ryboto, thanks for risking life and multimeter on that!
gfairbanks wrote:
I just received the picoPSU-120 kit yesterday. The power brick has no fan. I also ordered the 4-pin p4 cable for $2, making the total $57. I'm building a quiet HTPC MythTV box. I'm using the ABIT AN-M2HD motherboard, an AMD BE-2350 CPU (2.4GHz, rated 45w), and an 80GB Seagate laptop hard drive.
Linux scales the CPU down to 1GHz when it's not used heavily, like when playing music or SD video. I was amazed to see the box pulling only 20w. Under full load it's pulling around 57w.
I just installed this, so I haven't yet looked into long-term heat buildup since there's no PSU fan. I may have to turn on one of the case fans. The on-mobo video chip and north(south?) bridge have big heatsinks, but the CPU has the stock AMD cooler for now, which is the only fan in the system right now.
I'll post more details once I've looked into the heat situation more.
Which brick did you get, the 100 Watt one? If i wasn't determined to have a decent graphics card in the system i'd just go with that and be done with it. I don't think the 8600gt will be happy with 100 W total system power, though.
I just discovered
LinuxMCE today while looking for the latest on MythTV, and was completely blown away. It uses MythTV but also wraps a bunch of other packages to provide a very amazing "complete" experience. Considering i was going to put Misterhouse and MythTV on the new box i'm setting up to run fulltime, LinuxMCE seems like a great option.
My thinking at this point is an Antec/Veris Fusion V2 case with C2D and Geforce 8600, both of them undervolted and underclocked as much as is possible to reduce power. When i need HD decompression/filtering or a gaming fix, i'll rev it up. Otherwise, it will sit and PVR/serve automation events/etc. I'll worry about picoPSU-ing it when i have a fix on its power draw and perhaps a better idea what the efficiency of those bigger brick supplies is. Anyway, i'll take this to another thread, but --
Please, anyone capable of doing so: measure and report the efficiency of your bricks you are using for PicoPSU projects, especially those over 120W.