One of my friends has just purchased his new computer, and bought a cold cathode for his case. He currently runs a 320W power supply unit, yet one of our other friends, upon hearing he had put a cathode in it, stated bluntly that he was stupid and that he needs at least a 400W power supply.

Is my other friend just full of it, or should he purchase a higher wattage PSU? IMHO I thought 320W should be enough power, considering he only runs one hard drive and doesn't plan to add another.

Thanks.

I really dont know the answer, but I dont think he will need a 400w.
I personally have a 400w and I run 2 cold cathodes off of it, 7(1 of them being a LED fan) case fans, cpu fan, and a digidoc5(plus temp sensors)

I've never had ANY problems with it so far....

no he dont, if you want details why, search the site, i have a 300 watt psu with a red neon, 7200 rpm hard drive, overclocked ti4200 and XP-1700, sb live 5.1, DVD rom, CDRW, 4 80mm case fans and an 80mm cpu fan...as a matter of fact, dont listen to this individual ever again...

lol, Yeah that sounds a good idea Fu3lman. Thanks for your advice.

Excellent Pimpage Duck. Nothing like an answer that works

GJ

Agreed. That list would've come in handy repeatedly. Where you been hiding it? Anyway, I copied & pasted it into a document for future reference. Good stuff.

Great list Duck...I got it saved this time...I seen you post it once before a long time ago, but didnt have sense to save it...lol

Great work, Duck!

Is the wattage on led case fans any higher than the standard type?

Quote: Originally posted by FoeHammer Is the wattage on led case fans any higher than the standard type?

Of course. Your led's are going to be pulling 3w each depending on how they are wired, but better to allow for more draw than not enough.

True dat!

Hey Duck, where's the CC wattage in that list?

For real though... Does any1 know how many watts a typical CC light / inverter uses?

Quote: Originally posted by FUBAR Hey Duck, where's the CC wattage in that list? For real though... Does any1 know how many watts a typical CC light / inverter uses?

3-6 watts

The exact draw really depends on the cathode but most are 3.75w more or less.

Its almost as if it doesnt exist

Now the older cathodes use more as well as neon tubes (Poor man's cold-cathode).

I am running the following on a stock Dell 250w PSU(the Britney Spears of PSUs):
P4 2.4GHz (80w)
Dell mobo (40w)
640MB RAM (50w)
GeForce 4 MX 420 (35w)
48x24x48 CD-RW (35w)
16x DVD-ROM (20w)
2 7200RPM HDs (18w each)
PSU fan (3w)
CPU/case fan (~8w(12v x 0.68A))
Total load: 307W!!!
I got the numbers off Duck's list, and I assume all parts use the minimum in the list(probably not the case).
Voltages(measured using DMM with Fear Factor(to load the GPU) and distributed.net(to load the CPU) running):
12v: 11.99
5v: 5.02
3.3v: 3.30
I am pulling over 300w from a 250w PSU, and the rails aren't even dropping!
Besides the rails being almost perfect, the PSU is very quiet(I cannot hear it over the CPU fan(which is very quiet, too)), so I think the Dell PSU is a modified Antec Truepower(it is WTX instead of ATX(I have heard some rumors that a 250w Dell PSU is a relabeled Antec Truepower 330w)).