PSU Upgrade Question

jamo2oo9

At the moment, my PSU is too weak for my system spec (i5 4670k oc'd to 4.2GHz, Z87 Asus motherboard, 8gb ram clocked at 1800mhz and GTX 660 SC by Evga so I'm looking to upgrade it to about 850W PSU. A question about this is, if I replace the old PSU with a new PSU, do I require a clean install of Windows or will it be fine? I know you need a clean install when changing GPU, CPU, RAM or Motherboard

game4it70

A 600watt psu would be more than capable to run your rig provided its not a cheap brand.
What psu do you have now?

As for windows you dont need a fresh install when changing psu,ram,cpu or gpu.Its best when changing mobo to do a fresh install but even then sometimes you can get away with not doing it.

jamo2oo9

game4it70 wrote: »

A 600watt psu would be more than capable to run your rig provided its not a cheap brand.
What psu do you have now?

As for windows you dont need a fresh install when changing psu,ram,cpu or gpu.Its best when changing mobo to do a fresh install but even then sometimes you can get away with not doing it.

I have a 750W and I can't run BF4 or any of the latest games as it constantly shuts down. Same with last's years like BF3, BO2, FarCry 3 etc and plus I'm future proofing it as I want to get a second GTX660 and have a triple monitor display. Currently have 2 now

TerrorFirmer

750w is more than enough for that setup, in fact, that would be more than enough for that setup with GTX660's in SLI.

What brand and model is the PSU? Two things: 1) It's a crap no-name brand that can't provide a fraction of the power it claims or 2) it's a decent PSU but it's just failed.

Any decent quality 430w+ unit would power that build perfectly fine.

You also don't need to re-install windows really for anything other than a motherboard change sometimes.

jamo2oo9

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

750w is more than enough for that setup, in fact, that would be more than enough for that setup with GTX660's in SLI.

What brand and model is the PSU? Two things: 1) It's a crap no-name brand that can't provide a fraction of the power it claims or 2) it's a decent PSU but it's just failed.

Any decent quality 430w+ unit would power that build perfectly fine.

You also don't need to re-install windows really for anything other than a motherboard change sometimes.

That's fine now. I am going to get another 660GTX soon to make it 2 way SLI with 3 monitors. I just need to upgrade my PSU as it's shít. The brand is unknown so I guess I'll go for 750W then!

Serephucus

Or it could be you have an overheating GPU, or something wrong with your CPU, or something wrong with your RAM.

Have you actually diagnosed this, or are you just assuming it's your PSU? Could you take a picture of the side of your PSU (preferably the one with all the writing/numbers on it) and stick it up here?

TerrorFirmer

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

That's fine now. I am going to get another 660GTX soon to make it 2 way SLI with 3 monitors. I just need to upgrade my PSU as it's shít. The brand is unknown so I guess I'll go for 750W then!

You'd be better off selling that GTX660 and buying a new single card to be honest. Sell the 660 for about 100 or whatever they go for, think about investing in an R9 290.

No-name brand PSU's are the worst thing for any sort of gaming build, they're grand for office machines but otherwise they're a disaster. You can buy a '750w' psu on Dabs for 20 euro for example. Anything past about 300w consumptions and it's liable to either shut down or blow up...guess you got lucky with the shutdowns!

jamo2oo9

Serephucus wrote: »

Or it could be you have an overheating GPU, or something wrong with your CPU, or something wrong with your RAM.

Have you actually diagnosed this, or are you just assuming it's your PSU? Could you take a picture of the side of your PSU (preferably the one with all the writing/numbers on it) and stick it up here?

The PSU is an unknown brand so I wouldn't know about it's maker and it came from CustomPC.ie as part of my gaming build. Definitely isn't the CPU, RAM or MoBo as those were just purchased 4 months ago. GTX was bought about a year ago.

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

You'd be better off selling that GTX660 and buying a new single card to be honest. Sell the 660 for about 100 or whatever they go for, think about investing in an R9 290.

No-name brand PSU's are the worst thing for any sort of gaming build, they're grand for office machines but otherwise they're a disaster. You can buy a '750w' psu on Dabs for 20 euro for example. Anything past about 300w consumptions and it's liable to either shut down or blow up...guess you got lucky with the shutdowns!

Why would I be better off selling it? It's perfect for what I need really and runs quite a lot of games HD and at max settings. I wouldn't consider R9 290 for a second as I'm dedicated to Nvidia. AMD GPU's aren't that compatible with FSX software however Nvidia is.

Serephucus

jamo2oo9 wrote: »

The PSU is an unknown brand so I wouldn't know about it's maker and it came from CustomPC.ie as part of my gaming build.

So take a picture of it.

Definitely isn't the CPU, RAM or MoBo as those were just purchased 4 months ago. GTX was bought about a year ago.

That's nothing more than an assumption. Parts can fail at any point.

It's a no-name brand PSU (we think) so it probably does need replacing, but it could very easily be something else.

jamo2oo9

Serephucus wrote: »

So take a picture of it.



That's nothing more than an assumption. Parts can fail at any point.

It's a no-name brand PSU (we think) so it probably does need replacing, but it could very easily be something else.

That's the label of the PSU. There are no other stickers visible on the PSU

Serephucus

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/700w-storm-silent-lpk19-35-quiet-fan-eps-12v-atx-v22-psu

Just about the worst PSU I've seen. Definitely replace that.

It's probably the PSU, but it's good to at least have an idea of what we're dealing with now.

jamo2oo9

Serephucus wrote: »

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/700w-storm-silent-lpk19-35-quiet-fan-eps-12v-atx-v22-psu

Just about the worst PSU I've seen. Definitely replace that.

It's probably the PSU, but it's good to at least have an idea of what we're dealing with now.

Just what I thought. Everytime I played COD or BF3, I would get a system shut down and restart. Once it restarts, it brings me to the motherboard settings page and tell me "An unstable power supply was detected" I knew it had to be my PSU as it's the oldest thing I have in the rig and came from CustomPC.ie as part of a gaming build which they built for me so probably used the cheapest PSU they could get.

Anyways, I'll be replacing it soon enough but just wanted to ask about replacing it would require a clean install of Windows because I am currently out of keys for it and I don't want to buy another copy of it yet.

Serephucus

You won't have to do anything software-side for a PSU swap.

jamo2oo9

Serephucus wrote: »

You won't have to do anything software-side for a PSU swap.

Thanks for the help! Just what I wanted to know!