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Possible Duplicate:
What happens if a video card cannot get enough power?

I've got this new video card:

ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series

The problem is that my screen sometimes goes blank and sometimes flickers.
Silly me, I forget to look at minimum system requirements.
The video card needs 440 watt PSU minimum, but I have a 300 watt PSU.

So the question is: can I use this graphics card on my PSU?

Community
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Little Helper
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2 Answers2

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You've answered your own question - it may work sometimes but you've already noticed problems.

Ultimately you'll end up either damaging the card or (more likely) blowing the power supply which might cause damage to other components. This could be through a final power surge or simply by shutting down suddenly.

Buy a new PSU.

ChrisF
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Without knowing the other specifications in your computer, it's impossible to answer this question. Did you build a low-power PC and throw a video card in it? If so, you might be fine. If it's a decent, full-size computer, get a new PSU as quick as you can. It is not worth overloading a PSU with all your new computer hardware.

You should always have more PSU capacity then you use (depending on if you want to expand in the future), but loading a PSU to it's maximum capacity (or higher) will be detrimental to both the PSU itself, as well as all of your hardware components in the computer.

LawrenceC
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Breakthrough
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  • So it means, that i can kill my video card? – Little Helper Aug 31 '11 at 10:38
  • It can kill your system. Or if you are lucky and the PSU is a quality unit - only the PSU. But before this moment comes you will be plagued with shutdowns, system instability and ungodly amounts of noise while the poor thing is desperately trying to cool itself. – D.Iankov Sep 29 '11 at 19:31