will putting a 450 watt psu in place of a 300 watt psu fry my computer?

Question

i have an ati x1900 gt pcie graphics card that needs more power my system is a gateway gm5048 with 2 gigs of ram a 500 gig sata 2 hard drive 2 dvd drives and an emu pcie sound card

im seeing temps of 100-120 for my gpu and sometimes my cpu hits 100 under full load in games

Answer 1

noo, its better actually

its like ur plumbing in the house... if you would have 1/4" pipe running through, when 2 or 3 valves (ie shower, faucet..) are opened, water will barely come through to satisfy all, but if you had a 2" pipe everywhere, you would not even notice when more than one valve was operating simultaneously. And since pressure is regulated before it enters your house, it would not harm the system

same with your computer... you want big wattage to satisfy all parts working simultaneously so they can work properly and do their best.

i have a 500watt :)

Answer 2

No, if anything it is better for your computer.

There is a slight chance your case may need more ventilation with the increased power consumption. It would have been nice if you had before and after temperatures.

A 450 watt rating does not mean much. I hope you made sure it puts out 30 Amps @12 VDC as recommended by the card manufacturer.

Per
http://peripherals.about.com/od/videographicscards/fr/atix1900xt.htm

ATI X1900 required: 450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system)

Answer 3

No. The Watt Rating is the Maximum that it can output. Much like a car with 300HP, if you don't have your foot to the floor you aren't outputing 300HP.

I recomend looking at high efficiency power supplies as they give off less heat. Be aware that with some manufacturers the Power Supply may not be swappable. Dell and Gateway sometimes use non-standard cases.

Answer 4

No, Increasing wattage of a PSU will never fry your computer. Wattage is the power AVAILABLE not used by the components. However, I rarely recommend an upgrade of the PSU unless there have been problems in the past or if you're adding components/starting to overclock.

Answer 5

No. If th potential su[ply is basically too low powered the overload could reason risky voltages which injury kit. that is going to very nearly actual crash the device often. even though it could incredibly wreck the potential supply. you pick a minimum of 200 W greater effective than the photos card demands plus a small share for reserve. So for a 300 W card you pick a pair of 550 W supply or greater. possibly greater suitable to greater healthful a 600 W. undergo in ideas that card has to assist the unique hardware besides.

Answer 6

Nope..it won't fry your pc. The psu simply supplies what power things need, not the max to all pieces. So feel safe putting in your more powerful supply. It will run cooler and use LESS electricity.

Answer 7

NO it won't it's voltage that will do the damage if it's to high not current a 450watt will just be able to handle more things in your computer than the 300watt one would so it's better to have a higher wattage psu than a lower one

Answer 8

Actually, that 300 watt power supply might have been strained a bit with your system.
The numbers indicate the power capacity of your power supply. 400-450 watt power supplies are standard these days.

Answer 9

It will be fine.

You might want to keep an eye on the temperature (there are freeware utility programs that can monitor and report the temperature of your cpu, drives, and ambient air temp inside the case).

Answer 10

No.. The power supple rating tells you how much power it can supply... basically the higher the rating the more power your system can draw from it before the PSU gets fried :)
Higher is good. Lower is bad.