Sound cards and power supplies

[A Nerd]

I was thinking of buying a new soundcard. I bought a cheapie and one of my speakers sounds staticy. The other speakers I had hooked up there did the same thing so I know it is not the speaker. Before investing in a better more expensive sound card I want to know if they use much power. I am kind of stuck with a 240w power supply and can't find any information online about power usage of sound cards. The more expensive ones look like monsters compared to the one I bought, I don't want to fry anything!

[naut]

240 Watts?! I use one of those old PSU's as a paperweight. A good powersupply costs at least $100 and should be about 600 Watts. Although, this also depends on your other hardware.

[caravel]

Power supply wattage depends on the hardware in your system. A 240 watt supply won't be sufficient on any modern PC with a high end graphics card and e.g. more than one hard disk and a few adaptor cards. You would get away with it if you're running a fairly low end system with a budget line graphics card, one hard disk and no other adaptor cards. (examples only)

I've gotten away with the cheap power supplies that come with £20 PC cases for the last decade and never had a single problem.

[A Nerd]

No, no, not graphics cards, sound cards. I don't play much video games anymore, I use the PC mostly for internet and radio/cds. My pc is old and an energy saver model, hence the crappy power supply. The sound card I use is fine, but I want to upgrade. I didn't know if they draw heavily on the power supply or not. Thanks! :)

I tried to upgrade the power supply on an aside, but it would not screw into the case, wouldn't line up for some reason. I plugged it in anyway just for kicks (dumb) and I couldn't get on to my desktop (with graphics card too powerful for the aged motherboard). I had to reinstall my OS. I would rather stay away from power supplies if I can help it! :O