Upgrading the PSU in a Dell

[nub]

So my uncle bought me an Nvidia Geforce EVGA 250 GTS 512mb GPU for my b-day while I was visiting him up in Michigan. He's a computer technician and such, so I wasn't really surprised.

Anyway, the card is in my computer right now, but I have one slight issue regarding it...

...My power supply is too week to handle the card well. Specs say the 250 GTS requires at least a 450watt power supply with a 12v rail that produces at least 24 amperes. My power supply is only 375 watts and its 12v rail only produces 18 amperes. Hell, my power supply was technically not good enough for my old 7900 GS (requires 400 watts and 20 amperes).

Picking out a PSU isn't the issue, it's getting one that will work with the shitty custom motherboard that Dell so willingly slapped into my PC. My uncle says that he's pretty sure they use a custom power supply port on the motherboard and that I'll need to buy a converter from them to be able to use a standard PSU. Does anyone have any info regarding this? Like, has anyone been in a similar situation or know anyone that was and how they went about resolving it?

I've been blue-screened about 4 or 5 times so far due to the card overloading my power supply. It's happened once in Fallout 3 when I entered VATS, once when I alt-tabbed from Gmod, and 2 or 3 times in Crysis from it simply rendering so much shit. It seems if a game stresses the card a lot and suddenly enough, it tends to blue-screen me. And the reason is obvious, as I just wrote a whole bunch of crap regarding it.


Anyway, any help would be appreciated. I want to get a decent power supply that I can rely on not frying. I had $120 but my bro borrowed $20 before I left Michigan and he "forgot" to pay me back, and I spent another $40 while hanging out with buddies. So I've only got $60 to buy one, but my dad will most likely pitch in some dough to help out.

[whiffen]

Do you have the computer model or by any chance the motherboard model? It should be written in bold white most of the time on the motherboard.

[MayheM]

I have a Dell XPS 630 with a 750w power supply and I have to upgrade it. I don't know when I will be doing so but if I do I can give you a really good price on this one. I just got a 295 gtx and my 750 is just not enough. It will most likely be about two weeks or so. I will send you the part number so you can see if it will work/ fit in your machine. though they are normally pretty standard sizes.

[nub]

I don't know if I can hold out for two weeks. This Wednesday is when he and I will be looking at buying a new one off of Newegg or something. That's when we're getting together.

Don't rush yourself in to upgrading because of me or anything.

[Woe Kitten]

Careful what you do. I'm note sure if they still do this but Dell used to use their own motherboard/psu brand which has special sockets that aren't compatible with any non-dell PSUs. You can get converters off the web but they are unofficial and unsupported.

[dissonance]

Unfortunately, you're gonna have to upgrade both the mobo an psu.

[mrfranswa]

Dells are notorious for making their computers un-upgradable. Do you know they charge you a 75$ "technician" fee just to tell you what the serial number of your parts are?

Power supplies are not custom. Any PS will do. I suggest doing what all of us builders do and go to www.newegg and pick out a cheap affordable one from their list. The only difference between some motherboards is how they are either 20 pin or 24 pin power supplies/motherboards, (do they even MAKE 20 pins anymore?). In which case you just move it all the way to the...... um.... left I believe? If there are 4 pins not connecting it will still run, (might be right, don't quote me. It's been a while).


experience- having a free dell that I upgraded for a year before it died. Tried to get a new cpu when it fried and they wouldn't even tell me the specifics of it. Just built a comp instead.