So yesterday my power source decided to fry on me for no reason. I was wondering since I have a 400W power source if I could put in one with a lower wattage because I have one laying around. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
It will work just fine, you only need a larger Psu if your running lots of components. Ie 2 hard drives,2 roms loads of fans and so on.
I guess it would also depend on what the wattage is. For example 230 W will not be enough. Also, if you are using a Pentium 4 you will need the extra power outlet that newer power supplies have for the CPU. (4 prong square plug)
Another thing to remember is that not all power supplies put out as many watts as they claim. Cheap power supplies often have a lower output than they are rated at, and many times good brands actually have a higher than rated output. When I was teaching A+ certification classes (a couple of years ago), a student of mine found a good web page for determining what wattage PS you need based on your components. I don't remember the address, but you might want to see if you can find something like that.
Try www.tomshardware.com, they had a test between 12 PSU and alot of links. If I'm not mistaking one was to calculate your approximate W usage.
I can't find the calculate function either now but here are some values that you can use to approximatly calculate your power needs. Hope it helps... http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/powersupplies-02.html
