I recently bought an old Fujitsu Siemens P300 to turn into a retro gaming PC of sorts and I have my concerns about the PSU. The PC was already upgraded to 2GB RAM when I bought it and I recently changed the Northwood Celeron to a Prescott P4 HT successfully. the PSU can do 180W continuously and 210W for 10 seconds but I'm not sure if it will be enough to power the GPU I'm thinking of fitting (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6200A-AG...718859?hash=item3d5072ff8b:g:Xh8AAOSwNchaGEAm). A PSU calculator claims I need 200W currently though and 220W+ with the GPU. My question is could I add the GPU safely to the computer, as it is a continuous output PSU and I am already over what it claims without any problems?
DO NOT add a video card into the system without boosting the power supply some to atleast 300 watt so it has some breathing room and doesn't run so hot (it won't live long if it is strained). EVGA makes CHEAP (25$ US-Dollar) 400-watt power supplies that while they're not the best are better than OEM DELL/HP/COMPAQ units and cheap no-name or likes of 'Logisys'. Pick one of these up. A 6200 video card won't even run Half Life 2, Doom 3 etc well in 720p. Consider getting a 5670/4670 AGP card, which is one of the fastest available and when it was new, was around as powerful as an 9800GT/8800GTX. You can often find old video cards very very cheap and in good used condition at an independent computer store. If your power supply is over-worked and fails it could destroy the system. Do NOT overload it. Don't quote me 100% on the 4670/5670 being the fastest AGP card, but that's close to it. The PRESCOTT 3.0ghz Pentium 4 cpu uses more wattage than the celeron, to the name of 50% or more extra wattage. This comes off as HEAT, make sure you keep the CPU cooled well so you don't melt the processor or motherboard. These vintage CPUs do not have thermal throttling. If this is a socket 775 machine, and it has the P945 chipset, it can support UP TO a core 2 duo processor or pentium dual core with 800mhz bus. 915/925 cannot support core 2 chip and only support single core.
Thank's for the advice, I actually have a 430W Corsair PSU I got cheap which I was going to sell with my Lenovo PC (which I need to get rid of) that I could probably get into the case. It has some odd non standard PSU and mounting system though at the moment which would mean light case modding and a new heatsink (or at least fan) would be required. Unfortunately I only have an AGP slot and no PCI-E so most of the GPU's you mentioned would either not work or be too expensive for my liking (the PC only cost me £29 including the CPU upgrade so a £100+ GPU is out of the question). I'm not into FPS games myself so I'm not too worried about getting crazy high performance parts into it, mainly just old Lego and probably racing games. As for heat it should be ok for now as I did see a Pentium 4 P300 on Ebay so they could take higher end CPUs Also the system also has a 478 socket motherboard. Thanks for your kind advice
Yes, do mod the case, maybe take some part of an old ATX case to help mount it in there better if you must. Make sure to blow all the shavings away real good They ARE AGP CARDS. I know this. https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Radeon-HD4650-Video-GV-R465D2-1GI/dp/B002B9F7RY This one is obviously WAY out of a reasonable price range here, but I am sure you can find some USED. As I said I know you can put up to a 5670~5770 or something similar in an older machine like that before they stopped and transitioned all to PCI-express x16 Yes, if you're using a stock cooler, it will keep the VRM's cool too. Don't try to use CLOCKGEN to run the processor above spec, you'll likely melt the VRM's (voltage regulators) to the motherboard, or burn them off, possibly making the house a-lite also. Just words of caution. I had a machine similar to it (with an ASUS motherboard) when I had my first house - good times & memories! I actually still have an LGA775 + AGP + VIA CHIPSET RUBBISH motherboard here, brand new, I think it works, I'll have to pop in an old CPU, a Matrox G400 AGP card I have here, and some old DDR DIMM (1) memory here to see if it posts. It was left over. Still have a few brand new Dell overstock CORE2 DUO/PCI-E/4xDDR2 motherboards here I think they're Q43 chipsets (they're actually surplus intel boards IIRC and not cheap junk like usual), I should get around to using one day.
I'm aware that the GPUs you mentioned were available in the AGP format but when I looked them up on Ebay I found reasonably priced ones that were PCIE and ones that were AGP, but a lot more expensive and often from far away lands (perhaps the AGP versions never took off here on the new market). Given that AGP performance is pricey and power hungry I'll probably turn it into a neat Lubuntu or Ubuntu box as the built in SIS Mirage works well for standard applications and web browsing. I had also managed to install Ubuntu successfully when it still had the Celery. Also I'll mention now that (odd as it sounds) the PSU and CPU share a fan and the hot air gets chucked out the left hand side of the PC case.
One thing to bare in mind is that these old socket 478 computers take the CPU power from the 5v rail IIRC, a lot of modern power supplies don't have a powerful enough 5v rail for these older computers, that's why I use an old Seasonic 300w unit in my Athlon XP 2000 retro gaming PC with a Nvidia GeForce 4 4200Ti.
Pentium 4's high power requirements validated the requirement for the aptly-named P4 connector. This connector was present on pretty much all the 2.0+ ghz models/lines. This is when PC's started drawing from the higher 12v line vs the 5v line for processors. A power supply in that day and age brand new would have said 'Pentium 4 Compatible' on it if it was certified to work with the higher 12v load + had the 4-pin plug. Yes, yes you are very correct the old PC's did use the lower rails for power back when they could pull the wattage they needed from the lower rails. In the clock-speed race between AMD and Intel for Athlon / P4, power efficiency (and the usefulness of the lower power rails to provide stable CPU power) went out the window. Good times! Edit: They also made these 20-pin ATX plugs into 24-pin ATX plugs, for more power again (I believe PCI-express more than the CPU was the reason, here for this itself). Most GOOD power supplies 400~500w or larger will have no issue with 5v rail loading. The load is small compared to the overall capacity of the supply as a whole. Seasonic is rockin'. 3 years+ on this one and the voltages don't move one bit. We have the worst quality and reliability of power here I've ever seen. This thing gets it's butt whooped weekly by our power grid and says MOAR MOAR MOAR and does not care. 7 year warranty says I am not going to care much either. Really happy with this unit (750watt, modular, from 2014, though I paid 140$ at a brick and mortar store for it). Won't settle for anything less in my content production & goof-off machine here.
Ah, right. It's been a while since I messed with Pentium 4 hardware, I remember when CPU's changed over to having the 12v CPU connector, just couldn't remember what series CPU. You think your grid is bad? you should see ours, it fluctuates between 250v to 220v at various times of the day, That's quality power!
This is derailing a bit, harmlessly; but alas... Yes, 2+ ghz p4's is where it came into play. 1st gen (Willamette socket 423) p4's had a special 4 or 5 pin rail connector on the boards (it also had RAMBUS, RDRAM), that was different from this 4-pin, it looked more like what the AT computers used, but this went as fast as it came into play. One generation and it was GONE and it wasn't even on all the board. I had a few ASUS boards with it though. Your power does WHAT? Yes that's worse than our grid. Ours just doesn't always stay ON. It randomly likes to turn off especially when the drunks or drugged drivers anoint themselves with utility poles at high rates of speed. There is worse though! Should call up the power company in the middle of a sag in the power and ask them if 'the cat knocked a plug out over there', or 'sure it's plugged in?'
Yeah it fluctuates pretty wildly but then again, this is the country that has to up the output of it's power stations because everyone turns their kettles on at the same time... Atleased we don't have crack heads causing black outs! Man Socket 423 now there's an oddball socket I haven't heard of in a while, never lasted very long IIRC.
