Power Supply for following configuration..

[MASTOURA]

I have (finally) chosen all parts for my new pc, and now only the case is a big question mark. Up to now, I have been buying "middle towers", without giving any importance to the quality of the power supply, or the ease of use.
However, I read several posts here that it is important to have a power supply of more than 300W.
My problem is that the only 300W cases I can find here, are big towers, which are really ugly (in my opinion), although I haven't used anyone before.
The best I can get for a middle tower is 250W. So I was wondering if the case will be enough to support the following configuration:

1) ASUS mobo V34X
2) P3 733
3) 2x 128 Dimm
4) GeForce MX (Guillemot) 32 MB
5) Sound Blaster Live! 1024
6) DVD Drive (Pioneer)
7) Plextor CDRW
8) CD Rom Drive 50x
9) 30 giga HDD
10) SCSI card
and of course keyboard, mouse, monitor, scanner, printer, etc.

I really want opinions on this, cause my last case's power supply virtually broke because (I think) I overloaded the case (I had 2 HDD in, so instead of the 4 power cables it had, I was using 5 pwoer cables).

Do you recommend a big tower? The only "brand" case that the shop I'm going to buy the pc from has, is the Aopen HQ/HX 08 or 45. You can check these here:
http://www.aopen.nl/products/housing/default.htm

Please help me out on this

thanks,

MASTOURA

[NDC]

300 Watt PSU should be more than enough for the set up you have. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif 250 Watt would also do the job! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

I use 300WATT by SevenTeam and here is my system specs:

Dual Pentium III 733Mhz FSB100
Tyan S1832DL (Dual)
768MB PC-100 (SEC)
Creative Sounblaster 128 PCI
Adaptec 29160N Ultra160 SCSI Adapter
(SCSI) Ultra160 18.4GB Seagate Cheetah 10,000rpm
(EIDE) Western Digital 15.0GB 7,200rpm
(EIDE) Western Digital 13.6 7,200rpm
(EIDE) Maxtor 8.4GB 5,400rpm (Mobile Rack)
(EIDE) Teac 32X CDROM
(EIDE) Plextor 8/4/32 CDRW
GeForce 256 DDR+
Mustek 1200ED PPT
HP DeskJet 950C
Realtek 8139 10/100 LAN Card
(1) 5.25" Twin Fan Bay Cooler
(2) 90mm Fans
(1) 80mm CPU Direct Fan



[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 09-12-2000).]

[MASTOURA]

God your system looks cool http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif All these hard drives!

thanks for the fast reply. Do you use a full tower, or a middle one? Also, what do you think about the cases I gave the link to? Look nice?
here's what I picked for "middle tower" http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
http://www.aopen.nl/products/housing/hq45.htm

thanks again!

MASTOURA

[NDC]

Well, I don't know how many more devices you're going to put on that system in the future, but seeing that there are only 3 5.25" external bays, I would say look for something that has at least 4 external bays.
The case that I'm using looks like this:

<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/ndcmj/MyCase.jpg" border=0>

IMO, it's better to have some extra open bays incase you decide to add more stuff, such as a mobile rack, bay cooler Fan, Equalizer, etc. The case that you see above has 6 external bays.

[MASTOURA]

Holy S**T!!!!!
how "tall" is this baby?
and how much it costed you?
and it only needs 300Watt????

hmmmm....

[NDC]

(H)25.5" (W)7.5" (L)17.0"

It's good to use a large case if you have the room to put it. It gives you room to work in the computer, I hate it when it's all cramped up in there to the point you can't even reach your harware or something.LOL It also ventilates air much better since there's more room between the devices.


BTW, It takes a lot of devices to use up 300WATT. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif


Here's what the inside looks like, see how it's nice and spacious? LOL http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/ndcmj/insidemypc.jpg" border=0>


Here's a nice case with 4 bays:
http://www.pccase.com/products/AT901.html


[This message has been edited by NDC (edited 09-12-2000).]

[MASTOURA]

True, the case of the link is great, but as usual, the company ships only in the Sates. Living in Europe is sometimes hard... LOL

Thanks again!

[Stan]

Hi

I live in London - UK and buy my PC stuff from Dabs (http://www.dabs.com) , Insight (http://www.insight.com/uk) , Scan Int. (http://www.scan.co.uk) .

I bought a Chenbro full tower case from Insight ( pic (http://freespace.virgin.net/stany.thibaut/pclow.htm) )

I would definitely go for 300W.

Stan

[howste]

Regardless of the power supply that comes with the case, you can always buy a 300 watt power supply separately and replace it. You can also buy cases without a PS if you want, and install one that you choose. I don't have any links right off hand, but I'm sure there are many that sell them this way. Try a search and see what you can find.

Steve