What happens when I replcae my computers power supply of 230W with a 400W power supply?

 

If your computer draws less than 230W then nothing happens when you use a power supply that will supply more power.
The more powerful power supply will supply more power only when something uses more power.

My car drives fine at 100kmh. If I replace its engine with a much more powerful one then it will still drive fine at 100kmh.

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Uncle $crooge

 

Does that mean that I can replace 230W with 400W and will still work?Because i'm afraid that something might explode or something.

 

No it's fine, it will make no difference.

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Hiiiii
See if u connect 400W power supply instead of 230W, your system will run properly. but if suppose there is a fault in your system hardware, it will start consuming more power for sec. here if u have used 230W, and if there is uncertainity in ur system 230W supply's fuse will blow and ur system will be protected. But if u use 400W supply for 230W system,and if there is any problem, fuse of 400W supply will not blow uptill ur system consumes more than 400W. And thus results u know!!! U will get Black blown useless hardware as result
Thanks Byeeeeeeeeeeee

 

It will creat problem

 

I would disagree - the only fuses in PC power supplies are in the incoming mains, these are there for when the power supply itself goes faulty, NOT for faults in the computer.

__________________
PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

Audioguru and Nigel are both correct, I have repaired many many computers, and replaced thousands of Power Supplies, as I am in the trade!

So long as the new supply is as big or bigger it will be fine, and the fuse blowing later in a larger supply is nonsense. Many people now are opting for massive wattage supplies in their new PCs, I have been fitting 850w ones recently!

 

Thanks guys, I found out that as long as your microprocessor is p4 or pentium4 or higher it can manage the supply of 400w.

 

You can put a 400W power supply on a 286 pc if you want. It just won't use all the power that is available.

You can't use a 100W power supply for a Pentium4 pc because it will be overloaded.

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Uncle $crooge

 

See fuse is not for to run the supply!!!
It is for protection.
So for 400W supply fuse will be designed to protect that SMPS.
And for 250W supply fuse will be designed to protect 250W SMPS. Now if your system is consuming 230W. U are using 250W SMPS, And if something goes wrong into PC, it will start consuming more than 250W. So here PC will load on SMPS and fuse is the only thing which has to protect SMPS. So it must blow.
Now tell me if supply is good enough to provide 400W, though PC needs only 230W normally, and if somethig goes wrong, PC starts consuming more than 250W, what your 400W SMPS will do??? It will provide 250W, beacasue it is designed for 400W. And in this case your PC must not be provided 250W. Otherwise it will burnout.
And still you don't believe do one thing Apply 300W load on 250W SMPS. And start SMPS see what happens.
And aply 300W load to 400W SMPS and see what happens. and tell me what blows...
And here this is not the case of experience here this is case of logic.
I know better that if my load is 230W, than an 800W SMPS will obveously drive it. But It is like, to load 2Kg wait your are using A train

 

We "don't understand" because you're talking complete rubbish!.

As I explained earlier, the fuse is ONLY there for when the power supply fails, it's NOT to protect against faults in the computer itself.

__________________
PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

Agree to Nigel!!

The fuse IN the power supply is to protect the power supply.
The fuse IN the system (or whatever load) is to protect the system.

Say, a fuse in the system is rated for 3A. it will blow off at 3A, irrespective of the wattage of the power supply!! be it a 400 W or a 1000W!!!

Say, a fuse in the power supply is fixed at 10A. It will blow off (or trip) when the load (in our case, the system) starts to consume more than 10A!!(as a result of any short circuit or whatever!!)

 

ALL fuses are for protection of something, but as everyone stated before: The mains fuse is to protect the power supply (and thus the system) from a problem with the mains or from a problem with the power supply. Some power supplies may limit the current to protect from shorts caused by hardware failures, but that is not what the fuse is for. Unless you have some kind of special ps that does have fuses for each power rail. But I have not seen one like that.

 

Rarely does a fuse in modern electronics actually protect any circuit. Generally their sole purpose is to prevent a fire if the electronics is horribly broken.