Although upgrading a manufactured PC is always a bit of a risk and a bit 
more tedious, because of the potential for incompatabilities with standard 
components, Gateway does a pretty good job of putting information on their 
website about the specifics of their systems.  This allows me to venture the 
opinion that it looks like a standard ATX 2.0 power supply will work with 
this system.  The current power supply appears to use a 24 pin main power 
connector, and it includes the four pin, square 12 v motherboard connector, 
as well as the special power leads used by SATA hard drives.  You'll find 
all of this on an up to date power supply (i.e., ATX 2.0 or newer).

Higher end PCI-E video cards can also have a specialized power connector. 
This is where the need for a power supply that specifies support for PCI 
Express comes in.  Although the motherboard can supply quite a bit of power 
to the card through the PCI-E slot (more than I think was possible with 
AGP), many higher end gaming video cards will still require this extra 
connection, direct from the power supply, for proper functioning.  This is a 
6-pin rectangular connector.

One thing to be aware of with some of the higher end power supplies is that 
they may be a bit longer than your current power supply.  You can always 
check this by measuring the length of your current power supply and 
comparing it to the dimensions of any power supply you were thinking of 
getting.  Vendors like NewEgg are pretty good about including these details, 
or you can try to find them on the power supply manufacturer's web site.  In 
a smaller case, a longer power supply might interfere with the installation 
of optical drives, for example.

John Sproule


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jimi Moore" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 7:11 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] power supply questions.


Hello all. My son has a gateway 825gm desktop.  I need to replace the psu to
keep up with the additions such as pci-express graphics cards and such.
My first question is does the psu have to have the pci-e connector or state
that it supports pci-e?  Also is there a standard physical size for most
psu's or how do I know a new one fit? 

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