do i have the power??

[poonie83]

Ok...I installed my graphics card a few weeks ago and I now recently have been having a pop up start coming up when I start windows. It says windows detects new hardware...so i goto the hardware manager I read the ? in the tabs and see is the graphics card I installed. I called PNY and they said I don't have the power to run it...I call dell and they say I do. I have a dimension 8400 with a PNY geforce 8600 GTS installed. Do I have the power or is there another issue??

[fren]

It's a driver issue. I think you have not installed the driver for your video card successfully. Run your video card driver and install it again.

[jbennet]

No, its the PSU. Most current-gen cards like the geforce 8 need 450w+ and i have a (2006) dell dimension 5150 and its psu is only 305w.

[poonie83]

any suggestion on a power supply? also, can I use the cables from this power supply or do i need to make sure the power supply i'm getting has the cables I need? do they come with pci express power adapters?

[jbennet]

some do and some dont

how old is your dell by the way, certain models once used non-standard power supplies

[Serunson]

What PSU wattage do you currently have, it is most likely not enough!
Open up the case and on the PSU it should say the figure such as '230W'.
Dell being silly have BTX do they not bennet? So if you do go to buy a new PSU look what yours says. It will either be ATX or BTX. This is in relation to the size of the unit. So check before you buy!
To run a fairly decent gfx card you need around a 500W+ PSU.

[fren]

A 350 watts power supply provided by dell to your model is enough to power up your PNY GeForce 8600 card. Unless you are planning to install additional load (hard disks, cdroms, cards, etc.) to your system you will need a power supply larger than this wattages.

I agree with jbennet & Serunson suggestions. It is better to get a 500 watts or more power supply.

[jbennet]

350w isnt enough, like i said, i added an ATI radeon x1950 card to my system (a stock dell pc, no extra drives etc...) and it didnt have enough power

[Serunson]

The best power option to get is probably a 570W PSU. Fairly cheap, and can power everything you have. Mostly all PSU's come with PCI Express cables now, so no worries there.