Effects of too low of a power supply with power whoring graphics?

[stainer711]

What will the effects of installing a graphics card on a system with an insufficient power supply be? Will the pc produce choppy gameplay or will it not work at all? So far the graphics have been phenominal with no freezing except for clipping during heated action. Is this a good sign? I have a 305 wat dell pc and a geforce 7800gt card. The clipping is scaring me, but is that really caused by the power supply?

 

[Killa_2327]

If your PSU was bad or insufficients you would get things such as...Random reboots, memory errors, random system lockups, if you have LED's and they flicker thats a sign, excessive fan noise, no fan noise, and if your PSU's chassis is really friggin hot. You can also unplug some things that consume power and see if these problems persist, but in your case, it is more then likely not the PSU, even though one would think you should get a better PSU then a 305 watt powering a 7800 GT.

EDIT : Actually, now that I think about it, are you even supposed to be able to power a computer with a 7800 GT with a PSU that low? I thought the minimum was like 350 or something.

 

[stainer711]

Well, the chasis is not hot at all. I just played some CS: source with only minor clipping.