I need to buy a 350-400 watt PSU for my Dell Dimension 5150 (currently have 305 watt PSU) so I can upgrade my graphics card. Dell said that I cannot upgrade the PSU for fear of harming the motherboard, but I have read web sites saying that this is not true (they only say that to cover themselves). What advice can you guys offer me?
Dell used to use their own power connector pinout so I'd believe them unless you can find a Dimension 5150-compatible supply, rewire a new PSU yourself (really a pain) or confirm that your mobo's pinout is plain ATX.
I seem to remember reading that Dell PC power supplies from certain model years have a strange pinout (much like NES Game Pak ROM chips), and motherboards need to be rewired in order to use standard PSUs.
Google should have more info. Are you handy with a multimeter?
kyuusaku wrote:
Dell used to use their own power connector pinout so I'd believe them unless you can find a Dimension 5150-compatible supply, rewire a new PSU yourself (really a pain) or confirm that your mobo's pinout is plain ATX.
What do I have to do to confirm it? I know that it has a 24 pin socket for the MOBO and a 4 pin socket for the CPU.
The pinout for your specific model should be in a manual somewhere.. the power supply, mainboard, or the system itself. Would have to find that, or take a voltmeter to it. If they used a standard connector with a non-standard pinout, that would be extraordinarily obnoxious.
What'd Dell do, change a couple wires to save a few cents per unit?