Will [I] be able to run this on a picopsu?

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Tue May 26, 2009 10:45 am

MB: Asus P5KPL-AM iG31
CPU: E5200 @ 1.6ghz
HSF: OCZ Vanguisher
HDD: Hitachi DeskStar 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm & Segate Barracuda 80gb 7200rpm
GPU: GeForce FX 5500
RAM: GB DDR2 1066MHz

fans: 1*120mm and 1*80mm on 5v rail.

i can drop the 80gb hard drive if needed.

Thankyou Mark19891989

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:08 pm

Assuming that the FX 5500 is fairly low power, you should be fine. You should probably invest $30 to upgrade that card to something a bit more modern, by the way.

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:35 pm

shleepy wrote:Assuming that the FX 5500 is fairly low power, you should be fine. You should probably invest $30 to upgrade that card to something a bit more modern, by the way.

i was planing to replace it, im looking for a lowish powerd pcie card. nvidia, and has a DVI and VGA output.

any specific gpus i should look at?

edit: i heve a Geforce 7300gs in my desktop that has the outputs i need, but om not sure how much power it uses, it doesnt use the pcie connector on the psu, which means its quite low power right? if so i can just buy 1 of them.

edit: where can i order a 150 picopsu in the uk reasonably cheap?

Mariner · Post by **Mariner** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:08 am

mark19891989 wrote: edit: where can i order a 150 picopsu in the uk reasonably cheap?

I bought mine from www.linitx.com

Not sure if anywhere had it much cheaper - if I remember correctly, nowhere else I looked even had it in stock!

Linitx were good to deal with though - prompt delivery and no complaints from me.

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Wed May 27, 2009 10:22 am

Mariner wrote:
mark19891989 wrote: edit: where can i order a 150 picopsu in the uk reasonably cheap?
I bought mine from www.linitx.com

Not sure if anywhere had it much cheaper - if I remember correctly, nowhere else I looked even had it in stock!

Linitx were good to deal with though - prompt delivery and no complaints from me.

Thanks, i will be ordering my pico psu from there when i get paid.

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Fri May 29, 2009 7:23 am

My pico psu just arrived today, im still waiting for my mb and cpu to arrive so i tested it on my desktop pc, with similar specs:

E5200 at stock speeds.
same MB as im ordering
Geforce 7300gs
4gb ddr2 ram
Ocz Vertex SSD drive
HSF: OCZ Vanguisher

and i am tempted to order my self one for my desktop, im loving the silence

Currently its attached to an 80w Power Block, which i will be replacing.

what happens if you over load a Power Block?

edit: i just tried my FX5500 insted of the 7300gs and they system wouldnt power up, the light on the power block wud go off as i tried. i dont know how much more power the FX5500 needs compared to the 7300gs, but it was enough to cause the 80w power block to cut out

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Fri May 29, 2009 9:45 am

Where can a buy a 150w power block cheap for the pico psu?

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Fri May 29, 2009 1:43 pm

mark19891989 wrote:Where can a buy a 150w power block cheap for the pico psu?

Why didn't you buy the 150w FSP brick from LinITX at the same time as the picoPSU?

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Fri May 29, 2009 1:50 pm

Firetech wrote:
mark19891989 wrote:Where can a buy a 150w power block cheap for the pico psu?
Why didn't you buy the 150w FSP brick from LinITX at the same time as the picoPSU?

because they were out of stock.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Fri May 29, 2009 2:53 pm

mark19891989 wrote:because they were out of stock.

Bummer! They've had an unchanged 20+ of those bricks shown as 'in stock' for weeks/months now and I was all set to buy a full 150w kit when I get there next month....

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:38 am

i just ordered a dell DA-2 PSU for Â£18 on ebay.

rated output 12 volt 18 amp 200 wattsn

im gona have to solder a new end on the power supply, but thats no problem.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Sat May 30, 2009 2:51 pm

mark19891989 wrote:i just ordered a dell DA-2 PSU for Â£18 on ebay.
rated output 12 volt 18 amp 200 wattsn
im gona have to solder a new end on the power supply, but thats no problem.

Thanks, may have to do the same if they don't come back into stock in time for my visit.

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:47 am

mark19891989 wrote:i just ordered a dell DA-2 PSU for Â£18 on ebay.

rated output 12 volt 18 amp 200 wattsn

im gona have to solder a new end on the power supply, but thats no problem.

It arrived the other day, added my own connector to the power block, works perfectly

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:00 am

mark19891989 wrote:It arrived the other day, added my own connector to the power block, works perfectly

Thanks for the update.

I may have to get you to PM me the eBay link as it seems the FSP will not be in stock until 10th July and I'll be long gone by then

I did order the 150W PicoPSU however and that should arrive today.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:03 am

mark19891989 wrote:It arrived the other day, added my own connector to the power block, works perfectly

Thanks for the update.

I may have to get you to PM me the eBay link as it seems the FSP will not be in stock until 10th July and I'll be long gone by then

I did order the 150W PicoPSU however and that should arrive today.

UPDATE 22.06.09: PicoPSU arrived a few days ago and pre-owned Dell DA-2 brick should follow soon thanks to linkage help from mark19891989

Taxidermista · Post by **Taxidermista** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:40 am

I plan to run this on my picupsu-150 with a 220W Dell DA-2 brick:

Shuttle SP35P2
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz
4 x Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 1GB
Radeon Asus EAH3650 Silent Magic
Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 rpm
2 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB 7200 rpm
Blu-ray burner LG GGW-H20L

I don't know if it is too much, we'll find out soon enough...

Taxidermista · Post by **Taxidermista** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 3:45 pm

So far so good... this thing has been working without problems for 2 hours. The CPU is still at 3 GHz and voltages in XPC Tools are normal. Now there is plenty of room available inside my SP35P2:

(click for full size)

During the boot process I saw a 149 watts load but only for a second, then it went down to 120, 100... 80 watts.

Firetech · Post by **Firetech** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:56 pm

How have you interfaced the PicoPSU with the DA-2?
Looks like you also have some yellow wires tapped into the 4pin connector heading off toward the front of the case too...

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 6:05 am

Firetech wrote:How have you interfaced the PicoPSU with the DA-2?
Looks like you also have some yellow wires tapped into the 4pin connector heading off toward the front of the case too...

in my build i just tok a p4 connector from an old psu, and used a connection block to add that to the DA-2

i could take some pictures if you want more detail

Taxidermista · Post by **Taxidermista** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 2:35 pm

Firetech wrote:How have you interfaced the PicoPSU with the DA-2?
Looks like you also have some yellow wires tapped into the 4pin connector heading off toward the front of the case too...

The Dell brick has three +12V lines, I took 2 of them directly to the 4-pin 12V ATX connector on the motherboard, the third one goes to the picoPSU. I've installed a 8-pin female molex connector for that:

DAve_M · Post by **DAve_M** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:32 am

Taxidermista wrote:The Dell brick has three +12V lines, I took 2 of them directly to the 4-pin 12V ATX connector on the motherboard...

Won't that be feeding 12v into the CPU constantly? Doesn't that cause power to be wasted?

I thought the voltage would need to be cut when the PC is off. Maybe it is not needed?

doveman · Post by **doveman** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 8:53 am

All you need is a switch to disconnect pin 5 from ground and the DA-2 will go into standby and no longer be supplying 12v.

I really should get round to doing that myself sometime, but I'll only really be turning my HTPC off if I go away and haven't got any recordings scheduled, so it's not a high priority.

DAve_M · Post by **DAve_M** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:47 am

doveman wrote:All you need is a switch to disconnect pin 5 from ground and the DA-2 will go into standby and no longer be supplying 12v.

It would be good if it does that automatically. For example, how about a 12v relay powered by a molex connector that can keep the DA-2 powered on when the PC is on. But then when the PC is off, the 12v relay would loose power and disconect pin 5, and power down the DA-2.

On 2nd thought, the relay would need to be powered by the 5v standby rail. That way the power will not be cut when the computer trys to go into sleep mode. (assuming the pico psu or similar uses at least one of the 12v rails of DA-2)

Is there any problem feeding 12v into the CPU when the PC is off? Does the CPU get hot or warm? Maybe it wont, but if all the power regulation circuitry is powered by a 12v line of the DA-2, I would hate for that to be burning lots of power trying to keep the CPU running.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 2:29 pm

I've never tried, but I'd assume that even with plug connected and voltage available, no power will flow... The power doesn't go straight into the CPU, it passes through mobo's voltage regulators, which I assume wouldn't be on if the board isn't on.

The relay is not a bad idea, but you'd need an override to turn the computer on at a cold start.

DAve_M · Post by **DAve_M** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 3:40 pm

qviri wrote:The relay is not a bad idea, but you'd need an override to turn the computer on at a cold start.

Or a (2 pole?) momantary swtich to activate the DA-2 and start up the PC at the same time. I assume a regular start button is used to simply provide a momentary shorting out of 2 pins on the motherboard. Once the PC is started, the relay would stop the power being cut as soon as you took your finger off the start button.

Edit: I just realized that won't work because if the relay is powered by the 5v standby voltage, then the DA-2 will never be powered down because the 5v never switches off. Even when the PC is "off". Going to have to rethink it.

Will [I] be able to run this on a picopsu?

Will [I] be able to run this on a picopsu?

Just arrived today