PC Peripherals Two PSU's powering one system?????
- Thread starter ballistic
- Start date
- Status
Sandy said:haha! I would beg to differA good friend has 500W Antec PSU and happly runs a 8800 Ultra, 4-5 Hard drives, optical, soun card, all this water cooled with a pump and 4x 120 mm fans
Chaos...
But doesn't he have a 1200W PSU now...:ashamed:
JeDiKnight said:
Yeah short-circuit pin 14/15 (Ground/PS-on) on the ATX connector to jump start the PSU.
But even though you didn't connect the two PSU's together, they're still unintentionally inter-connected via the hard disks/dvd drives -> through the IDE cables that ultimately hook up with the motherboard thats powered by your primary PSU. The above problems i mentioned would apply here too.. so it isnt exactly a recommended solution. Since the voltages present on the IDE cable at the motherboard end (from PSU I) vary from the ones on the hard disk end (from PSU II) - the IDE channel could have issues with the signaling voltages and this could lead to read/write errors.. in theory atleast but i guess there's some amount of tolerance allowed for variations in the signalling voltages.
RiO said:
Was wondering how come your power consumption was so high.. then saw you mention that its your AC wall mains power draw. Factor in a roughly 80% efficiency for your PSU, subtract say 30~40W for the speakers and you land up with around ~420W
RiO said:You have no idea what you're talking about... I was at 565W load on an overclocked setup with a 12V DC pump for water cooling. That is with an 8800GTX and a pair of creative speakers hooked up as well
You'd be surprised at what little power your PC consumes...
My freind like they say, ignorance is a bliss. I have first hand idea of what I am talking about... I had an E6300 OC'd 24/7 with ATI 1900 GT, TV Tuner card, 2 HDDs, 2 devices that take power from USB, Formula Force EX steering, 1 sound card creative, CPU cooler, 4 high performance chasis fans 120mm, 2*1GB PNY RAM @2.2 V, P5B Dlx.... some other things.
Setup ran fine for an year, before I decided to put another sound card from M-Audio for testing in parallel to the creative. The Techsolo 550 watt PSU went Kaput. I am not sure if you know about Electrolytic capacitor aging (but your prolly dont). When used heavily or over an extended period of time (1+ years) a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity. My rig had been used 24/7 for 8 months when this happened. I am sure if the PSU was brand new I would have been ok. E6300 does consume more power but hey what the heck....
Now I am sure your setup runs fine, and I sure hope that it continues too.. but for those that dont have the luxury of measuring their actual power consumption, below is a handy link that would help you calculate the PSU you require for your rig... Of course its slightly over engineered as are all hardware recommendation tools as they do have to take a certain factor of safety into it.
BTW I put a E6300, with water cooling, OCd, 8800 GTX, 4 HDD, 4 high performance 120 mm fans, optical drive sound card, TV tuner card, 3 USB powered devices etc. and it recommended a 700 watts PSU. I am sure the guys who designed this tool have a little more idea than you and me know what the hell they are talking about:bleh:
eXtreme Outer Vision - eXtreme tools for computer enthusiasts
^^ Personally I dont give a damn about your time, but you come here flaunting information so please back it up with something more useful than a multimeter reading. Please enlighten us how much you know about PSUs and how you go about calculating power or choosing the right PSU for your rig. For a person who claims his speakers take power from his PSU, and shows the reading of his UPS (lol), I am sure you have a lot to share.
BTW most PSUs spclly the ones sold in India like CoolerMaster have a claimed efficiency of 70%. They are tested by companies for 100 hours at 70% load at 25 degree celcius. The specs are overbloated or the ones in ideal conditions. In India we dont have the luxury of ambient temperature being 25 degree celcius. The greater the ambient temperature, the direct impact (decrease) on your actual power.
If you run your system on 100% load (run an orthos test) without AC for 200 hours, you will most likely end up with BSOD, or system crash. Of course one can argue that this is never going to happen in real life, but over a period of time, after 24/7 usage, and capacitor degradation, etc. This is going to happen.
Lastly, dont state on behalf others when you claim dont waste "our" time, the others can speak for themselves.
BTW most PSUs spclly the ones sold in India like CoolerMaster have a claimed efficiency of 70%. They are tested by companies for 100 hours at 70% load at 25 degree celcius. The specs are overbloated or the ones in ideal conditions. In India we dont have the luxury of ambient temperature being 25 degree celcius. The greater the ambient temperature, the direct impact (decrease) on your actual power.
If you run your system on 100% load (run an orthos test) without AC for 200 hours, you will most likely end up with BSOD, or system crash. Of course one can argue that this is never going to happen in real life, but over a period of time, after 24/7 usage, and capacitor degradation, etc. This is going to happen.
Lastly, dont state on behalf others when you claim dont waste "our" time, the others can speak for themselves.
Thanks for that link, techcheat.
I fed in my system specs and it gave me 513 watts.
Must be something wrong with my 4-year old Antec True480 (first version), doesn't seem to have blown up itself or anything connected to it.
[sarcasm]
I used a 25% capacitor aging - can you please explain what that is for uneducated noobs like us? I kind of used the site guide.
[/sarcasm]
A calculator like that, which requires you to pay them 2 dollars for full use, is a money-making gig. Oh yeah, and surrounded by PSU ads. Nice.
In truth, there's a lot of useful information on the web available free of charge, and I will be happy to provide you with links where you can read extensive tomes of information on power supply construction and usage, as well as real current draw, plus duty cycling, efficiency, load and thermal cycling and other such.
Let me know if you're interested.
In the meantime - real power draw and estimated power draw are two different issues completely, and thermal effects on capacitors may be worse or better depending on brand and spec of the capacitors. I can write more, but won't out of respect for your time.
I fed in my system specs and it gave me 513 watts.
Must be something wrong with my 4-year old Antec True480 (first version), doesn't seem to have blown up itself or anything connected to it.
[sarcasm]
I used a 25% capacitor aging - can you please explain what that is for uneducated noobs like us? I kind of used the site guide.
[/sarcasm]
A calculator like that, which requires you to pay them 2 dollars for full use, is a money-making gig. Oh yeah, and surrounded by PSU ads. Nice.
In truth, there's a lot of useful information on the web available free of charge, and I will be happy to provide you with links where you can read extensive tomes of information on power supply construction and usage, as well as real current draw, plus duty cycling, efficiency, load and thermal cycling and other such.
Let me know if you're interested.
In the meantime - real power draw and estimated power draw are two different issues completely, and thermal effects on capacitors may be worse or better depending on brand and spec of the capacitors. I can write more, but won't out of respect for your time.
To answer the OP, yes it's possible.
To answer Crazy_Eddy. Ground loops can be prevented as long as there's one solid connection between the PSU grounds. Since PCs almost always ground both their Chassis and mains ground together (albeit at different points), there is a reasonably workable connection between the two. Not optimum, but workable. Won't work for serious audio or video work, but if you're skimping on PSUs it's unlikely you're doing anything really serious with the PCs anyway.
On the current flowing between the PSUs, unless the PSU is badly designed this will not be a problem. It is a problem with devices which don't have output reversal or flyback protection, such as batteries (such a phenomenon with two batteries is benign and more common than you would think) and amplifiers (It can destroy an amplifier if not protected, or the amp may be designed to sink current). Most PSUs will have a bridge rectifier on the output, which by default will block any excess output, since it is 4 diodes. Caps on the PSU output will not care whether the voltage is present at the output or input. The reverse voltage may damage some flyback diodes if excessive currents pass through them, but it's highly unlikely.
One sure way of running this is to have a single PSU for the motherboard and CPU, and another running pretty much everything else.
To answer Crazy_Eddy. Ground loops can be prevented as long as there's one solid connection between the PSU grounds. Since PCs almost always ground both their Chassis and mains ground together (albeit at different points), there is a reasonably workable connection between the two. Not optimum, but workable. Won't work for serious audio or video work, but if you're skimping on PSUs it's unlikely you're doing anything really serious with the PCs anyway.
On the current flowing between the PSUs, unless the PSU is badly designed this will not be a problem. It is a problem with devices which don't have output reversal or flyback protection, such as batteries (such a phenomenon with two batteries is benign and more common than you would think) and amplifiers (It can destroy an amplifier if not protected, or the amp may be designed to sink current). Most PSUs will have a bridge rectifier on the output, which by default will block any excess output, since it is 4 diodes. Caps on the PSU output will not care whether the voltage is present at the output or input. The reverse voltage may damage some flyback diodes if excessive currents pass through them, but it's highly unlikely.
One sure way of running this is to have a single PSU for the motherboard and CPU, and another running pretty much everything else.
techcheat said:
Read my posts again, nut. And stop sharing bad/useless information and confusing those who are trying to learn from this thread... again, don't waste our time - this is a community, not your porch.
Btw sangram, I got a parallel cable with my Stacker T01 (supports 2 PSU's), which enables you to connect a slave PSU. Here's a pic:
Shripad
Innovator
The software based calculators are never a good indication of the actual power requirement. Those are based on the linear scaling and most importantly based on maximum peak usage power draw of every component.
In real life this situation never occurs. Never ever does all the components in your pc are drawing the maximum power. and yes this includes heavy gaming, orthos, or whatever you wanna imagine.
Thats why even with that calculator showing 500+ watt draw, your system is hardly gonna be over 250-300 ( little more for quad users ).
Thats why a quality 500Watt PSU will handle almost any system out there.
In real life this situation never occurs. Never ever does all the components in your pc are drawing the maximum power. and yes this includes heavy gaming, orthos, or whatever you wanna imagine.
Thats why even with that calculator showing 500+ watt draw, your system is hardly gonna be over 250-300 ( little more for quad users ).
Thats why a quality 500Watt PSU will handle almost any system out there.
@rio's connector: Yeah, that's good for powering up a slave PSU. I just don't like any connectors on the PSU myself, as the milliohm resistance of the contacts really degrades supply regulation and system performance in my book. If your PSU has supply sensing built into the ATX connector, your regulation will drop significantly.
I had a 20-to 24-pin connector that I don't use (my board runs fine off the TP480) as my 12V dropped to 11.5 under load. This is not due to overloading as much as regulation, as once directly connected it was back up to 11.8/11.9.
I just think it's easier to have a second, always on PSU that moves the drives, opticals, fans and secondary connectors on graphics cards etc. The green wire just needs to be grounded. And if you're going Uber, then it's better to get a better PSU.
I had a 20-to 24-pin connector that I don't use (my board runs fine off the TP480) as my 12V dropped to 11.5 under load. This is not due to overloading as much as regulation, as once directly connected it was back up to 11.8/11.9.
I just think it's easier to have a second, always on PSU that moves the drives, opticals, fans and secondary connectors on graphics cards etc. The green wire just needs to be grounded. And if you're going Uber, then it's better to get a better PSU.
sangram said:
Dude dont be rude... the thing is that one of the forums respected member has made some factually incorrect statements and now everyone is trying to come in here and chip in for him. The fact of the matter is blanket statements like a 500 watt power supply is good enough for 8800 GTS dont mean jack. They do nothing but mislead people who are here to learn!!!
I want to highlight series of incorrect statements made here, and I personally have nothing against anyone. Its just a forum, we all share, we all learn, but the day one feels that he knows it all and becomes arrogant, its dooms day.
Our esteemed member qouted that his speakers draw power from his PSU :rofl: and than you laugh at me for recommending a PSU calculator. I 100% realize that calculators are over-engineered as they have to factor in the worst possible scenario and overstate by 10-20%. I have mentioned that previously as well.
Secondly blanket statements like a 500 watt PSU can power a high end configuration doesnt carry any merit. 500 watt PSUs range from $30 to $200, and wattage doesnt mean jack. Its the amperage at +12V which is the deciding factor when you choose a PSU. You will find PSUs with 500 watt rating delivering anywhere between 16A@12V to 20A@12V. So educating the members about amperage etc. would be more useful. I havent even gone into other factors like PSUs with multiple 12V rails, rail dependencies, efficiency, industry grade capacitors that operate at high temperature, thermal efficiency etc.
Some side effects of a stressed PSU result in damaged memory, BSOD, heated PSU that is loud caz of an overworking fan, fuse, sparks, possibly damaged components.
People claim here that they have their rig running fine for years on a 500 watt supply, so I must be a moron... lol... let me try to draw an analogy:
A guy tries to educate ppl about how useful ABS is, in a country like India 2 years ago. Now since ppl dont know what ABS really is, this guy explains this would make your car brake better at high speeds. And than everyone jumps in and says, ABS WTF!!! We can brake our cars at high speeds. We have been braking our cars for years...
:rofl: Of course every buddy beats the crap out of the guy. In 95% of cases you probably would not need ABS anyways, but that 5% can be life saving. Similarly 90% of Indians run on memories without heatsinks and PCs work fine for years, but why do high end manfacturers provide heatsinks?
Lastly just caz your PSU hasnt died doesnt mean that its working optimally. I personally would not risk a 8800 GTX/S on a 500 watt PSU from a lesser known brand. Good idea would be to get Antec True Power PSU or CM iGreen... Of ocurse 95% of the time you'd be ok on a regular PSU, but I WONT risk a 20k hardware on an underpowered PSU. Having a good PSU is like having a reliable car that wont break down on you in the middle of nowhere.
Lord Dagon
Contributor
Sandy said:haha! I would beg to differ
well ur friend is using a antec 550 neo HE
hyeah:@techcheat: Firstly, I apologise if you thought I was rude. Your 'corrections' were pretty nasty themselves, and I copied the tone. Let's leave that behind us.
The fact is there is a lot of hype surrounding power supplies. Just because a system runs fine on a given supply is not proof that it will be 100% stable, just as if you're running integrated video off a 700 watt supply it is running safely and within its margin.
The first factor in supply design and efficiency is motherboard design. Trace widths for carrying supply lines, regulator implementation and component quality affect how efficient the motherboard is in using the supply, and how much of PS nasties are passed on to the active components.
Then is the supply itself, which starts with supply design and implementation, current capability, output ripple, regulation, component quality, efficiency and finally, luck.
As simple online calculator cannot hope to even comprehend all these issues.
Now on to the measurement method which Rio referenced. the most common way to measure power draw is to check power draw from the outlet, since there is no other way except to insert power meters into all the supply lines when they come out of the PSU. If my PC is connected to the mains via the UPS, I will check the draw to calculate things like my electricity bill, and that will be my 'PC' draw.
I agree speaker rating/draw has no bearing on the PS rating though.
Unless you have a better way of measuring the power draw by a PC, I will still uphold the measurement method by Rio as valid, and far superior to the online calculator. Most importantly, it is a REAL measurement, in the REAL world.
Edit: About over-engineering and this particular example of ABS, it is slightly off the mark. ABS is a feature. Listed as 'optional'. 'More Power' is not a feature, it's a base attribute of a supply.
I would liken it to bigger engines, which enable you to go faster or carry heavier loads. Yes, you can drive a 1.2 liter Palio or a 4 liter Corvette. Both work, both will get you from A to B, but if you want to hit 150 miles an hour on the route only one of them can do it.
Also beware of a DC Corvette. It looks like the real thing, but it's only an Accord. And as such, a wannabe. (no offense to DC or his fans, it's just alliteration to make a point). A 700 watt Zebronics will be Zebronics. I would trust a 550 watt Antec over it any day of the week.
The fact is there is a lot of hype surrounding power supplies. Just because a system runs fine on a given supply is not proof that it will be 100% stable, just as if you're running integrated video off a 700 watt supply it is running safely and within its margin.
The first factor in supply design and efficiency is motherboard design. Trace widths for carrying supply lines, regulator implementation and component quality affect how efficient the motherboard is in using the supply, and how much of PS nasties are passed on to the active components.
Then is the supply itself, which starts with supply design and implementation, current capability, output ripple, regulation, component quality, efficiency and finally, luck.
As simple online calculator cannot hope to even comprehend all these issues.
Now on to the measurement method which Rio referenced. the most common way to measure power draw is to check power draw from the outlet, since there is no other way except to insert power meters into all the supply lines when they come out of the PSU. If my PC is connected to the mains via the UPS, I will check the draw to calculate things like my electricity bill, and that will be my 'PC' draw.
I agree speaker rating/draw has no bearing on the PS rating though.
Unless you have a better way of measuring the power draw by a PC, I will still uphold the measurement method by Rio as valid, and far superior to the online calculator. Most importantly, it is a REAL measurement, in the REAL world.
Edit: About over-engineering and this particular example of ABS, it is slightly off the mark. ABS is a feature. Listed as 'optional'. 'More Power' is not a feature, it's a base attribute of a supply.
I would liken it to bigger engines, which enable you to go faster or carry heavier loads. Yes, you can drive a 1.2 liter Palio or a 4 liter Corvette. Both work, both will get you from A to B, but if you want to hit 150 miles an hour on the route only one of them can do it.
Also beware of a DC Corvette. It looks like the real thing, but it's only an Accord. And as such, a wannabe. (no offense to DC or his fans, it's just alliteration to make a point). A 700 watt Zebronics will be Zebronics. I would trust a 550 watt Antec over it any day of the week.
- Status