buckykat [none/use name]

I would expect a (legitimate) 500W psu to still be enough, going from i3-8100 to i7-9700k is only going from 65W TDP to 95W TDP. I would recommend a better cooler than the stock intel one if you go for that, though.

The GPU (and CPU, for that matter) at full load will draw more than it does at boot. Just because disconnecting the optical drive bought enough headroom to successfully boot does not necessarily mean that the computer will be stable under load.

500W is plenty, just make sure it’s from a reputable brand instead of the no-name that came with the case.

Look closely at OP’s original pic. I’m pretty sure the power for the card is coming through an old 20 pin connector from that dodgy power supply, it doesn’t even have a 24 pin connector.

Give us a close up of your motherboard here.

Also, try booting without the optical drive plugged into anything. It’s useless anyway and it might be just enough of a difference in power to get you booted reliably. If that does work though, I wouldn’t be surprised if you see crashes when you throw a graphics workload at your card and it tries to draw its full power.

The 1650’s TDP is 75W, which is the most you can draw just from the slot.

Do I see only 20 pins of the 24 pin motherboard power connector actually filled there? Your 1650 is getting all its power from the motherboard, so you might be right on the edge of what the power supply that came with the office PC can handle.

Yeah it shut down over a year ago. No great loss, really.

Used Thinkpad some corpo is getting rid of

Hmm,

“AI” boosters are overwhelmingly techno fascist arch reactionaries, especially in “the West,” so no, I would not like this