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Dell Vostro 430 Graphics Card Upgrade
Hi, I have a question about the changing my video card in my old (well not that old) discountinued Vostro 430. It has a PSU of 350 but I bought a GeForce GTX 650 (because who reads instructions?!?) which says it requires a PSU of 400. Can I get away with using a 350 for a while until I buy a 400 PSU in a month or two from now or would I end up frying my card?
DELL-Sundeep B
874 Posts
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July 16th, 2013 16:00
Hi WheresThePowerButton,
As shared earlier, I found some online references where users were able to successfully use GTX 650 with 350W power supply. However, if you run demanding or graphics intensive applications which require heavier processing capabilities from system, it will lead to a load on power supply. In such a case, the system might overheat and even shutdown abruptly due to lack of power. The results are uncertain and might cause damage to any of the components including motherboard, processor or hard drive.
The power supply requirement can not be computed alone from video card. It also depends upon processor, no. of memory, hard drives, optical drives connected, internal expansion cards or external peripherals attached to system. While researching, I found that various power supply manufacturers have a power supply calculator tool on their websites that you may use to compute the PSU requirements for your system. One such example is Here.
Note : The above link is for reference purpose only. Dell has neither tested nor endorses these tools.
The power calculated by tool is approximate power needed by your system. In my personal experience, I have observed that power supplies may not work at 100% efficiency. If we take PSU efficiency to be at around 70-75% and if the tool calculates your system power requirement to be around 300W, then you would need a power supply of atleast 300*100/75 = 400W. For more information, you may refer to link Here.
Hope this helps.
DELL-Sundeep B
874 Posts
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July 16th, 2013 13:00
Hi WheresThePowerButton,
Dell has tested Vostro 430 system with following video cards :
Though, Dell has not tested this system with GTX 650, based on technical specifications it should work with your system.
As correctly mentioned by you, GTX 650 requires a minimum of 400W power supply. The video card has a max TDP of 64W. I researched on the same and found that few users have successfully tested GTX 650 over 350W power supply. Also, nVidia Geforce GTS 240 have similar power consumption statistics and have higher max TDP as compared to GTX 650. So, GTX 650 should work with your system. However, I would strongly recommend you to go for atleast 400W or 500W PSU, so as to prevent any PSU overload issues.
For installing/replacing parts in system, you may refer to service manual of Vostro 430 Here.
Note : Please follow safety instructions given in manual before installing/replacing parts.
Hope this helps.
WheresThePowerB
2 Posts
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July 16th, 2013 14:00
So quick question lets just say I was too broke to buy a new PSU at the moment, what are the damages if I overload the PSU? Does that mean it wont work or could this affect any other parts of my computer? If it just means the PSU will just brick... Sounds like I can roll the dice here and just use this configuration till it dies.