Yesterday I had one of those days, where the Computer causes Frustration, and time is  wasted running around.

My Desktop is an Compaq Persario with AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.19Ghz, so it runs like an Intel P4 @ 3.7 Ghz.  Its nowhere near the Core 2 duos.. but gets the job done.

So the built in video decided to fail on me.  I went to a local Tigerdirect store(45min drive each way) and Picked up a GeForce 9600 GSO again nothing super special, but considering what my Desktop is, I wouldn’t want to put anything more powerful inside.  Drove home and realized, shoot I didn’t check the power supply on my pc, and sure enough its under powered, its only 350Watts.

The minimum rating on my new video card is 500Watts or greater, whenever I hear minimum, that means bump it up a bit more.  So..... Back to the store which is a 45min drive.   I picked up a 600 Watt power supply which also came with the special 6 Pin PCIe Power cable which my original one didn’t.

Video Card $89
Power Supply $69
Time wasted:  3 hours.

At least my PC back up and running and as an added bonus, I can use both of my monitors. :)