Power supply make for older Pentium?

[stevejr]

I need to buy a replacement psu for a customer's old Pentium. E-Bay has several brands to choose from: Lead Power...Po Work...Okia...Silent Lead. Which of these are good psu's?

[lgbpop]

More helpful to post the make and model of computer. Once we can dig up the original specs we can go from there. Chances are, Newegg or MWave have what you need at a competitive price with a warranty.

[stevejr]

lgbpop....my customer, actually the lady two houses down, asked if I could look at her computer and see why it wouldn't get past post. I cleared the cmos...checked the psu and it was bad...installed an extra psu that I had and it booted right up. I defragged ( I don't think that it had ever been defragged!), got rid of Norton, and a bunch of other junk....cleaned up the usual temporary files & such...got it all nice and tidy. I told her that I would not charge her anything except for the parts...but she has to tell her friends and others about me ...which she will gladly do!! Anyway...she has had the computer back with her for a while and I'm just now able to get back to getting a decent psu for her. The spare psu that I used is longer ( from front to back), than the original and the cd-rom wouldn't fit back in all the way so I told her that I would get a psu that fit the case. The old psu is a Delta Electronics 90W psu...5 7/8" wide..4" deep...3 1/2" height. Those are the dimensions on most of the psu's for the older Pentium's that I saw on E-Bay...for about $10.00. I didn't write down the exact model...but I can get that info if it's necessary. Since my spare psu worked, I figured that any psu that was made for the early Pentium's, dimension wise, ( the ones on E-Bay are about 400W models), would work.

I'll check Newegg and Mwave...didn't know that you could still get psu's for those older systems from them.

[lgbpop]

MicroATX, then. Try this one. My area is full of elderly people who have meticulously maintained their sub-1GHz computers and will repair them until pigs fly. (All they usually get used for is websurfing and the occasional photo print of the grandkids!) It doesn't look like much but it's more wattage than most OEM units for the vintage, and it works with mobos that require the 3-pin connector for the PSU fan. It also has a P4 connector just in case. I've used several, they're nothing fancy but they do the job.

FSP/Fortron is another dependable microATX PSU.

[stevejr]

lgbpop...I checked out that psu at Newegg. $20.00 plus $6.54 shipping. The psu's at E-Bay are new with a yr. warranty and go for about $20.00 total, so not that big a difference. I guess that I should go with Newegg for their known reputation for replacements if I were to get a bad psu, even though the sellers on E-Bay are power sellers....what are your thoughts on this?

I think that this lady's computer is an old Pentium 486 Apiva...or something like that. It was given to her so she could do community college classroom assignments, put the work on a floppy and take the floppy to school.
she also does basic surfing as well. So even though it's only about a 486 Mhz computer, it is adequate for her needs.

It was fun opening up that old computer...a learning experience for me.

[lgbpop]

Let me guess, EDO RAM and 3 ISA slots? No fan on the CPU? Been there, seen those.

My rule of thumb on computer parts is to buy from Newegg or MWave for the retailer support and reputation. If they don't have it, or I'm willing to risk the money on eBay, I'll go that route - even then I try to stick with known sellers, those I've bought from before if possible. IMO, dealer cost on name-brand items doesn't afford an eBay retailer much markup so they tend to go with no-name stuff at full retail.

[stevejr]

lgbpop...actually, there is a fan on that cpu, but what a strange looking contraption that cpu is! The only other fan is the psu fan, but that's all it needs since there is so very little heat generated by the cpu. The cpu fan was actually rather quiet and pushed a fair amount of air across that weird looking cpu.

I will just stick with Newegg for the psu...no need to risk her money or mine for just a few dollars difference.

[foxy]

I'd love to know how she surfs the net on a 486. I tried it with one client a few years ago and told her to forget it.