dual ATX mod

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 8:18 pm

ok

after a long debate with myself..

i finally decided to do the ATX power supplies in tandem

it was so stupid easy it wasn't funny..

i got them hooked up and even took a couple extra molex connectors (so i could disconnect later if desired and add a better PSU)

but they work

no pics yet but soon

Kuun

Post by **Derek** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 8:27 pm

We should make a rule that states you cannot create success posts without at least one pic attached

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 9:19 pm

ACK

i don't have a cam

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 6:50 am

kuun wrote:ACK

i don't have a cam

for everyone, here is the sheme in this file for dual ATX...easy one!

i'll do it in a few days...just to drill a little in my case, and make room for the second PSU...

also here is the link for PSU consumption: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
remember that you have to find out about the cels on www.intel.com and when you add (cpu1 + cpu2) multiply that by factor 1,25 and put the similar CPU consumtion for yours there...
in my case i have 400W PSU in case that in peak power eats 375W...so i have to do it...

and that will leave 400W PSU only for motherboard...will post pics later...

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:07 pm

KliK wrote: also here is the link for PSU consumption: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
remember that you have to find out about the cels on www.intel.com and when you add (cpu1 + cpu2) multiply that by factor 1,25 and put the similar CPU consumtion for yours there...
in my case i have 400W PSU in case that in peak power eats 375W...so i have to do it... and that will leave 400W PSU only for motherboard...will post pics later...

Hehehe! I seriously doubt that your BP6 system is eating up close to 400 watts! The easiest way to check this type of stuff out is by going out and buying a wattmeter. They don't cost that much and they are much more effective than a theoretical calculation that you point out.

If you take a look at this post what Wolfram wrote, he has a loaded BP6 with 2x366@523MHz processors and all. He measured it and found that under 100% load it was pulling a measly 108 watts. I have also reported elsewhere here in the forums (can't find the post right now) that I was running dual P3's on a modified BP6 (866@650MHz) with a Geforce2 graphics card, NIC, single harddrive, Soundblaster sound card and using a noname 250W power supply without any issues at all.

Dual ATX's has a cool geek factor but it is hardly needed for a BP6

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:19 pm

purrkur wrote:
KliK wrote: also here is the link for PSU consumption: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
remember that you have to find out about the cels on www.intel.com and when you add (cpu1 + cpu2) multiply that by factor 1,25 and put the similar CPU consumtion for yours there...
in my case i have 400W PSU in case that in peak power eats 375W...so i have to do it... and that will leave 400W PSU only for motherboard...will post pics later...
Hehehe! I seriously doubt that your BP6 system is eating up close to 400 watts! The easiest way to check this type of stuff out is by going out and buying a wattmeter. They don't cost that much and they are much more effective than a theoretical calculation that you point out.

If you take a look at this post what Wolfram wrote, he has a loaded BP6 with 2x366@523MHz processors and all. He measured it and found that under 100% load it was pulling a measly 108 watts. I have also reported elsewhere here in the forums (can't find the post right now) that I was running dual P3's on a modified BP6 (866@650MHz) with a Geforce2 graphics card, NIC, single harddrive, Soundblaster sound card and using a noname 250W power supply without any issues at all.

Dual ATX's has a cool geek factor but it is hardly needed for a BP6

well the 2 CPU use about 45-65W...and i have 3HDD, CDRW, DVD-ROM, deck for HDD, about 10 coolers (lots of 80x80), 2 voodoo, one old SB32, USB adapter 3+1, net card...
and the motherboard uses 15-20W...i think i'm using about the 375W on 100% load...but you can calculate it on:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

i hope the results will be nice...post when you are done!

jaybird · Post by **jaybird** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:43 pm

I can attest to that purrkur!

Dual PIII 1100/100/256/1.75v @ 110 fsb on BP6 for over 3 years.
3, 256 PC133 RAM sticks
Matrox G400, 32 meg dual hd vid card
SBLive Platinum w/Live-drive
Adaptec SCSII card for Microtek X6EL scanner
generic 4 port Firewire card
WinTV GO! capture card
a 20 gig WD 7200rpm hdd and a 60gig Maxtor 7200rpm hdd
4 optical drives: Liteon 52 x 24 x 52 'burner, Sony DVD-RW/RAM burner, Pioneer S104 DVD player, ZEN 52X TrueX CD-ROM player
'Mini-Peltier" cooler on BX chip set
4 LARGE case fans
2 GlobalWIN FEP-32's with 36cfm fans

All stuffed into a SuperMicro server case and a Sparkle 350W PS!

It all worked and worked quite well untill PS went and a bunch of caps went at the same time, switched to backup BP6 w/2 366's @ 584 (air cooled 72w Pelts, on separate DUAL ATX PS, and YES, very easy to do!).

The backup BP6 used all the same pieces as the dual PIII rig and a 350w ps worked just fine.

The point is you cannot always "go by the numbers"

OBTW, in the winter time I can close the forced air heat vent in my office at home and open a window (most of the time) and still stay plenty warm with all those power supplies running

(I live in Wisconsin, avg. winter temps in my area, 20 Deg. F)

Regards,

jaybird

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:55 pm

Yep, and Wolfram is running a BP6 with:

2x Celeron 366@523,
2x 8cm-CPU-fans
2x 256 SDRAM,
Matrox G400,
Adaptec 2940 SCSI,
Soundblaster AWE64,
AVM Fritz! PCI, Lifetec TV-Karte 9415,
RTL8139D NIC,
3Com 3C905B NIC,
Samsung SV1203N (120GB),
LiteOn CDRW 31240,
and a 3,5-Zoll Floppy

All on a No-Name 250W PSU (which I was also doing with my dual P3's).

So in short, you got 2 harddrives, one optical drive, 8 fans, a voodoo board and a USB adapter more than he does, while you don't have a SCSI adapter, second NIC and a TV card that he does. Are you saying that the few extra components mentioned here above will add about 260W extra above what he has got??

I still think his wattmeter is more accurate than the calculation page you pointed out. I would also like to point out that you are saying that your system draws more power under load than a Dual core Pentium 840 Extreme Edition in a modern motherboard, 2 harddrives, and a couple of GeForce 6800 GT's in a SLi setup that Toms Hardware found pulling a meager 342 watts under full load. Check out this page for full details on that test. The dual core AMD system ran out of steam pulling 269 watts at full load with a similar setup.

In other words, I don't trust your watts web calculator one bit

But do send us photos! We are suckers for those

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 2:14 pm

jaybird wrote:All stuffed into a SuperMicro server case and a Sparkle 350W PS!

It all worked and worked quite well untill PS went and a bunch of caps went at the same time, switched to backup BP6 w/2 366's @ 584 (air cooled 72w Pelts, on separate DUAL ATX PS, and YES, very easy to do!).

The backup BP6 used all the same pieces as the dual PIII rig and a 350w ps worked just fine.

The point is you cannot always "go by the numbers"

I think it is safe to say that even no name PS's will give you something like 65% efficiency if they are truly bad. That will turn out to something like 225W continuous power at room temperature if your PS is rated at 350W. Problem with bad power supplies is that they usually die a slow and painful death so most of the time people don't believe that their power supplies are at fault when their system starts acting weird

However I think most of us here at bp6.com agree that cheapo PS's are a big no-no

Having said that, I still think that any 350W PS would do for any BP6 setup. If you take a look back at the numbers Wolfram posted you will see that even his dual Athlon XP machine that is truly loaded with stuff was only pulling 168W at full load. I have a friend who has a file server at home running a measly 350MHz Pentium II but with 8(!!) harddrives in a single enclosure, all running off a 250W PS.

I'll admit though, that my main system (XP2400+ with lots of extras) is powered by a 400W, expensive as hell, silent PSU and my BP6 is powered by a 350W PS when it is in the box. It helps me sleep well at night

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:28 pm

purrkur wrote:Yep, and Wolfram is running a BP6 with:

2x Celeron 366@523,
2x 8cm-CPU-fans
2x 256 SDRAM,
Matrox G400,
Adaptec 2940 SCSI,
Soundblaster AWE64,
AVM Fritz! PCI, Lifetec TV-Karte 9415,
RTL8139D NIC,
3Com 3C905B NIC,
Samsung SV1203N (120GB),
LiteOn CDRW 31240,
and a 3,5-Zoll Floppy

All on a No-Name 250W PSU (which I was also doing with my dual P3's).

So in short, you got 2 harddrives, one optical drive, 8 fans, a voodoo board and a USB adapter more than he does, while you don't have a SCSI adapter, second NIC and a TV card that he does. Are you saying that the few extra components mentioned here above will add about 260W extra above what he has got??

I still think his wattmeter is more accurate than the calculation page you pointed out. I would also like to point out that you are saying that your system draws more power under load than a Dual core Pentium 840 Extreme Edition in a modern motherboard, 2 harddrives, and a couple of GeForce 6800 GT's in a SLi setup that Toms Hardware found pulling a meager 342 watts under full load. Check out this page for full details on that test. The dual core AMD system ran out of steam pulling 269 watts at full load with a similar setup.

In other words, I don't trust your watts web calculator one bit

But do send us photos! We are suckers for those

just look at this! Available models of Celeron PPGA are listed on the chart below:

SL35S
32KB / 128KB
366MHz / 66MHz
5.5x
2V
0.25µm
21.7W
PPGA

but,
SL3PZ
32KB / 128KB
533MHz / 66MHz
8.1x
2V
0.25µm
28.3W
PPGA

so yours 366@550 consumes at least 33W (remember that it is overclocked!!!), that means you are running them on 66W peak power...but you have the two of them, so sthg allways get out in the wind...get 15% on top (remember, we are talking about peak power) that is 76W + the motherboard with BX chipset...usually that is 15W, but yours is on 100MHz, so the disipation make it almost twice, and round it with the CPUs...that is about the 100W, just for the motherboard & CPUs in peak power!!!
and we didn't come to the rest of it!!!

and you are right about the tomshardware...342W for MBO, CPU, 2HDD, 1RAM slot and kiss ass GC...it is enough...

but i got 3 graphic cards in my system...also older RAM get more Wattage per slot, and i got all 3 of them filled...maybe that clac is a bullshit...but maybe when it adds, multiplie and divide wattage, maybe it uses one neat trick! given divided by factor 0,65, and it leaves me with the 375W in 400W system...i sure didn+t write that calc, but maybe some part of my system freezes...and it sure freezes a lot if I burn lots of CDs...so, yeah i'm thinking of dual ATX...at least a tryout...
one for the MBO and thing on it, and one for all HDD, CDRW, DVD & maybe all the (fans except for the CPU fans)...

(where is that drilling machine?!?)

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:55 pm

KliK wrote:but i got 3 graphic cards in my system...also older RAM get more Wattage per slot, and i got all 3 of them filled...maybe that clac is a bullshit...but maybe when it adds, multiplie and divide wattage, maybe it uses one neat trick! given divided by factor 0,65, and it leaves me with the 375W in 400W system...i sure didn+t write that calc, but maybe some part of my system freezes...and it sure freezes a lot if I burn lots of CDs...so, yeah i'm thinking of dual ATX...at least a tryout...
one for the MBO and thing on it, and one for all HDD, CDRW, DVD & maybe all the (fans except for the CPU fans)...

(where is that drilling machine?!?)

I would still like to see what a wattmeter plugged in between your computer and your outlet would say

Dave Rave · Post by **Dave Rave** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 3:10 am

purrkur wrote:I would still like to see what a wattmeter plugged in between your computer and your outlet would say

I want a wattmeter ;-(

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 3:00 pm

purrkur wrote:
KliK wrote:but i got 3 graphic cards in my system...also older RAM get more Wattage per slot, and i got all 3 of them filled...maybe that clac is a bullshit...but maybe when it adds, multiplie and divide wattage, maybe it uses one neat trick! given divided by factor 0,65, and it leaves me with the 375W in 400W system...i sure didn+t write that calc, but maybe some part of my system freezes...and it sure freezes a lot if I burn lots of CDs...so, yeah i'm thinking of dual ATX...at least a tryout...
one for the MBO and thing on it, and one for all HDD, CDRW, DVD & maybe all the (fans except for the CPU fans)...

(where is that drilling machine?!?)
I would still like to see what a wattmeter plugged in between your computer and your outlet would say

it wouldn't say that, because it's allmost imposible to have all the systems run at peak power at once!!! so that is why the low wattage can run the computer, but you never know what will happen!?!

btw, i'm running UD agent for rosetta@grid...so i have CPUs at 70% allways, or higher...

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:54 am

jaybird wrote:I can attest to that purrkur!

Dual PIII 1100/100/256/1.75v @ 110 fsb on BP6 for over 3 years.
3, 256 PC133 RAM sticks
Matrox G400, 32 meg dual hd vid card
SBLive Platinum w/Live-drive
Adaptec SCSII card for Microtek X6EL scanner
generic 4 port Firewire card
WinTV GO! capture card
a 20 gig WD 7200rpm hdd and a 60gig Maxtor 7200rpm hdd
4 optical drives: Liteon 52 x 24 x 52 'burner, Sony DVD-RW/RAM burner, Pioneer S104 DVD player, ZEN 52X TrueX CD-ROM player
'Mini-Peltier" cooler on BX chip set
4 LARGE case fans
2 GlobalWIN FEP-32's with 36cfm fans

All stuffed into a SuperMicro server case and a Sparkle 350W PS!

It all worked and worked quite well untill PS went and a bunch of caps went at the same time, switched to backup BP6 w/2 366's @ 584 (air cooled 72w Pelts, on separate DUAL ATX PS, and YES, very easy to do!).

The backup BP6 used all the same pieces as the dual PIII rig and a 350w ps worked just fine.

The point is you cannot always "go by the numbers"

OBTW, in the winter time I can close the forced air heat vent in my office at home and open a window (most of the time) and still stay plenty warm with all those power supplies running (I live in Wisconsin, avg. winter temps in my area, 20 Deg. F)

Regards,

jaybird

a handfull of people here will tell you, that the reason yours caps went of, is because you had a bad PS!!! and when it did consume a lot of power, it wasn't regular, so the caps blew...siple as that!!!

jaybird · Post by **jaybird** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:22 am

Thats why I don't buy cheap a-- power supplies any more

!

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:32 am

jaybird wrote:Thats why I don't buy cheap a-- power supplies any more !

that is good!!

i'm just going to a guy to buy an old 533 from him...

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:11 pm

I can contest a bp6 not using anywhere near 400W

i have a 450 and a 350 in the SCSI server..

with 4 22Gig drives consuming about 22-40W per device, a 50Gig consuming 30-35w. and 3 smaller 1Gig's consuming about 20 per device.. not including the IDE drives i have and all the fans running ( i think last count was 12 fans from 60mm to 120mm )

but then again.. not everyone has devoted their old bp6 to serving as a SCSI server as i have..

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 2:23 am

kuun, tell me about the dual PSU mod...

did you just connect the pins 14&15 from both PSUs?
or did you also cross wired pin 7&8 on PSU-2?

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 10:11 pm

i had to do both so that both powered on at the same time.. and so that both got the turn on voltage from the mainboard as they are supposed to

and i crossed 7&8 as the isntructions said to

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:52 am

UPDATED 20 hours after original post:
Wow. I looked at the PSU im using and guess what??? Its only 100watts.
*************************************************************************

If memory serves, I have a 175watt PSU connected to my test board(never enough time to actually run any tests) and it seems to be fine.
I think also have a 135watt butt have been scared to try it.

What would be the possable downside to using to small a PSU?

Anyway I will verify my current PSU and edit this post with correct numbers tomorrow, but in the mean time the system is running with one each of the following connected:
AGP 64meg TNT2
PCI sound card(SB i think)
PCI nic(realtek 10/100 i think)
40Gig WD400 series IDE1 master
no-name 24x cdrom IDE2 slave
1.44 floppy.
Yesterday I ran SIS Sandra burnin(on the CPUs only) in contunious to see how they worked at 1.9V.(dual366@550) From 27C at Sandra startup to 35C after 12 Burnin cycles.

I have used different HD combos up to 3HDDs and one Optical, and 2HDDs and 2 Opticals on that same PSU and everything works from installing RedHat 6, to partition copy of Win98 to install of W2K, with no hickups.

purrkur · Post by **purrkur** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:15 am

davd_bob wrote:If memory serves, I have a 175watt PSU connected to my test board(never enough time to actually run any tests) and it seems to be fine.
I think also have a 135watt butt have been scared to try it..

I have used my BP6 with similar amount of equipment using a 200W PSU. No problems whatsoever.

davd_bob wrote:What would be the possable downside to using to small a PSU?

The downside is that you would be running your PSU at the limit. It therefore becomes more sensitive to changes which will result in system stability. The changes might come in the form of changes in current (Switched power supplies suck when it comes to following rapid current changes) or it might be something like increased ambient temperature. Higher temperature means that the PSU will heat up more and more heat means decreased efficiency.

If you want to check if the BP6 works with a 135W PSU, do so only with a harddrive that doesn't contain backed up or sensitive data. I have seen harddrives go titsup when PSU's have been struggling or failing.

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:29 am

Thanks for the heads up Purrkur.
I checked and the label is kinda hard to decipher but at one place it says IBM and another place states "100watt continous" but somehow it ties that power to 3v and 5v.

So far I thought I had a bad HD but now I see it might be power starved. Its funny cause when I boot into W2K and run Sis Sandra or administrative tools to partition and format a HD things seem ok except on that one HD. I will locate another PSU and try again.

Dave Rave · Post by **Dave Rave** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 5:20 am

1. us non-USA people. are probably on a higher voltage. you use 110v ?
we generally use 220-240v
so our "standard" 300w - 450w PSU is way higher than you normal 150w ???
'cause, your 135w-175w ? wt .....
oh yeh, lower voltages.

2. uhm, I forget, I think it's in another post

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:45 am

Isn't the formula.
If so, ya'all on the 220 volt circuits use higher volts but lower current to get the same watts.
Volts times current = watts

I tested that one HD today and it really was bad.

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:08 pm

it was probably killed from the power starvation.. i've seen that happen before..

P=IE

POWER = Current time the voltage
P=IR^2
E=I/R
(i used to have a pie chart with al lthis on it.. was really handy)

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