First post, by squareguy
- Rank
- Oldbie
The scariest part of any computer, to me, is the power supply. This one component has the potential to render every other part in the computer useless. All of those vintage, refurbished, NOS components that were painstakingly acquired over the years gone in an instant if the power supply fails in a catastrophic manner. Thankfully a good quality power supply usually does not fail in a catastrophic manner, but rather just stops functioning leaving all the other components alone. I remember the Bestec power supplies in E-Machines that were notorious for destroying motherboards when they failed.
I would venture to guess that most of us need a first generation ATX power supply, we will just refer to it as ATX 1.0. This will properly power any ATX Socket 7, Super Socket 7, Slot 1 or Socket 370 based system. It has the 20-pin ATX motherboard power connector, the proper amperage ratings on the 3.3V and 5V rails for the older CPU's and very importantly has a -5V rail for the ISA slots. New old stock ATX 1.0 power supplies are getting harder to find, especially at a good price. Many of these NOS power supplies are OEM and not retail which makes it more difficult to judge the quality based on the maker. I would love to hear from you all about which OEM power supply makers you have had good luck with or heard about from others. I would especially like to hear which makers, or models, should be avoided at all costs.
I am intently looking at this little gem and am considering buying a lot of them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/161022961204
Any thoughts on this one?
Gateway 2000 Case and 200-Watt PSU
Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard
Intel Pentium III 450 CPU
Micron 384MB SDRAM (3x128)
Compaq Voodoo3 3500 TV Graphics Card
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card
Western Digital 7200-RPM, 8MB-Cache, 160GB Hard Drive
Windows 98 SE