Tim: >> I've seen one or two of those before. They made me think of stereo >> system salesman, the ones who push what *they* call a 800 Watt unit onto >> clueless customers. Some of the estimations seem a little exhorbitant. >> >> - You need a 500 Watt power supply. >> - What for? I'm not trying to cook a roast with it... Ric Moore: > Just to keep this thread alive, since I'm enjoying the hardware howto, > just how many watts does a DvD burn use? Just wondering what the draw > would be. Ric It is a bit hard to specify power ratings in computer power supplies, as there's several of them. A 300 Watt supply might well be able to supply enough current on the 12 Volt rail, but not on the 5 Volt rail, for example. You need to check all the supplies, but then they don't always list things that way, nor do the products your powering usually list their requirements. Your drive might specify how many Amps it needs for both the 12 and 5 Volt supplies. Your supply needs to be able to provide for them, at the very least, plus whatever else is in the box. That's the harder part, many things don't mention their needs. I have a PC using just a 90 Watt power supply. It has on board video and sound, 500 MHz Celeron processor, floppy and hard drives, and a DVD burner. It all works fine. Yep, ninety watts. It flies in the face of various power supply calculators. -- (Currently testing FC5, but still running FC4, if that's important.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
