[texas booster]

Most store bought computers include a power supply of 250 watts to 350 watts. This is the box that converts from 110V to +12V and +5V for the motherboard.

State of the art video cards can use a lot of power just by themselves, and that extra power load can cause an existing power supply to fail.

A couple of years ago, my son needed a 550 watt PS for a home brew computer. Nowadays some systems even need a 650 watt power supply.

Top of the line systems today can have 2 GBs of memory, multiple hard drives, two DVD burners and lots of other stuff. The power needs increase very fast.

[processing please hold]

Thank you. I plan on asking him after Christmas for that ATI card. He told me yesterday morning he got me a new desk and a bedroom suit(I didn't tell him the furniture store let it slip to me about the desk) but, the new bedroom suit hit me between the eyes. Now our room is empty except for a campimg bed we aired up to sleep on. Oooh, my aching back.

I don't have the heart to ask him for that card now, but, after Christmas I will. I didn't know about the larger power supply thing. I'm glad I asked.