Power Supply Upgrade?

Bleah. I have a five (six?) year old G-450. Had problems recently
with blue screens and then memory failure messages on booting which
seem to have been resolved by reseating the memory module (after
cleaning the contacts) I'd like to keep this machine until I can
afford a new one without a whole lot of expense but I am concerned
that the 200 Watt Powertech power supply that it came with is possibly
insufficient. I have a Nvidia GeForce 2 mx/mx 400 video 64 Mb card in
it, and their information says it requires at least a 235 watt power
supply, preferably 250, though it has had this card for almost two
years without major issues. The sound card has been changed also to a
SB live. It still has the original Maxtor HD, and old Toshiba DVD/CD
rom drive; long ago pulled the voodoo card and a tv card that came
with it; it now uses a USR external modem and a Canon USB printer.
That's pretty much it. Would it be prudent to upgrade the power
supply? And if so..how do I find one that matches up? Gateway offers
no assistance on their site and of course this system is long past its
warranty/support dates even if I thought calling them would be useful.
TIA
May


"Not all who wander are lost"

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, it might well be prudent to upgrade the power supply. The nVidia cards
suck up the current. If you upgrade the memory or add another hard drive, the
computer will draw more current.

If you are in a bind for a power supply, I still have a carton of brand-new
surplused Gateway 250w power supplies, compatible also with Pentium 4's. These
power supplies were made for Gateway by Astec, a cut above Powertech in the food
chain. They have the same cooling fan mounted outside the power supply shell
as the lower rated power supplies. Figure $25 + exact shipping, but let's
verify the distances between mounting screws first. Gateway has used power
supplies with different shapes in its Pentium II and Pentium III systems.

.... Ben Myers

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:14:20 -0500, May wrote:

Bleah. I have a five (six?) year old G-450. Had problems recently
with blue screens and then memory failure messages on booting which
seem to have been resolved by reseating the memory module (after
cleaning the contacts) I'd like to keep this machine until I can
afford a new one without a whole lot of expense but I am concerned
that the 200 Watt Powertech power supply that it came with is possibly
insufficient. I have a Nvidia GeForce 2 mx/mx 400 video 64 Mb card in
it, and their information says it requires at least a 235 watt power
supply, preferably 250, though it has had this card for almost two
years without major issues. The sound card has been changed also to a
SB live. It still has the original Maxtor HD, and old Toshiba DVD/CD
rom drive; long ago pulled the voodoo card and a tv card that came
with it; it now uses a USR external modem and a Canon USB printer.
That's pretty much it. Would it be prudent to upgrade the power
supply? And if so..how do I find one that matches up? Gateway offers
no assistance on their site and of course this system is long past its
warranty/support dates even if I thought calling them would be useful.
TIA
May


"Not all who wander are lost"

-J.R.R. Tolkien