HOWS THIS FOR vALUE FOR MONEY!!!

[bennu]

A friend of mine against my advice bought a Compaq PC from PC World, and paid an extra £150.00 for a five year service contract.

Now the computer keeps shutting down and they are in the process of fixing it, and have sent him an itemised account of what they are replacing, and has proundly shown it to me as evidence of how wise he was to buy the service contract.

250W PSU £78.00
AMD K7 Motherboard £180.00
AMD Athlon 1300 CPU £600.
core £60.00

now buy my reckoning that list should read

300W PSU £7.00
AMD Motherboard £50.00
AMD Athlon 1300 £37.00
heatsink £10.00

Now, other that the fact that those prices are inflated fantasy, and I can only imagine the core is a heatsink, but is a 250W PSU adequate for an Athlon system with CDRW and a lot of other kit added, and if not then isnt this more than likely the source of his problems!

[CyberdynSystems]

I agree,. that PSU is not up to the task.

[dodgygeeeza]

typical 'PC out of this World' pile of cheapo junk, i looked at most of their systems and they are based on the micro atx mobo's:rolleyes: not a lot of hope there i think not:violin:

[SMOKE_SKULL]

I had a Compaq once. ONCE!!!!!!

[mackerel]

You must remember that those highly integrated boxes from the big OEMs are quite customised. You don't need all of a 300W supply for most systems. Just when you're building your own there is less control over what is added or used, so the headroom is needed. Take the latest Nforce Shuttle for example. That comes with a 200W PSU. Ok, you're not going to power a multi-disk raid array off it, but neither is the average PC World shopper.

[bennu]

I agree thats true for the bg standard unit, but does it remain tru after the addition of two or three USB devices and a CDRW?

[mackerel]

USB devices take next to no power. Each active port on the mobo can supply at most 2.5W of power (5V at 500 mA), any higher power USB devices will usually need external power. I don't have any figures for CD drives.

I would say there probably is enough power for the upgrades you could squeeze into those cases. Just you run the slightly higher risk of an unstable system or reduction in life when pushed.

[bennu]

"squeeze ito those cases"?

This isnt a mini system its a midi, and system instbility is exactly what hes got