6600GT and needed power supply

OK. Bought a 6600GT AGP online for $216. Works great - after I had to
take care of one little thing.

Now, I had researched this card in the last few weeks. Either here in
this newsgroup - somewhere anyway, I read that the minimum power supply
for the 6600GT was 300 watts.

Well forget it. At least the one I bought. I didn't see the power supply
requirements listed online when I bought, nor did I look at the box when
received, and I installed it. Worked fine until I loaded any game where
the graphics acceleration would kick in, and then my computer crashed to
nothingness, and I had to cold boot.

Finally after several things tried, I looked at the box. "minimum of a
450 watt power supply is needed".

So I went and bought a 500 watt power supply, and it works great.

Actually I bought a fancy looking 600 watt power supply 1st, took it home,
carefully & meticulously installed it correctly, even tying up wires here
& there to get them out of the way, started my computer, the light came
on, after two second, dead. Thought I blew it and fried my computer.
Come to find out, after taking the darned thing in because I had no ideas,
that the power supply was bad. Let that be a lesson to you guys, fancy
schmansy 600 watt power crazy wanting people, be careful what brand you
buy, I of course never would buy anything from that company again.

There ought to be some kind of consumer protection laws out there that
would reimburse me for the time it took me to install an item that was
defective & had to be replaced. If the store is going to charge me $45 to
install a power supply, then my time should be worth at least half of
that. & what about traveling & gas & wear & tear on my car? & esp3cially
what about the mental aguish I felt when I thought I had fried my computer
and maybe everything in it?

...D.