PicoPSU cable length?

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:22 am

I'm wondering just how long the cable feeding the picoPSU is. Would
it cross the width of a microATX board (9.6" I think)? I have a microATX
system that I've gotten down to 51watts idle, 67watts at typical busy,
and 82watts when running two copies of Mersenne primes. The Seasonic
S12-380 power supply is now overkill, and the picoPSU review showed
higher efficiencies to boot. But the ATX connector is on the 'front' side
of the motherboard, so if I want the cable entering from the back, it's
got the full length of the mobo to go.

Comments? picoPSU experiences?

Thanks,
Ben

santacruzbob · Post by **santacruzbob** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:20 am

I'm not sure how long the picopsu cable is but I do know that you can get just about any length (up to a couple feet) of ATX power extensions.. I think we sold them for about $25 for 12"

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Tue May 08, 2007 2:01 pm

Are you talking about the two-wires that connect to the 12V power supply? They are soldered to the PICO board, but can easily be spliced if you need a longer cable. My 200w pico is plugged directly to the MB, and to route the cable like I wanted, I had to splice the lines. No big deal......

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:48 pm

Bluefront wrote:Are you talking about the two-wires that connect to the 12V power supply? They are soldered to the PICO board, but can easily be spliced if you need a longer cable. My 200w pico is plugged directly to the MB, and to route the cable like I wanted, I had to splice the lines. No big deal......

Thanks ... the splice idea worked fine. I converted from an S12-380
to picoPSU today, and I'm pleased with the results. Idle dropped from
52 watts to 43 watts (AC kill-a-watt draw), just by this swap.

audiojunk · Post by **audiojunk** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:32 am

b3nbranch wrote:
Thanks ... the splice idea worked fine. I converted from an S12-380
to picoPSU today, and I'm pleased with the results. Idle dropped from
52 watts to 43 watts (AC kill-a-watt draw), just by this swap.

Nice,this is with T7400/AOpen i945Gtm-VHL/GeForce 7300 GS/picoPSU-120/2GB DDR2-667/100 GB RAID-1 ?
What kind of harddisc's do you have,3.5 or 2,5?

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:37 am

audiojunk wrote:
Nice,this is with T7400/AOpen i945Gtm-VHL/GeForce 7300 GS/picoPSU-120/2GB DDR2-667/100 GB RAID-1 ?
What kind of harddisc's do you have,3.5 or 2,5?

Yes, that's the configuration (plus Samsung DVD-RW). The
T7400 is undervolted in software, but that doesn't affect the
idle level (the processor ignores requests to go below 0.95v).
At full speed I was able to lower the voltage from 1.21 to 1.03/1.05
(my measuring software fluctuates between 1.03 and 1.05).

The disks are the 2.5" Hitachi 7200rpm (Travelstar
E7K100 SATA).

audiojunk · Post by **audiojunk** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:59 am

I got a Asus N4L-VM DH,T2600,2x1GB,Samsung 500Gb and a Asus A45GA powersupply which isn't very efficient,idle around 100W(EIST 1Ghz/1V) so i'm searching for a new powersupply.
The PicoPSU is no option because in my country it's very expensive(55â‚¬ without adapter) but maybe the new Seasonic S12 11 series is a good choice but not available yet in Holland.

Why a Gforce 7300 and which software do you use to control your Vcore?

b3nbranch · Post by **b3nbranch** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 10:06 am

Actually, I started with a 7600GS and then decided it was overkill. (I don't
do gaming, but want to be able to handle occasional 3D stuff). So I went
down to the 7300GS; both cards were passive.

I'm running Ubuntu Linux (currently 6.10, about time to upgrade to 7.04).
To get the undervolting requires downloading the kernel source, applying
a patch from the PHC web site, editing the result (the patch doesn't have
Merom/Yonah tables), and then rebuilding the speedstep-centrino module.

A complete history of my system is posted here
You can tell that the 'quiet/low power' obsession gets stronger with time!