Hi all,

Before I write my question, just let me say that I realize this is a dumb question in many respects.....So,

I was wondering what the thinking is on running a video card on less power than what is suggested by the manufacturer. My specs:

Compaq system
2.4Mhz
Radeon 9800Pro
768Mb RAM
40Gb Storage
FS9

The card is recommended to run on at least 300W. I have a PSU that says "Max. output 250watts". 
Although this seems like a dumb question, because really, if it says 300w, what kind of idot runs it on a 250w system Me. 
But I have heard conflicting reports on whether this is really hampering the card's abilities. WIth all my settings maxed, I am getting 7-18FPS, sometimes quite choppy, when I have been told I should be getting around thirty. I also know that you have to tweak the system to get best results. I have done all those tweaks along with using FS-Autostart and it still slows down in high auto-gen areas.
So here is why I ask a seemingly dumb quetion. I have been told that if the card is underpowered, it would just shut down and not play at all. If it's really just a limitation of the card and not an underpowering problem, I don't want to spend $150 bucks on a solution that isn't going to add anything to my gameplay. Any input is appreciated.

You don't have to spend another $150 to fix your problem. Do you have Compaq's version of windows XP? If so you have a load of thing you won't ever use. I have a presario S6500NX and it ran slower with all the stuff they install. I borrowed a friend's copy of windows xp and using my own key I installed windows xp and this was a big improvement. Another thing, have you downloaded the lastest drivers from ATI? I'd use the ones from ATI before I'd use hp's.
I have the same power supply you have. If your pc is working fine I wouldn;t worry about the PSu.

Put it this way, I had a gateway pc once with a 150w max power supply and I had two optical drives, two hard drives, two sticks of memory and a PNY Nvidia Geforce 4 TI 4200 which according to PNY was supposed to run on a power supply with a minimum of 350w and I never experienced a single problem with that pc. I have been posting lately asking for help on what to do with my power supply because they installed it upside down( it gets a lot hotter now) and on top of that it had a lot of cables damaged.

I'd say your problem is more like windows xp(hp/compa's version) rather than the power supply itself. before you decide to do a clean installation of windows xp make sure you have the appropriate drivers for your motherboard, sound card, modem, network card, and video card and any other device that you may have.

Good luck.

Thanks all for the replies. I think it's right that I have enough power running around the system. I'm not running all that much off of it. I'll tweak around a little more.