Is 400w enough power for this thing?

Comments

• Ageek

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  No. A 500 watter is mucho better due to sizes and qty of HDs. When the box boots, expect the HDs to pulla peak of 7 AMPs at 12 Volts.
  
  Best way to allow for a box to have a long-lasting PSU is to buy one that is 1.5 to 2x peak draw guess to begin with.
  
  How many amps for the fans??? guess 5-6 to spin up. 6+7 is 13. so 18 AMPS on 12 Volt rail peak will allow for things like DVD burner feeding its laser circuit capacitors a bunch at 12 V plus a CD-RW and\or a CD-ROm drive end things like your CAM charging on USB if it does that optionally.
  
  Figure this way-- good autoswitching power supplies will crimp the lower voltage legs if the high voltage leg grabs a huge heap of power. That means that if the high leg is crimped than your low legs can draw a bit more also.
  
  While a variable pot PSU like the true-control is nice and obviously allows for adjsutment, a PSU with discharged capacitors typically has those inside also--AFAIK teh colored wires indexed on outsdie of PSU or in the ANTEC PSU's manual will let you trace back to what outputs what as far as leg rebalancing goes. I would say a 500 watt is plenty and that a 550 Watt Tru-Power Antec is more than enough for safety and maybe a blue-laser burner later plus a DVD\CDRW combo burner drive.

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• Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  Ageek; the fan specs are
  
  here: http://www.thermaltake.com/products/dcfan/a1357.htm
  here: http://www.enermax.com.tw/uc-8fab.htm
  and here: http://www.pixelusa.com/catalog/detail.asp?id=CK-SU-09225A2
  
  I was hoping to avoid investing in another PS... oh well...

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• NoFuture In a 3D world...

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  Maybe you should look into PC power and cooling's PSU line. They are damn expensive but AFAIK, there are the best PSUs. They are very reliable and give clean power with accurate voltage. Antec are good PSUs but for the kind of system you are building, I suggest you invest in a top notch PSU to protect this investment and the future ones.

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• Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  Yup. If I buy a new PS, it'll most likely be either a 550w TruePower or a 510w TurboCool...

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• NoFuture In a 3D world...

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  I'd say go for Turbo cool... If you have the money. I think you can add some trim pots to the PSU for 90$ more so you can adjust voltages on the fly.
  The antec is good choice too and already has adjustable pots but the PCP&C will give cleaner and more accurate voltage.

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• Ageek

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  I was thinking 12VX6A=72 Watts DC spin up for all the fans at once. And figuring run at about 2\3 to 3\4 that for all the fans once spun up if near full speed. The Tt fan spec you showed me is 8.4 W per fan max, so then that will probably be needed to spin up to full speed.
  
  8.4 times 8 is 67.2 Watts (thats the Tts alone). The Sunon is by far the most effective for power itself, at half the mean of the Tts.
  
  Um, video card fans of 120 mm size??? Um, 2??? Why in {Deities} name would you do that?? Slot fan, mounted and directioned so as to pull heat off card-- Sunon fan.
  
  67.2+4 (two Sunons)= about 72 Watts startup pull.
  
  The ones that say 6 volt start mean that is minimum voltage spec for them to turn at all. Have you measured Amp draw there??? Should be 2X the 12 V draw to spin up motor from rest, same inertia.
  
  Specs give math, thanks. And math says if you add 2 120's you will have more like 7A at 12V than 6A to start fans at boot. I am talking draw out of PSU, not change in input draw at 120V, PSU individual outputs are typically peak draws and not average draw rating, and that if you have a 12V rail rated at 20 A you should not have more than 16A continuous draw at 12 V for good PSU life (75-80% of rating average load max is good rule, figured by individual rail)-- so around half what should be normal 12V rail load for a 500W PSU is fans alone, about 55% if you need no video card fans .).
  
  That is about what a 250W-300W AT PSU puts out on its 12 V rail-- and AT's were skewed to 5 and 12 with more proportionately toward 12 volts than an ATX 2.03 when you figure watts available. So you buy much more ATX 2.03 in total watts to get same 12V rail wattage available (which could be calced into ampacity, do not need to here)compared to an AT.
  
  Even in South Florida I run only 2-3 fans per case in about 90% of my system builds.
  
  John Danielson.

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• Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)

  July 2003 edited July 2003

  Why in {Deities} name would you do that??

  
  overclocking. Dunno if you've had a dual amd system, but they run HOT... Extremely hot. I'm actually considering building a case because I don't think the SX1240 is gonna handle another CPU plus a voltage bump and OC without running the fans @ full speed all the time, which is not an option- too noisy...

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