Hey. This may be a dumb question to some of you, but I would still like an answer. :)

I am running an AMD XP 1600+ w/ 512 DDR ram. 1 10g HDD, 1 CD ROM, 1.44" floppy, 1 case fan, and 1 heatsink fan. Not much, compared to many other systems.

I wish to temperarily (2 days-1 week) run the comp on a 250w (ATX) power supply. However, Athlon recommends a 300w. Comp is to be used as a gaming server, not much usage during the interim time. What are the possible consequences of running the comp with this power supply?

Yeah, its kinda stupid to run a system on lower wattage, however I would like to know what happens because of it.

Thnx for any help. :)

I personally think that you'd have no problem running your system on the 250W Power supply. I think the 50W difference in negligable. I am running one of my systems with One Hard Drive, two cd Rom drives (one is a burner) a floppy and a high end video card, Two fans (three if you count the processor fan) and more, on a 250W system with no problems.

Like you said, the more power the better, but again, I don't forsee a problem with your setup.

I suspect that it would be ok. But, if you can, disconnecting the floppy and cdrom drive would sure help.

Well, it all depends how much power the computer actually uses. The only sure way is to measure the consumption in Watts.

But lets go back to basics. Wattage is power consumed and also heat dissipated.
If the computer actually consumes 300W and the power supply is rated for 250W then the main problem could be that the power supply overheats, with possible damage to it if it is run for a long time at full rating.

There is also a possibility that the voltage output from the power unit will fall (due to this overload) and maybe cause hiccups on the computer.

But back in the real world maybe someone who has actually done this can say exactly what will happen. For the short term I suspect you would get away with it but I'm not sure if the overall computer consumption falls a great deal just because it is lightly used.

PS. Watts is my surname and I'm an engineer!

If you start drawing more power than your power supply can provide, you will know about it rather quickly -- things are going to first get flakey and finally just stop working. Electronics can be very sensitive to both too high or too low voltages. A 250 W PS is not designed to put out that wattage continuously -- which is why "switching" power supplies are used. The PS is designed to adjust to the demand.

rac reminded me of one more point.

If a power supply is run flat out it will have no spare capacity to iron out a.c. ripple. This unsmoothed output could also cause computer hiccups.

I doubt you will "damage" your computer but whether the 250W power supply can take a 300W load for any length of time is much less clear.
Can't be too good for the poor thing getting all hot and bothered.

I think you would be ok If the load is low and the duration of use that this wattage is very very short.
On the other side .. I have just finshed repairing an HP pavilon 4540 it has eaten 2 large hard drives in 2 years and is now on its third. the only common denominator was the 100 watt P/S (draw your own conclusions). BTW Yes i did say this celeron 400+ was shiped from HP with only 100ws to power it.

pentium pro 150 with scsi
3 cds
1 zip
2 hds unparked inuse
4 sticks memory
modem card
network card
capture card
sound card
video card

81 watts max

Newer systems would be lucky to pull
60 watts max.

A 250watt power supply is the sum of each 12v, 5v, -12v, -5v, and their current product usage. Exceed the max of any one and you blow your supply.
Add too many fans and you'll risk blowing the 12 volt section of the power supply.
Add too many modems, serial, and parallel devices and you risk blowing the -5 or -12 volt section (the wimpiest section).

Higher wattage power supplies are more forgiving. If a harddrive or modem craps on you, the less likely you will need to replace the bigger power supply.

I run a 1ghz PIII on 133mhz bus speed. 2 cd-rom devices, tape backup device, floppy, 5 fans, 64 meg video card (agp), sblive card, 256 megs pc133 ram and a 400 watt power supply. I used to run a similar system, but less of a cpu with 250 watt power supply. I burned out 1 video card and 1 cpu by using that setup. Switching to a 400 watt power supply has made my current system much more stable. I do a lot of gaming and serious hard
drive crunching so I need a powerful system. I think your system should work fine with 250
watts, but 300 could not hurt it whatsoever. The more devices you add and use, the more power you want in your power supply. My system is fast becoming obsolete, but it still does the job for me. Use your best judgment and you should be fine. Happy New Year!

and another thing, its not like your cd-roms,floppies,zip disk,and tape drives will be running all the time, usually during boot do they turn on, but then they turn off, so you can put more devices on your system than your P/s can handle, cause half the time you'll be only using 2-3 devices!

Nothing to do with the above, just testing:

Cooling Castle