Looking for quick answer about power supply compatability with my Acer Aspire TC-885 ES14....

Hello!

First of all, thanks for reading my post - I'm in a bit of a rush to get started on a video editing project and any help will be much appreciated!

I have been upgrading my Acer Aspire TC-885 ES14 (Part Number: DT.BAPAA.018) over the last few weeks to accommodate extra streaming and video editing.

First I got 32GB of RAM, which has been great, but my editing previews are still really chunky and hard to use for quick edits, so I decided to get a new video card.

After scouring this forum, the GTX 1050ti looked like the best option, so I ordered one, not knowing that the MSI variant I purchased from Amazon needs an extra 6-pin PCIe connector which my power supply doesn't have (it didn't say it was overclocked in the title and I ordered it on my phone so I missed that detail...) . So it's installed, but not powered. I tried to use a friend's old power supply, but it's not an ATX size one, so it won't fit. Or at least doesn't look like it will and I'm not sure I want to take it all apart and try.

I saw some other posts on this forum about upgrading the power supply in a TC-885-UR19, but I can only find one of the PSU's that was recommended, and it would take a long time to ship.

I would order another video 1050ti that doesn't need power, but I live in a remote area which takes a day or two extra for shipping and I'm hoping to start another video editing project next week. Plus I was considering the PSU upgrade and I'd hate to have another card arrive and make the same mistake by not reading the description in Amazon more attentively.

Because I would probably do that ...

So I'm hoping to reserve a PSU in store at a Best Buy in the city nearby and pick one up when I'm going in town this weekend.

I want to make sure I get a power supply that fits and has all the right plugs (the other used power supply I was looking at didn't appear to have the right plug for the DVD-R for example).

This is the one I'm looking at:

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/thermaltake-thermaltake-tr2-430-watt-atx-power-supply-w0412ru/10240720

If there is anyone here that can help verify that'll work or point me in the right direction, that would be great!

Thanks!

Accepted answers

All comments

billsey

Your TC-885 uses a standard ATX power supply, so that will be easy to find. It's also likely your existing supply is 500W, I wouldn't get anything smaller and would also be fine with a 650W or 750W instead. Memory and GPU are often big power draws, so fully populated memory and a GPU both are asking for more power than the default. It looks like Thermaltake has a 600W for only about $20 more and that would likely serve you better.

While you are doing all these upgrades don't forget about your boot drive and storage. If you are still using a spinning HDD for your boot drive you will want to look into replacing it with a SSD instead. Your machine has an NVMe compatible M.2 slot (that might be taken up with some Intel Optane right now) and putting a good SSD in there would give a bigger boost to system speed than either the memory or GPU... And you can repurpose the HDD for data storage.

philetus

The manual for the TC-885 says it has a 500W power supply which is good for a 1050Ti.
If you have determined if this is what your UR19 has, you can probably skip buying a power supply.

Kerbatron

Hey billsey and philetus,

Thanks both of you for the quick reply!

My machine is a TC-885-ES14 (a Canadian version) so it's a slightly different build than the UR19.

There's only a 300W supply (verified when I opened it up and saw the specs on the side of the PSU), but thankfully it came with a 128GB SSD boot drive and a 1TB HDD for the data drive already. That is still on my radar to eventually upgrade, I believe I still have a spare NVMe M.2 slot plus another spot for a regular sized SSD. For now the SSD boot drive is working fairly well, even though it's not the fastest SSD on the market.

I found a used 430W that I'll give a shot before I head into town, but I will definitely look into the 600W Thermaltake.

Thanks again for the help

Cheers

fieryIT

Hi, to answer the part about the connector for the DVD-R - you are right and this is a little gotcha. They use a non-standard connector for the DVD power - a slimline sata power connector - and most power supplies you buy are not going to have it and you need to budget the time and money to buy that if you intend to use the DVD drive.

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 280

Jack22 160

RenanVilela 95

Diya1811 90

GAMING6698 75

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™