Rebuilding my PC Question?.

With a 5 to 6 year old power supply it is time for a new (higher powered) power supply too. Consider a modular type as it eliminates the clutter of unused cables.

I just built a new system. I reused my SSD's, hard drives and optical drives. I also reused by case as it had been replaced about a year ago.

New Motherboard, CPU, memory and power supply at a minimum. Your graphics requirements will determine what, if any, video card is needed. My new system is used primarily for my recording studio and the Intel graphics (in the CPU) are more than adequate for that.

If the power supply dies it can damage electronic parts. Although you want to keep costs down, reusing a 5 or 6 year old power supply is not a wise decision.

My thoughts.

When one uses just the minimum wattage power supply (300w min. requirement) for a system that only requires a (300w power supply); that power supply is working very hard (75 to 100%) all the time to keep up with the system demand. This creates noise from the fan and lots of heat and a higher wear and tare factor.

Same system with a 600w power supply, will work at about 50% to keep up with the demand of the same system.

A low cost minimum power supply working at close to 100% will most likely put out a very dirty signal. Otherwise you volts and amps will not be clean and constant.

A power supply is the last place to skimp on. Everything in the computer requires a proper power supply. A power supply is the roots of every computer.

Jack

Jack

Replace the PSU! Using one that old is just begging to fry your other computer components if (more like when) it blows. A good new one (not an el cheapo; those are as bad as using an antique) isn't all that expensive. Frankly, it would be stupid to spend all that money on new computer components, then use an old PSU to power them. That would be like buying a new car and running old, bald tires on it (only worse).

Hi,
Bronze series you've already double past it's life expectancy :)
Here's a 600w at 65.us
CORSAIR CX Series CX600 600W 80 PLUS BRONZE Active PFC ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply-Newegg.com

So yea you've got you're moneys worth out of it.

johnhoh said:

Sorry to be the contrarian but your new cpu+graphics uses 9 fewer Watts at peak and way less at idle than your old cpu+graphics, and I see zero reason to get a new PSU. Your points in post #3 are sound. I think that new Palit card even has a fanless version.

Also, prior to shutting down your PC for the last time before swapping the motherboard, go into device manager, select hard drive controller and replace the AMD AHCI/Sata controller with the generic one called "standard ahci serial ata controller". Before that, you might download all the drivers for your new motherboard from the motherboard website and save them on your desktop. Then shut down and swap out the motherboard and cpu. Then boot straight into the bios, make sure the hard drive mode on the new motherboard is AHCI and not RAID. Also make sure the boot order is correct so it boots from your SSD not your secondary drive. I prefer to not even connect the secondary drive until after the motherboard drivers are loaded and device manager is clean.

A great site for compatibility checking is pcpartpicker.com. See what it tells you for the minimum PSU demand of your new config with your old peripherals if you want further PSU reassurance.

The issue is not the size of the old PSU; it's the age of it. It's not a great PSU to begin with and, in terms of computer parts, it's ancient history.

Yeah Power Supply components degrade over time the more you use your computer.