ChrisW

That's true, they get a great discount on their parts. They are still much more expensive then what their competition uses.

Sterling

Dell and other OEM's sell Intel because that what Johny Q. Public knows and buys. I think it was Compaq that used to sell both Intel and AMD. Even with the lower price and better price/performance of the AMD machines, the Intel machines outsold them by a ton.

It has nothing to do with quality control. I don't care how good a 250W PSU is compared to other 250's, if it only puts out 20A on the 12 Volt rail, it's a piece of crap.

A good, powerful PSU is still grossly underrated, even for many PC hardware enthousiasts. Dell PSU's simply do not put out enough power to power current generation video cards. They haven't for awhile, actually.

blade5545

ChrisW please dont make me laugh I used to work for Dell and trust me the only thing I would ever buy from them is their servers and laptops those are top quality, but their desktops are a joke and they put the crappiest PSU they can find in those machines. And yes they are number one in costumer service but not on the consumer side but on the business accounts, the reason so many companies get shit from them is beacause the turnaround time for busted parts is faster then anybody else in the world, on the server side if a hard drive goes out and its mission critical and its major client they will deliver the hard drive in 4hours anywhere in the continental US!

__________________
Dell Inspiron 700m
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12.1 Ultrabrite
1.25 gig ram
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DFI NF4 Ultra - D AMD Winchester 64 3200+ @4125+ 2.62ghz sold
Swiftech H20-120-BB REV. 3 LIQUID COOLING KIT
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Unknown
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself."

Mike Rubin

I am curious. Assuming the PSU has enough juice simply to power everything connected to it, even if there is not a lot of reserve, how will that affect system performance? I have the infamous 250w Dell PSU, but my system isn't exactly tricked out. Before this video card stuff started, it certainly seemed adequate for everything I ever asked of it. Even now, I have a working powered video card in the sense it puts out a signal that can be seen on the CRT.

More specifically, if a PSU is insufficient to meet a video card's spec, would that card (a) not display an image at all, or (b) work at less than full capability? (In other words, if the video card permits one to open and play a game, can bad fps and stuttering problems be due to the PSU's inadequacies?)

In online posts at some of the auto racing sim forums, I have read that inadequate power supplies prevent cards from working at all, so there is no middle ground with respect to the question of adequacy: it is adequate or it is not. On the other hand, tech support people have blamed my video performance problems on having a power supply rated too low for the card (which was the genesis for this thread when I started it). One of these viewpoints is wrong if the other is right. What is your take on this?

ChrisW

I can care less if you have worked for Dell in the past or not. The fact is that Intel motherboards are well known for their quality and stability and that is the main reason why they are used. Their repeat business depends on it. Everything that is included in a Dell system is the top of the line components, from the sound cards to video cards. Show me another major company that puts together a better computer for the price. Why don't you go to the Dell site and point out exactly which components they are shipping that are sub-standard. Let me guess, you think they suck because they ship OEM components and don't support overclocking. Well duhh, everyone knows if you want to overclock your computer you need to purchase the retail product (for a higher price) and put the computer together yourself. If they put in the crappiest power supply they could find in their computers they would have to replace a lot of power supplies. That would be a nightmare for them and their customers. And besides, the proper way to measure the quality of a power supply is by it's weignt, not it wattage. I have personally never had a single problem with any Dell computers and I work with many of them. All the problems I run into are computers from other manufacturers.

Mike Rubin

Clicker, sorry I overlooked your response earlier today. Thank you for your help.

Sterling

Wrong. The proper way to measure the quality of a power supply is by the amps delivered on the three different rails, as well as their stability under load.

Crash Override

Are you completely daft?

The weight is usually only an indicator of the number of components inside of the PSU and usually higher weight means higher quality but not always. I have seens PSUs made from a variety of different metals that each have their own density which changes weight in relation to size.

I am sorry if you cannot simply understand that you have a Dell employee and a University employee from a University that used to have a Dell contract telling you the simple facts. Dell scrimps on alot of things. The power supply being one of many. The motherboard you get in a Dell for instance is usually a knocked down version of an Intel retail board with certain cost saving changes made to it that will make the mobo cheaper. Also the CPU's are bought in trays from Intel and in huge quantities so they get a good discount there.

As for the video cards alot of Dells use the TX line of 9700s which are cheap stripped down 9700s. That saves costs right there. The Sound Blasters they use are subpar and most of the time contain parts that arent even original and are knock offs to save costs.

The best indicator of how good a power supply is exactly what Sterling said. It is the W and amperage and stability of those lines that matters most. I have a really really heavy 7 year old power supply. It weighs almost twice what the 550 upstairs does. How about I sell it to ya

I'll only charge you a lil over what the 550w PSU price was since its higher quality and should be better. Right?

Mike Rubin

Clicker, I tried this and I still get the stutter, alas. I am wondering if there aren't some services or apps running in the background that are causing this, although, truthfully, I even get stutter when I start using ZERO services, so that might not be the case, either.

I still would love to get a definitive answer to the question I keep asking: Does having a bigger power supply result in a better frame rate and smoother game play or does the power supply make a difference only in the sense that a certain wattage is needed to display an image in the first place? Depending on the answer, I might be wasting my time worrying about things until my larger power supply arrives from PC Power & Cooling.

clicker666

Mike - I just went over this thread and realized I didn't see your system specs. What exactly are you running for a system? I only ask because a SB16 seems like an odd choice for a newer machine and perhaps your machine just isn't up to the task of whatever game you are trying to run....

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Mike Rubin

I have an SB16 since I don't care much about computer sound, which to me is just a necessary evil (MP3 sounds like shizzit to me) and because my computer is located at the door to my wife's home office, where loud engine noise would not be appreciated. I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade it, however, if so doing would give me smoother game play. (I still get stutter with the sound card unmapped and sounds either turned off or reduced to the lowest slider levels in the one game I wish to play on this machine, Formula 1 Challenge from EA.)

Here is my system: 2.4 gb Pentium 4, 1024 mb RDRAM, XP (patched with everything offered through Windows update), 4x AGP slot, two 120 mb Maxtor hd w/8 mb caches, and, at the moment, NVidia FX5700 Ultra w/128 mb VRAM (replacing the ATI that didn't work out for me). AGP aperture, about the only adjustable parameter in the Dell crippleware CMOS setup, now is at 256 mb, although I have tried every setting. The PSU is the stock Dell 250w and nothing is overclocked. I'd figure this is enough to run most year-old games, and am getting 3dMark2001 benchmarks of 11,107 with my entire startup group enabled (and a slightly higher number with zero services enabled). I am hardwired to a Linkysys wifi router, which is connected to SBC DSL, and always run Norton Anti-Virus, Zone Alarm Pro, and a couple of other things that show up in the system tray.

If I have left out something that might be of use to you, please let me know and I will provide it. Thanks for any help you can furnish.

clicker666

You'd think that would be enough. Did you try popping out the sound card and seeing how things ran? My system specs are nowhere's near as high as yours and the only game in recent memory that gave me any grief was Temple of Elemental Evil.

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Mike Rubin

Clicker, I unmapped, but did not remove the card. I will try to do so later today. Thanks again.

Crash Override

Also with an ATi card bump down that aperature from 256

it should only be 64 or 128 at the max

Mike Rubin

Thank you. I will continue to experiment.

Sterling

There's a good PSU requirements calculator here.

I put in your system specs, assumed you have at least one CDROM drive, one network card, a floppy, and two cooling fans including the PSU fan(s). It recommends at least a 384 Watt power supply. In fact, your components use 303 Watts total, and you need about 25% extra to expect any amount of stability.

If your PSU doesn't give your components enough juice all kinds of strange things happen, from random blue screens to components running slowly. The odd thing is, the FX5700 needs more power than a 9800.

Unfortunately, most Dell motherboards older than a year or so old have a funky ATX connector and won't work with a standard PSU. You'd need to find a 400W Dell supported PSU to reasonably expect to be able to use a current generation video card without issues. I don't think such a thing exists.

Mike Rubin

Sterling, thank you. As it happens, I own the first Dell model that can use a standard ATX PSU and I ordered an upgrade through PC Power & Cooling, which arrives yesterday. Before ordering, I went over my system specs with the tech support guy there and he told me that a 350w unit with an oversized fan was really all that I need, so he discouraged me from spending twice as much to upgrade to the 400w unit. From your calculations, it appears I'd need more than that, although my own entries on the site came in around 250. I don't think that counted the AGP video card for more than an "unpowered" one, so I presume the 250 figure is off just for that reason alone.

In any event, 350 is a big upgrade from 250, and, as I said, I never had power issues before upgrading my video card. (I wasn't even convinced that I had them in that case, either. ) As you have answered my question about the impacts of being underpowered and made clear I can have a "running" videocard but an adverse effect on performance with a too-small PSU, I won't be sending the unit back to PC Power & Cooling rather than install it (although it does look a bit daunting to install). I will fire it up this weekend and let you know if that helped the stuttering.

Once again, thanks for your assistance. I do appreciate it.

Sterling

PC Power & Cooling PSU's are pretty much the best you can buy. You only need about 10% more than you use for stable power delivery, so a 350W should be fine.

They aren't hard to install, either. Just look over how your current power supply is installed and mirror that. None of the plugs will go in backwards without extreme force, either.