new psu
 

I have an AMD APU A4-4000 with 4gb ram, 2 hard disks not in RAID but connected simultaneously, and gigabyte ga-f2a55m-ds2 motherboard. My old psu burnt out. So I'm buying a new one. I have a list of these, most are very similar in specs and have all the protection standards along with the connectors:
Corsair CP-9020171-UK 550W
Thermaltake PS-TRS-0500NPCWEU-2 TR2 S 500W
Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 500-Watt Non-Modular
Cooler Master MWE 550W,80+ White 230V A/UK Cable (MPW-5502-ACABW-IN)
Corsair VS550 550-Watt

My old one was a cheap 450W one and I plan to upgrade more, therefore more power. All these are nearly of same price on Amazon and other retailers. Which one has a better reputation and performance, I can't figure out.

Don't have much experience with those (I've been using EVGA in most of my companies PC's lately) but Corsair and Cooler Master generally makes decent products.. I'd just go with the one that has the best / most reviews at a decent price and call it a day

The main thing to watch for when upgrading is of course wattage, even an average onboard graphics card can have a high demand depending on generation.


Make sure your connectors are compatible with the new unit.


Even if the wattage seems ok make doubly sure that the PSU has enough rails, I'd say you need at least 2 for all but the oldest systems.

I have a Corsair and an EVGA (insane 10 year warranty) at the moment, so from your list i'd be happy with a corsair.

have an additional gfx card? that's kind of the only thing that i'd be worried about when speccing a PSU. my setup uses 85w idle upto about 380w when gaming (intel i5 with a GTX1080)


just looked up my order for the evga i have in gaming pc https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-SuperN...01BGG5PTM?th=1 it was cheaper than this 4 years ago!

also realises ive not upgraded system for 4 1/2 years :huh:

Ok, I need some urgent help here. I forgot to mention my foolishness. So when the psu shut down and there was burning smell, I took it, opened it, and since i wasn't gettin any power, I decided to use a tester to see if there was any electricity. What happened was a big spark, and the fuse of my extension chord getting blown. UPS, speakers and rest of the things were fine. Fuse was an easy replacement. But that spark, could it have burned my mobo. Because I got a brand new psu that looks great.

But all I get is some power in my keyboard and external hdd. It wont start. I did that shortcircuit tutorial that's on the net to start the pc. Nothing happens except at one particular place, where the cpu fan rotates for just half a second or so.

What do I do? Time to overhaul everything?

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
PSU's contain capacitors.
Capacitors can contain deadly voltages, even after a unit is switched off!

If it was plugged into the mobo it could have definitely sent a surge to the mobo and fried it... Look for any burnt or exploded capacitors on the mobo...

Also used to be a visible soldered (telltale) in the circuit near the PWR connector on the mobo

holy moly, could be a problem if the psu was connected to the mobo when you did that.
i'm not an electrician but when you see big caps, you donl't be poking them :D :D