I need someones honest opinion mostly. For the most part everything is running fine but there was a bad judgement on me part when I bought my new graphics card.

I have a 2 year old HP Pavilion a6130n, AMD Anthlon 64 x2 dual processor 5000+ 2.60mhz, and 3G RAM. I was in the market for a new graphics card and I came across the Galaxy GeForce 250 GT. I reading some of the recommendations and it listed the POWER supply as 400w minimum. I wasn't not sure what my PC's power supply was and being impatient as I was I bought it anyways. The card also came with a few extra cables which I was unfamiliar with from previous PCI Express cards but after awhile I managed to figure out where they connected on the power supply. At first I wasn't getting anything to show up when I just installed the card, but after I hooked up the extra wires it was able to come up.

Well I finally looked up my PC's power supply it is only 250w. So this is why I need some expert opinions on the matter.

The PC has been starting up alright and everything but it seems to me 250w from 400w minimum I would need a different card? I was trying to search on the subject and there seemed to be a lot of myths circling around I just don't know why to trust. Another thing I noticed as well was that my processor speed is lower now after installing the card. Do they share the speed? I went from 2.60 mhz to around 1.00 mhz and this is what is concerning me. Should I take the card back to the store and get one that is compatible with my PC or is this fine? PC works and runs great besides those issues.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. If you decide to keep the new graphics card you will have to CHANGE other hardware components of your computer.Certainly the PSU (and remember it stated "minimum"). That may not be the end of your issues either> Forinstance depending what it is you USE the new card for you may need to upgrade your RAM. I guess really only you can answer the question you posed. It becomes a matter of how much more you want to spend--how much more you want to upgrade that computer--how important that increased performance that you hope to gain from the graphics upgrade means to you? If the option exists to return the card and you can live with what you have or something that might give you a BIT more performance but won't require all the upgrades that one will then i believe that is your best option.truenorthI really don't want to buy more parts for the computer. I mean I rather just buy another computer with upgrades but I cannot at the moment. I was really just suppose to get a graphics card that was slightly a bit better than my previous one and I may have went too far better if I need these extra power.

I can live with the performances that my computer and graphics card can put out. I am just concerned if I shouldn't be using a 400w minimum card with a 250w computer, will it damage it in the long run.. is it absorbing more power than it really should.  When I did a "can you run it" check on a website for a random game say Starcraft 2, with my previous card my system was fine it was just the card that didn't check with minimum requirements. In fact rest of the system was on par with maximum. However after installing the new card I checked again, my processor speed was the thing that suffered in the check and I don't understand why, is it because the card is soaking up that speed?

Thank you for the info though, I don't really want to upgrade the other parts. But everything else is running fine but I would not wave to damage my PC in the long run with this set up if it is honestly not good for the PC/Power Supply/GPU. So that is why I am asking for honest opinions about it. If so I will just simply take it back and find something my PC can handle.

If it is only a matter of, I won't be getting the fullest potential out of the graphics card because my computer doesn't meet the other requirements, then that is fine. I can live with that as I look to upgrade to a new PC later.

Thanks again.