I´m amazed that the hot air from the passive PSU manages to come out from the front, I guess I underestimated the effects of positive pressure. I wasn´t concerned about the GPU of northbridges temps as much as the temps within the PSU. I would suggest running a pico PSU but I thought I wouldn´t be possible with your current configuration. I hope it works well with the dual core chip, I´m definately interested in using it with this case.

I don't think the Pico will work with my current system. I plan on switching to either a BE or low power Brisbane, maybe even an intel E21xx series, I made a thread about it in the system advice. I think with a lower drawing CPU the Pico shouldn't have any issues, the fact that it boots right now is pretty impressive to me. I really think the PicoPSU should be able to handle a low power cpu and a pci-e card like the x1950pro. A 45W chip and a ~65W video card(so xbit says) are within the limits of the PICO, besides, I'd never fully load the cpu and gpu at the same time.

Regarding the passive psu temps. The unit does get hot to the touch, but not much hotter than the hard drive enclosures. So, I'm confident it's within limits.

A Lian Li is not Gay unless you have stickers of Disney animals on it.

Some of those plastic things with an "alien" face and lights everywhere are kind of gay....

I was refering to a low power am2 chip also. I would double check the specific current requirements of the am2 + 1950pro combo. You might want to check the pico psu discussion that is in the recent thread list. You have a 200+ watt version right?

I did end up getting the PW-200, the 200 watt version. It didn't work, and minibox told Short-circuit to have me try a PicoPSU. but I've also swapped the Opteron/AT8 for a Brisbane and a Nvidia 7025 based board. Power consumption is down by a lot, and I haven't even undervolted. The Pico would boot the Opteron, but crash when loading windows. I think the Pico will be able to handle the lower power system. now, I haven't had a chance to check though.

I`m looking forward to seeing the results. Are you keeping the 1950pro?

yes, Ive got the 1950 installed right now. Good news is that the PicoPSU works flawlessly with this new system. Even at stock volts, it boots, and can do cpu intensive tasks. I don't think I could play games without undervolting though. So far the system is stable at stock 2.1ghz with only 1.025v(cpu-z says it's getting 1.032v). This relates to a CPU load draw of ~100W from the wall. Playing BF2 and AOE3 the system drew upwards of 130W, peaking at 140W when loading textures and things in-game. I played for about 1.5 hours tonight, no issues yet. Currently I'm testing the lowest vcore at the lowest stable multiplier, I'll have results tomorrow probably.

So, I've found my undervolted settings.

1.0ghz @ 0.856v
2.1ghz @ 1.031v

The system is operating fine on the PicoPSU, I'll have some pictures within the next couple of days, hopefully. I wont be around this weekend, so who knows when I'll be able to take any.

Glad it`s working good. Have you tried stressing the system in all possible ways? Running a game while the cpu is folding for example.

The voltages you achieved are pretty impressive.

Ive yet to stress it completely, but I rarely do that anyway. Once I get 3dmark installed I'll try it, I like that program better to stress the video card, as I can simply hit escape to end it if I find there are issues. I also want to do some tests without the x1950pro, and with only the on-board video. I'd be curious to determine just how much power my video card really draws.

How did you connect the Dell 220W brick to the picoPSU?

I connected it as per the method suggested in this thread. I didn't use the motherboard connector from a board, I just cannibalized a 20-24pin adapter, as it was easier.

Heh... guess I won't be using that one [power brick], no soldering skills

We want pics

ok ok! there are just so many of you to please...after dinner I'll take a few snapshots.

so, here are some pictures....they're blurry, and i took them quickly. If there's anything specific you need/want to see, let me know!











and...I removed the silver bezel, and replaced it with a black one..



As for the connectors I used. For the 6 pin to the Dell brick, I hacked up a 20-24 pin adapter, and soldered to it with 18gauge wire. For the power connectors, I used 2 molex Y- splitters. The Pico comes with 2 4-pin molex connectors, so what I did was the following: from one of the stock molex, attached a molex Y-splitter, to the other a molex-to-2 Sata power adapter. To the Y-splitter, attached a 4-pin ATX connector, to the other plug on the Y, I attached another Y-splitter. One plug from the splitter powers the DVD drive, and the other is connected to a molex-to-6-pin PCI-E plug. Again, if you have any picture requests, just let me know.

edit: oh, and I forgot to mention, because of the HR-03 being mounted the way it is, I can't orient the U120 so that it's "facing" the rear intake. I've purchased an HR-01 PLUS, it's slightly less wide, and should fit, since the U120 only just barely brushes against the HR-03. Regardless of the Orientation, I imagine the HR-01 PLUS will be better suited for the lower airflow.

edit2: oh...and the front intake is now an Enermax Marathon running at a static ~900rpm.

Thanks for the pics.



Well,... If you could show the connection to the Dell power adaptor...

I took a picture of that, it's the 3rd up from the bottom, but it isn't a great picture. how do you want to see it? connected, or just the plug that I made?

Ah yes, I missed it. I see it now. You just soldered the two wires from the picoPSU right?

I had to extend them so I bought 18gauge wire to do that. The positive(red) wire is soldered to the two 12v lines, and the ground(black) is soldered to the two ground leads from the Dell brick, and to the "on" switch lead. I used this thread, http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38787&highlight=nsk1300,
as a guide for wiring the dell brick. my method isn't as elegant, and I've been lazy about cleaning up the wires, and making a nice little plug port for the dell brick, but I'll try to eventually.

Sorry for being such a PITA but could you tell me another thing?

In another thread you said:
"When it is undervolted, the system draws 83W from the wall idle"

1.0ghz @ 0.856v
2.1ghz @ 1.031v

With which setting was that?

it draws 83W when idling at 2.1ghz with 1.031v. It idles at ~70 watts when it's at the 1.0ghz setting.

lots of info, this thread is great! BTW, you really really have changed your system a lot in the course of this thread. Used 3 diff power supplys, 2 diff HSF, 2 GPU coolers, 2 different cases. WOW. That is almost enough components to build a whole different machine.

BTW wanna sell me your old Zalman 900 ?

haha, yea, I've changed out just about everything but the optical drives over the course of the thread. And as for the Zalman cooler, it's already sold. I do have an Ultra 120 now that I'm not using though.

Not that I want to discourage rpsgc, I think I'll be switching back to the Fortron zen. At the lowest underclock/undervolt I run, the Zen is as efficient as the Pico+brick. At 2.1ghz, with 4gb of ram 40mhz overclocked, and with a vcore of 1.025v, the system actually draws 3-4W less under load with the Zen, and 1-2W idle, though that's probably within the tolerances of the Kill-a-Watt. With the Pico I HAVE to undervolt, there's no question. Well, if I were only doing cpu intensive tasks, that'd be one thing, but I do game occasionally, and the power draw goes up ~30W when I do.

I have been running F@H for a few weeks flawlessly, until a permissions error(grr Vista!) screwed some things up. I thought I had shut the console down, but one of the cores was still going, and it was actually using all of the CPU. I didn't realize this, and attempted to play AOE3. Well, the game crashed to the desktop instantly 3 times before I checked that the Kill-a-Watt was reading 100W when the machine should have been idling at ~80W. So, task manager showed the one Folding core that didn't shut down. Once I got rid of that, it worked like a charm, but I feel like there's no breathing room, I'm nearly at the thermal threshold, since I don't have a fan very close to the unit. Maybe in the future, when video cards and processors alike draw less, I'll feel more comfortable, but as it is now, the Zen offers the same efficiency and it has a lot of headroom for my simple system. Hopefully within a year there will be some highly efficient components, I'd love to upgrade to a more powerful system and at the same time have decreased power needs. If I didn't have the video card, or need it, I'd be all over the Pico...when is that AMD LASSO stuff coming?

Well, I might just end up doing that (buying a Zen instead of the pico), for other reasons however.

With reference to your current setup, have you ever tried to not to use the Enermax intake fan at all? If in case, has it had worthwhile for quietness, and which drawbacks may have you experienced as for cooling?

Luca

well, I can't really hear the enermax at all. The noise coming from the computer at this time is hard drive seeks, and the rear scythe. The scythe would be nearly silent if the fan controller on this motherboard worked and wasn't so random. At the same time, I can't really hear the fans at all, the ambient noise level is pretty high, I"m next to the rear of a restaurant and their AC is always going.

So, I think going from 2x1gb to 4x1gb, I've lost some stability with the memory controller. I've been having random crashes using 1.025vcore. I've upped it to 1.05v, and we'll see what happens. The vcore/IMC voltage are the same thing, right?

I'll be posting soon with photos of my final config, now I have all Noctua fans including the one for the side panel, but I don't have a high end video card.