Vista - Someone Explain a PSU to me

ok silly question,i just have a standard power supply that came with my pc,I've seen PSU's and know i need to get one,but how do they work,and how do you connect them? and another question will a SLi motherboard make a noticable difference to your pc's performance compared to a non SLi board? and what about SLi PSU's?

You have a lot to learn, I can see.

A PSU is just a power supply unit - it supplies all the components with power - the motherboard and CPU and all your peripherals.

Connecting it is easy - as long as you match the connector type with the type on your motherboard, all should be well.

SLI is Scalable Link Interface - used to share the processing power of multiple GPUs in multiple graphics accelerators (aka video cards). If you have a single card, a motherboard with SLI won't do you a lot of good, other than providing you with the option to add another card and use SLI later on in life.

Therefore, a PSU advertised as being SLI ready means it is ready with extra sets of connectors and / or technology, such as multiple voltage rails, that support using multiple graphics accelerators. Again, if you only use one, this does not really apply to you.

If you are considering building your own system, I *strongly* urge you to wait for 6 months - and in that time do all the reading you can, familiarizing yourself with the current technology, terminology, etc. - and use independent reviews, not what your friends tell you - you need to get your head around all this before considering upgrading a machine, much less building one.

Speaking of PSU's. I have an Acer that I had to replace the PSU on. It was a different brand but everything matched up exactly like what I had, wires etc. The difference was in voltage/wattage. I placed the PSU in and it worked for a while, but then the computer went crazy and now it doesn't come on. Someone told me that I have to use the exact PSU for the computer. Is that true?

Thanks,

Richard

No.

Your problem could be power related or something else, but as long the power supply fits, and is connected correctly, you can use a different brand or even higher wattage as long as the connectors fit properly.

You may want to look to see if there's a short, a loose connection/loose component, or something going on with the motherboard, fans, or some other hardware.

Thanks Sygnus21, I'll give it a shot.