PC Newbie help (with old pc)

[Gammble]

To cut to the chase, a friends pc "blew" a couple of nights ago. He said there was scorching around the PSU and it won't turn on or show any signs of life at all.

His basic specs are indeed pretty basic, it was a 500w power supply and his graphics card is an older 9400, and an e5400 dual core processor.

In a moment of impulse buying, he logged onto ebay and bought a psu that was ending within a couple of minutes, it was only just over a fiver and the same for postage so thought was worth the punt.

The question is, is it too old / outdate to be of use?

Thermaltake Purepower 480w
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/44/Thermaltak...

He lives in another country to me so i'm not much help to him, i'm pretty sure his graphics card doesn't require power from the psu like the newer cards? or am I wrong?

I'm hoping it will suffice to get his system up and running again but if he goes to upgrade graphics card in the future then he'd need t new psu with the 6pin connecters etc?

Any (useful) comments would be very much apreciated, just wanting to make sure he hasn't ended up with a £5+p&p paperweight.

[mcflurry]

ATX is a standard size. There may be a small differences with the HDD connectors and 4/6 pin mobo connectors, but fairly easy to resolve IMHO with a multimeter or adaptors if required

[annodomini2]

There are 2 problems he will face:

1. Does the power supply he bought off ebay work
2. Assuming it was his PSU that failed and not some other component failing and taking the PSU with it, or conversely the PSU blowing and taking out other components of the system.