I picked up this PSU from short-circuit.com, and unfortunately they don't include the +12v AUX adapter. I can find them in the U.S. for about $4-5, but at the places I've found them, shipping is another $7 or so. Anybody know where to get one more reasonably?

Is that a high capacity +12V brick for $4~5? Don't forget that the +12V brick needs to be decently rated to work well with the picoPSU. What constitutes "decently" depends on your specific setup, but I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than 80W unless you have a truly special setup. If it is a high capacity brick, could you post a link SVP?

put a heatsink on the brick ;D

I think hmsrolst (HMS Rolst?) was talking about a $5 molex to 12V AUX adapter, not the external 12V power brick!

Right!

My Pico (w/80w EDac brick) came with no adaptors at all. For the 4-pin motherboard plug, I bought an adaptor from the local computer store for A$5. Any store which has a good selection of cables will have them. However, they referred to it as a 'Pentium 4 convertor' as it's normally used for old power supplies being used with newer motherboards.

These things have some serious possiblilities, especially if they just pass through the 12v line. Is there any reason that you can't use a relatively high 12v load on them (high-end graphics and CPU)? If its not a problem, I have some plans for one of these...

Just looking at the "Power consumption within 6 PC's" makes it interesting. Higher powered systems use almost all the extra power from 12V, very little is being used from 3.3V and 5V respectively.

The only problem is to find the AC-DC brick that does it.

Well, the +12V current does need to pass through the picoPSU, which means that the individual wires need to be able to support that kind of current. That being said, our contact at Mini-box.com said that he had been using the picoPSU to supply ~180W (no info on the rail breakdown) for long periods of time, so it's quite possible that the picoPSU is derated quite significantly. I think the only way to know for sure is to have a few brave souls try it out.

Saturday I installed the picoPSU in my wife's computer. It's a low-powered Pentium M 2.0 (XP-90 with undervolted Nexus 92mm), Matrox G450, laptop HDD system in a Silverstone LC-04 that doesn't get a lot of load, so I bought the 80W fanless brick. Using a regular PSU it was pretty quiet and I got CPU idle temps of about 40C.

I was using a soft-mounted, undervolted L1A for intake and thought some exhaust venting was needed. I took the outer 3-sided shroud off my old PSU and soft-mounted another L1A there. Using it in pretty much the same position as the old PSU, it makes a good tunnel--the side of the case is the 4th side of the tunnel and I used some foam and tape to close up the inside end. I had to run the picoPSU cable through the tunnel as it wasn't long enough to mount up to a rear slot; I think that's going to be a problem for most systems where it mounts on the front of the motherboard.

The results--it's close to silent and CPU idle temps dropped to 35C. I need to get my head a few inches away to hear it.

I'm going to get another one for an MATX mobicel system, but would sure like to find a place that wouldn't do ripoff shipping for the molex to 12V AUX adapter--cheapest I could fine was $9 total at Provantage.

In going through the Mouser Electronics catalogue, I discovered another fanless external brick that should work with the picoPSU-120. It's spec is 12V @ 8.33A, 100W output. It comes with a 2.5mm right angle plug which I think is the correct mate.

http://www.mouser.com

Their part number is 418-TR100A120-02 and the price is USD $69.95.

My personal interest is in using it to power a music server that's built around a VIA EPIA-EN15000G C7 1.5GHz MB / CPU. Fully loaded (1 DVD-R drive, 3 HDDs, an audio card, and the 40mm heatsink fan) it draws 57W under a heavy load (ripping a CD to a HDD). The 12V, 6.6A, 80W fanless brick from mini-box gets fairly hot and I'm trying to find something with a little more head room.

FYI, the same rig set-up with an Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice) on an Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard draws about 87W under the same conditions. This using a Seasonic SS-300SFD PSU, Thermalright XP-120 HS, and 120mm 800rpm Schythe heatsink fan. Take away two of the HDDs and the load drops to about 77W, so the Mouser brick may be a good solution for some Athlon 64 and Pentium M users, as well.

Strangely, the 4-pin 12V CPU adapter from mini-box that the Athlon and Pentium M's need only comes with bare pigtails. You'll need to get a Molex connector and pins to finish it off.

toto

interesting that they also have a new 60W version.. whilst the fact its only 60W is a bit rubbish; the fact that it can take any input from 6V-26V is very nice, if ur in the unusual situation to only need 60W..

Even fanless bricks can and do make noise!

The brick power adapter for my HP500 Deskjet printer which is now around 10 years old has developed a nasty hum over the years.
I leave it unplugged and only plug it in when I do a print run.

Yes, they can hum. My power brick for speakers hums, however it's very quiet and it's only a problem if the brick is lying on a hard surface like pc cabinet in my desk. The vibrations from the power brick transmit to the table and then the table itself hums. If I decouple power brick from the table by putting it on some foam 95% of the hum disappears. Maybe you have something similar of a problem. I find it extremely rarely that power brick give off an audible hums that you can actually hear, just about the only exception is UPS'es which have the same power transformer inside, but much more powerfull.

In my case, the brick is on a carpeted floor in the corner.
I've tried orienting it in different positions but even in its 'quietest' position it's still very audible (it's a quiet room).

It's the transformer, itself, that's buzzing or humming. The internal mount has come loose, is deteriorating, or the transformer is just a cheap unit to begin with.



I've actually found the reason for this. Upon close examination, the PW-200-M (but not the picoPSU-120) has a set of four empty holes on the pc board connected in parallel with the output lines. The idea is that P4 or Athlon users who need the extra 12V connector can solder the pigtails directly into the board. Of course, this assumes that the pigtails are long enough to reach the 12V socket, which may not be the case. In fact, the the power input lines on the PW-200-M aren't even long enough to reach the back of the case where the socket needs to be mounted! In order to install the PW-200-M the way it was intended, I had to replace the two 6-inch wires with 18-inches wires.

The real problem with the PW-200-M that mini-box.com sells is that because of it's right-angle layout, very few boards will accept it directly (BTW, two MBs that will are the AOpen i855GMEm-LFS for Pentium M and AOpen MX3S-T for Pentium III). To make matters worse, even though an extender cable is available, there are no mounting holes on the pcb. However, it turns out that the same PSU is available on a long strip with holes designed for mounting inside a case. You'll have to add a pair of stand-offs, as well as an extension cable adapter, but it's a much better solution for a lower price (USD $45). It's the model called PST-ITX-3 and they say it comes equipped with a 4-pin 12V connector.

In any event, paired with the right brick, the picoPSU-120 is a more elegant solution, since you can use it with virtually any board available.

Update (19 Aug): In doing a direct comparison between the PW-200-M and the picoPSU-120 (same motherboards and drives, same 80W AC/DC brick), there is no difference in power draw at the outlet. Given the dearth of fanless bricks above 100W, the picoPSU-120 still seems to be the best choice in low power PSUs.

Update (11 Sept): Having now purchased and installed the 100W brick from Mouser (mentioned above), I can verify that it works perfectly with the picoPSU's. Its only real drawback is it's price.

Also, mini-box does sell the long strip version of the 200W PSU mentioned above. They call it the model PW-200-V. The main reason to mention this is that I have one motherboard, a PC Chips M599LMR for socket 7 CPUs, that was unstable with the picoPSU-120 (the system kept rebooting for no apparent reason), but which works perfectly with the 200W version. Considering that the PC only draws 50W (with a 550Mhz AMD K6-2+ CPU installed), it's not clear why this should be.

[slightly pedantic mode]

It is alway handy to use the correct names for the product you are talking about. There is no picoPSU-200. The PSU's you are linking to are the PW-200-M and PW200 V. They are build with completely different electronic components and are described as Micro Power Supplies. They have been availlable for about two years IIRC, while the pico PSU is a recent addition to mini-box's portfolio. These were originally designed for specific VIA EPIA motherboards (resp. the M-series and the V-series) on which they fit perfectly without extension cables.

[/slightly pedantic mode]

This is not to say they can't be used as you describe, but most likely this older design has a lower efficiency than the reviewed pico PSU.

hi

i couldnt read the whole discussion so my que. may have been mentioned

is it ok or enough to use 2 of them(psus) (240w in total) for

venice 3000
epox npa+ultra
512x2 ram
160 gb sata2 hdd
dvd-r
x550

i thought to use 1 for powering mb
and the other for cpu, hdd and dvd-r

That sounds needlessly complicated. I would try using just one — I would expect that system to stay below 120W. We tested the picoPSU with a very similar system, and it never pulled much more than 60W (72W from the wall x 87% efficiency = ~63W). Your X550 will add a little power, but it won't eat up anything close to 60W.

I had googled words system, power, consumption, calculator - together and the site I surfed in calculated my systems max power need as ~250W.

so i thought using 2 of them would supply me 240 w which is enough as it has they have high efficiency and as my system can never go up as high as 250 W unless I virus scan - play cod2 - defrag hdd etc at the same time

also using two of them will keep each of them in low stress or load so the temps will be ok in a narrow case.

I may seperate them (psu) acc. to the watt amount each component drew or acc. to real life power draw, but the q. is that is is a good or practical idea? instinctly I have a bad feeling about leaving the whole system to one tiny psu

or leave all behind, should I go with a fanless 300-350 w psu ??
I kindly note that I am seeking total conventional cooling.

Don't believe everything you read. I've never seen a power supply calculator that reflected real usage. They all overestimate drastically, some by double or more.

Believe me when I say I've looked this issue in detail. If you haven't already, read through our article on power distribution. You don't need more than one PicoPSU. If you're worried, put the system together with a single power PicoPSU, get a Kill-a-Watt meter, and monitor the amount of power you are using. I can guarantee your system won't require much more than 100W, even at full load. For the record, the best way to discover full load is to run CPUBurn and ATITool simultaneously. You can try running disc degragmenting as well if you're concerned about the HDD, but that will only add about 3~4W. The CPU and the GPU are the most power hungry components in any system, so loading them both fully yields a good top-end test for power consumption.

Trying to use two power supplies simultaneously is a huge headache, as you need to find a way of getting both to turn on simultaneously, and to ensure that the interaction between them doesn't cause unpredictable electrical problems. There have been a few successes in the past, but it's not something you want to tackle unless it's absolutely necessary.

By the way, the PicoPSU is small because the most significant power conversion is done outside of the case in the external power brick. The PicoPSU supplies the minor voltages (mainly +5V and +3.3V), and no system we've tested has ever required more than 4A on either of these lines, and about half that is typical (<20W).

To summarize, I think you should trust our actual measurements, not the theoretical numbers that some PSU calculator generates. I've looked at this issue in detail, and I wouldn't make my recommendations if I didn't have confidence in them.

thanks for your kind and enlightening reply.

i will run my system in full load and measure the power cons.
and check the real value for my self. if it stays lower than 100w (hope so)
i will go with this one. and I totally agree you about headaches of runnning 2 psus simultaneously. hope to post my experie. in near future.

take care

I have an almost identical system (Venice 3200) and at idle am getting a draw of about 67W and under load (ripping a CD) of about 87W. Just use a 100W (or higher) AC/DC brick.

Instead of the PicoPSU and struggling to find a decent 12V AC/DC brick, how about running an M2-ATX instead... This is what I am thinking of doing!
Now you have a 160W PS, and you can put up to 24V into it (Maybe use an old Dell laptop charger 20V 4.5A for 90W, I think you can get a used one for ~$25.). Or find a 24W 7A charger and you are golden up to 160W.
Has to be easier than a 12V 10A supply...

I actually bought six 24V 10A supplies for $90 shipped on a good Ebay buy I am planning to use them on some DIY audio amplifiers, but maybe one will go to my computer. No fans in these supplies, so all is silent in the PSU dept...

Also, you could run the comp in your car as well (This is what the M2-ATX was designed for in the first place.)

Great find, I never saw this product before; my only concern would be the max 8A on the 12V rail, but with a low-power CPU and integrated graphics that should be easily doable.

Has anyone tried this?

Rated 200W. MikeC mentioned he would review this brick during the interview with hifiatx.
http://www.mcubed-store.com/catalog/pro ... cts_id=179

I have a similar problem, with a system drawing between 55 Watts and 60 Watts (measured on AC outlet) and a picoPSU-80 + 80 Watts brick. Reboots occured and they were even reproducable, I believe they are caused by the TV tuner being switched on. Replaced it with the old 240W PSU, no problem. Now I wonder if the problem will be solved if I just invest in a larger brick. Any more experiences?

/jayrock

I have a general question about these PSUs
either the picoPSU or the PW-200M / V

How would I feed the 24- and 4- PIN ATX connector on my motherboard? I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I really don't know much about PSUs and electricity in general.

I've got this mb:
DFI RS482 Infinity

And a SilverStone LC11 case, where I want to replace the PSU.

You'll see in a photo of cables in the review that it comes with a 2x12v adapter. As for the 24 pin ATX, most boards work fine with just the 20 pin connector. The extra 4 pins just add one more line each for ground, 12V, 5V and 3.3V -- to increase the current capacity to the board. If you are using a lower power CPU you'll have no trouble at all; I've used 20-pin PSUs with high power CPUs as well; no problems.

Would it work to combine this with a VGA PSU, like the FSP Group BoosterX 3 and run a E6600 and 7950gt in SLI mode on it?

I forgot about these things, how does the Ampere work, is it consumed like Watt?

Im going to disable the fans on the FSP and cool it some other way if it is possible to combine them...