While looking at video cards at my local Best Buy, I noticed that most of the new cards including the Radeon 9000 AGP series recommend at least a 300 watt power supply. I asked the store tech and he agreed. He said there would be blackouts on my computer and that I would not get full power to the card otherwise. He sold me a standard looking 300 watt power supply along with a Radeon 9800 pro card. When I got home, I soon discovered that the new power supply would no way fit into my proprietary Gateway computer. I called Gateway and three different reps said I would not need a new power supply for this card, and my 250 watt max power supply would be fine. They said that they have been selling cards with my 250 ps for some time with no problems. This impressed me since I figured they could have easily talked me into buying a new ps. Instead, I bought the 9800 Pro from them and returned the other. It just got me to thinking - who is right? Is this a big issue for 50 watts? I assume Gateway is right since they are standing by my warranty. Thanks. Tom

Much depends on how much you load up the power supply.... I have a card which had the 300W warning....and I have just a 250W power supply. I've yet to have a problem--both COF and FS2002 can run all day long.But I also don't draw much from the power supply--I only have a 800 MHZ CPU, I use USB seldom (most USB components feed off of the power supply), and I have only one HD and one CD player.The proprietary baloney is the reason I build my own systems, however. If you can plug in a new graphics card, you have all the skills needed to build your own system. I suggest it the next time around--being limited to a 250W power supply will eventually be a problem. That's one of the ways the major PC makers skimp, another is through proprietary memory and proprietary case/MB design... As for their tech support--they'll tell you what their canned scripts say to tell you. But load up the PC with enough components that draw power, and they'll be wrong...-John

See my specs down, I initially had 300Watt, and had blackouts every 10-15 minutes on my older P4G8X and newer P4C800 motherboard.It does depend on the load, and if you have let's say P4 2Ghz, 2 HDDs, 1 or 2 CD/DVD drives, and lets say 3 PCI cards, you will 99% sure have crashes and problems.Radeon card, so far I measured draws around 40-50W out of the powersupply - now this measurement might be wrong, but that was the difference measured on the power outlet when Radeon at idle (CPU at 100%), or Flight Sim running (Radeon and CPU both running hot).

The answer is that 250 watt, 350 watt, etc, are absolutely useless ways to rate a power supply. A power supply has 6 busses, +12, +5, +3.3, -3.3, -5, and -12 volts. Each bus is capable of providing it's rated voltage at a certain current. That 300 watt rating is based on the sum of the power output (current times voltage) of all the busses. The problem is, the power demand on each bus is not the same. Therefore, you can have a 500 watt power supply, but if most of that rating comes from a very high output on the +12 line, and the +5 is completely underfed, you're going to have serious stability issues. The problem is that some el-cheapo brands do exactly that, boost their peak power rating by providing one powerful bus and cheaping out on the others. They also may allow their voltage levels to drop much futher than reputable manufacturers at the peak current output. The point here is that your 250 watt Gateway power supply, in all likelyhood, provides more voltage-stable power on the busses that matter, than a cheap junk 300 watt power supply. (and trust me, there are far more cheap junk power supplys than reputable ones)Toms Hardware has a good article on how some manufacturers cheat the ratings and produce very marginal power supplys, and how some brands far exceed their advertized specificatons.http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.htmlExecutive summary: Fortron (FSP), Verax, Herolchi, and Antec make power supplys that don't cut corners. Antec is the easiest of these brands to find in a retail store. -

Wow, glad to learn something about that, too!

Yeah get an Antec and you'll be fine... I'd go no lower than 430W - that way you can still use the PS if/when you upgrade the whole system.

In the old days, it was said that you could run two TV's off your PC power supply, no problem, so 300 watts was more than anyone needed.These days, with multiple CD-ROM/DVD drives, 21" monitors, and 10000 rpm hard drives, you need a lot more than that.The THG article was most informative, thanks for pointing to that...

Hi Tom,I spent a lot of time investigating the power supply question, before I bought my Asyslum GeForce 4 Ti4200 card (excellent), many months a go. My Dell computer (PIII, 1 gig, 512 mb ram, 1 cd-rom, 1 cd-burner, 1 hd, 1 printer, 1 monitor, WinMe)has a 250 watt power supply and I thought it wouldn't be enough based on what I read concerning minimum required specs for various video cards. I sent questions to various computer guru type forums as well as this MSFS forum (for actual use comments). The primary answer I got was that it depends on how much you are running on your computer (hard drives, dvd, cd roms etc) as well as the quality of your power supply. Folks in this forum told me they had been running FS9 with cards which "required" higher power supplies then their computer actually had installed. They said they didn't have any problems.I then called Dell (excellent company btw) and asked their advice. They asked me which model video card I wanted to install (not the brand, but rather the type - GeForce 4 Ti4200). They said they had tested that card on my model Dell and it would work without any problem. They were correct. I've had the card installed for many month and many happy hours with FS9 and it's great! No problems.Hope this helps.Howard

When I upgraded my system not too long ago, I never gave much thought about power supplies, until I talked with my computer guru friends. If you don't have the power, all that giga and mega stuff isn't going to do a whole lot of good.Once you increase the power supply, you also increase the heat your machine generates. Also think about cooling along with power supplies and high end video and sound cards.

The wattage doesn't tell you much about the quality of the power supply. "Generic" power supplies are often quite crappy and you might be better of with a quality unit with a lower wattage.A crappy power supply can cause system instability as well as damage the computer hardware. Several years ago, I had a 250W Enlight power supply. It caused the harddrive to fail twice because the voltage was fluctuating and below spec. I was about to pull my hair before I figured out what actually caused two harddrives to fail within 2 months. Got an Enermax 350 watter and no problems after that.You can usually check the voltages in BIOS setup. The voltages should be as close as possible to the target, and absoultely within 0.2V. For example, make sure the 5V rail is at least 4.8V, preferably over 4.9V. If it isn't, you probably need a better power supply.I recommend Antec or Enermax.The Antec TruePower series are high quality units and extremely quiet but also very expensive.You can probably run a Radeon 9800 off a 300W or even 250W PSU. If you have a loaded system (lots of harddrives, fans and power-hungry PCI cards), you should have at least a 350W unit to guarantee stability.I was running an Enermax 350W with these systems:Asus A7V, Athlon 900 MHz at 1 GHz, 256MB RAM, Voodoo5 5500 AGP, 30GB, 5400 RPM harddrive-then-Epox 8KHA+ mainboard, AthlonXP 1900+, 512MB RAM, Geforce3 Ti500, 40GB IBM 7200RPM harddriveI had to upgrade to a 430W Antec TP when I got this:Epox 8RDA+, AthlonXP 2400+ at 2.2 GHz, 512MB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro, 120GB WD 7200 RPM drive and 160GB Maxtor DiamondMax9 7200 RPM harddrive"Once you increase the power supply, you also increase the heat your machine generates. Also think about cooling along with power supplies and high end video and sound cards."This is not entirely true. The more power hungry components you have in the system the more heat will be generated, by the components themselves as well as by the power supply. A bigger power supply will most likely run cooler, because it's not operating near the limit like a less powerful one would.

Thanks for all the info guys. You really explained it well. I have a CD RW, DVD, one HD and a 17" plasma monitor. I think I'll simply try out the new card and see how things go. As you said, Gateway should know their power supplies and I'm sure they feel it's a quality one. If I have problems, I'll spring for a more powerful one. Regards, Tom:)

>Hi Tom,>>I then called Dell (excellent company btw) and asked their>advice. They asked me which model video card I wanted to>install (not the brand, but rather the type - GeForce 4>Ti4200). They said they had tested that card on my model Dell>and it would work without any problem. They were correct. >I've had the card installed for many month and many happy>hours with FS9 and it's great! No problems.If you ever do need to upgrade your power supply, be VERY careful! Prior to mid 2002, Dell used a power supply that is not 100% ATX compatable. It looks like an ATX power supply, and an ATX power supply will fit perfectly in the same location. Even the power connector is the same, so it will plug in to your motherboard just fine. The problem is, a few of the wires in the power connector are not in the same positions as they would be on a regular ATX power supply. It WILL burn out your motherboard when you turn it on. You can cut and splice to make an ATX power supply work with a Dell MB, or buy an adapter:http://www.siliconacoustics.com/atxtodelad.htmlDan

I thought I'd do the same and if necessary I'd install a larger power supply. As I said in a previous message, my system worked well with the 250 wattt ps so no update was necessary.But, I did ask Dell about upgrading my power supply if necessary and they said I shouldn't do that. Apparently, a larger power supply could have a bad effect on other components (mother board etc.).Suggestion: If you feel the need to upgrade your power supply, check with Gateway to see if they recommend it.Howard