picoPSU low max power at 12V

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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shagul
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picoPSU low max power at 12V

Post by shagul » Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:08 am

I've been looking at picoPSU for AMD APUs, but an odd thing I've noted is that there doesn't seem to be any picoPSU that can handle more than 8A@12V even though it is switched in many cases. This is unlikely to be enough for the ~100W versions at least. Using the picoPSU-160-XT only seems to help with 5V (10A), but that doesn't seem too useful. I'm I misunderstanding something or is there simply no picoPSU solution for these high power CPU/APUs?

Would it work to somehow split the 12V input into two picoPSUs and use one for CPU and one for motherboard? This doesn't seem like a very elegant solution of course.

Vicotnik
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Re: picoPSU low max power at 12V

Post by Vicotnik » Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:15 am

That 8A is a rather arbitrary rating imo, since the picoPSU doesn't really do anything other than pass on +12v from the brick. It's also perfectly doable to bypass the pico and feed stuff 12v directly from the brick. I usually split the output from the brick and feed the 4pin "P4-cable" directly.

So there are plenty of solutions but with a power hungry system some modifications are sometimes needed. I don't like the barrel connector that usually comes with the picoPSU either. It's only rated for 5A.

There are other threads in the forum that already touches on the subject btw.

ces
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Re: picoPSU low max power at 12V

Post by ces » Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:07 am

Apparently it isn't that easy to use to PSUs in parallel.

Electrodacus on these forums sells the winmate competitor to PicoPSUs. He came up with a solution that works well with winmate.

What Vicotnik says seems logical to me. But I am wary wary using things outside of their design range.

Mr Evil
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Re: picoPSU low max power at 12V

Post by Mr Evil » Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:33 am

Vicotnik wrote:That 8A is a rather arbitrary rating imo, since the picoPSU doesn't really do anything other than pass on +12v from the brick...
It's probably limited by the wires/connectors/PCB traces, which can only take so much current before overheating.

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