never had anything go bad on me, parts or PC-wise. OK a cooling fan started to make noise but other than that, nothing.
I use Soyo mobos, Hitachi drives, Pioneer optical, Intel CPUs, Creative sound, ATI video, and Antec cooling parts. I've had nothing go bad on me. And for reference, my PCs are on 24/7 unless for a reset or maintainance (and monthly de-dusting).

I think the only PC component that ever went bad on me, out of 4 main desktops, was a 32x CD-ROM drive back in 2000ish or so; system was a year and a half old (Pentium II 333 MHz). Just went out and bought a cheap replacement 52x at Computer City (remember them?).

Anyway I think I am going to re-evaluate my video card choice and perhaps go for the GTX 280 instead. I recently found out the Matrox Triplehead2go, something I've had my eye on for a few years, now supports 3 widescreen monitors (or 3 22nd inchers, 1680 x 1050, total of 5040 x 1050!!!). A good number of games I play, or am planning to try sometime, support it. Probably will take into account adding a second card via SLI when prices go down in the future.

[Ziggy]

^ Next PC I build I plan to get an SLI board, but only use one graphics card for the time being. When I start to "max out" that PC in some years, and cards are dirt cheap, that's when SLI will come into play. I usually never get the newest graphics card, I feel its a waste of money. If you just wait a few months for the next best thing to come out, you don't have to pay too much for it. But, to each his own.

Well I think fans and CD drives are very common to eventually die. I've had 2 or 3 CD drives go out on me, and about 2 fans. Also, hard drives are in 3rd place for going bad. Granted, all three have moving parts, and thats probably why they eventually wear out. And I've had one or two cheap, and I mean really cheap, PSU go out on me.

But I've never had a motherboard go out on me, or a graphic card. The only thing I can think of is an older graphic card's fan dying, but that doesn't mean the card itself is dead.

I too leave my PCs running 24/7. Some times they'll stay on for months at a time. But there was one time the power went out in my house (it was going off then right back on, did this almost every night one summer) and some how that killed my Linksys network card and floppy disk drive. Weird, I'm using a surge protector.