OK, My power supply says max total = 250W, so I assume i have a 250 Watt box, right? (It is an ATX box)

2nd - the red selector on the back...it has 2 choices 110, and 230...what are these for?

And should I have a different power supply than the above mentioned for a 1.2GHz 266 bus AMD Athlon?

It is generally recommended to run at least a 300W power supply with a 1.2G Athlon. If you are running extra drives and a power-hungry video card, you may want to go higher than a 300W. Check AMD Power Supply Recommendations (http://www1.amd.com/athlon/power).

The switch on the back is for selecting the input line voltage.



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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

Double post (also in Buying and Upgrading Advice)

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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

Howdy,

A power supply rating of 250 watts means that the power supply can safely supply 250 watts of power if 250 watts are demanded. If for instance 280 watts were demanded, the powersupply would most likely overheat and burn out due to the increased demand. However, if you were lucky, all that would happen is that you would blow a fuse in the power supply. In selecting a power supply, general good engineering practice would be to add up all of the demands of the computer ( CPU, Motherboard, fans, modem cards and so on, and take that number and multiply by 1.5. This gives ample room for any slight increases of demand that can happen from time to time. For example....if all the demands if your computer turned out to be 200 watts......200 times 1.5 = 300 watts.
The switch on the Power supply is for input vottage as mentioned before. In the US it should be set fooor 110. The 230 is generally for Europe.