Hello?

I have a desktop computer with a 450W power supply.

Does this mean that the total power consumption

used by all the components in the computer cannot

go beyond 450W?

Also, if I have multiple cards (modem/network) and

disable some of them, does this mean I will be saving

some electricity?

Thanks.

Edited November 20, 200619 yr by pcandpc

450W is the max. output for the power supply. if you have enough items plugged in that exceed 450W, you could kill the items or the power supply.

disabling the cards doesn't save power, because the electricity is rated to go through the slots equaly, whether or not a card is present [thats how the BIOS can tell if a card is present, it shows up if a signal is found].

its not exactly easy to tweak a computer to use less power, you just have to have the disks turn off after so long really, being as you don't really get the turn of after x amount of minutes/hours. the best way to save power with a computer is to keep it off when its not being used, like if you go shopping, don't leave it on...

technically, power is always being used in a computer, because even those little LEDs are usually 3v a piece, and if theres one on the mobo or PSU that indicates an active current, thats where the little numbers are caught.

If the efficiency is 75% then the maximum it will use is 600Watts, but that will be unlikely and 450Watts say nothing about a PSU. Most likely your system will use about 150Watts when running at max (but it’s just guessing for us when you don’t post any exact specs here )

If you disable devices you will not get much, let’s say nothing compared to 150Watts , of energy saving.

Unless you've got dual CPUs and dual video cards in your system, chances are you're never going to overload the PSU. I've seen some pretty insanely high end systems run just peachy off a 300W or 350W PSU.

As for disabling devices - you're better off just removing them altogether from the system if you're never going to use them.

Check this place out.

It's a power supply calculator. Just input all the stuff who got on your pc and it's going to give you your consumption.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

Nice link, but it´s a calculator for a powersupply so you still don´t know the real power consumption .

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedbacks.

450W may not be the real maximum of the PSU.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2002/10/21/ina...ling/index.html

Check this place out.

It's a power supply calculator. Just input all the stuff who got on your pc and it's going to give you your consumption.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

nice link indeed, very informative and gives a rough estimate of what you may want to get on size

According to this calculator my system needs 265W, so the 550W that my PSU gives out is much of an overkill, isn't it?

The 550W that your PSU can provide is more than what you need, yes. A 380W PSU would be perfect for your system, since it would put the system in the maximum efficiency range for most PSUs.

I'm not saying that you should buy a new PSU just for that, but if you were to build a new system...