Great deal on ebay for a mini-ITX

[phreeky82]

Not so sure that's a good idea, as the motherboard tells the PSU whether to turn on/off etc. If you're willing to gamble though, wouldn't be all that difficult to get a 20pin plug off an old PSU and splice it in.

[charithjperera]

ok, i might go with two PSU's, is there any place in australia that sells the PicoPSU's?

Also - is it possible to get the vga to output at a resolution of 1366x768 in xp?

Thanks,

[nelson92]

Originally Posted by charithjperera

ok, i might go with two PSU's, is there any place in australia that sells the PicoPSU's?

Thanks,

www.vastute.com sells them for $117(120w psu, 60w powerpack, postage)

[phreeky82]

Originally Posted by nelson92

120w psu, 60w powerpack, postage

It appears they've made an amazing discovery....

[NewKleer]

1) psu supplies more than 1 voltage...12v, 5v, 3.3v, etc. the 120W rating is the sum of the ratings for the different rails., say 50+50+20 or something. hardly anyone will ever build a pc that consumes the current on different rails in the exact ratio the psu supplies it.

2) if you do manage to build a psu that does consume current in the right ratio, you simply buy the 120w psu on its own, and buy a higher wattage ac adaptor seperately. but most people will only use a picopsu for itx/low power systems which wont even draw 60w. even my core2duo HTPC only draws 45-60W ac.

3) do you make similar judgements about people running 600W psu's when they only draw 200W of ac current? theirs a reason you get a psu that has more than the intended current draw rating, because you dont want it operating on the edge of its capabilities (therefore overheat or wear out quicker). and secondarily, because crap brands sometimes wont be able to supply the rated power

[phreeky82]

Originally Posted by NewKleer

1) psu supplies more than 1 voltage...12v, 5v, 3.3v, etc. the 120W rating is the sum of the ratings for the different rails., say 50+50+20 or something. hardly anyone will ever build a pc that consumes the current on different rails in the exact ratio the psu supplies it.

Actually, I think you'll find a PSU is typically unable to supply the max rating of all rails at once, with some being worse than others (i.e. some people these days claim to be able to run their basic PC on anything but a 600w PSU, but mine runs fine on a 350w (inc relatively recent stuff + up to 6 HDDs etc).

I do appreciate that people may only be drawing 60w or less from it anyway, but supplying a 60w powerpack with it seems a bit odd.

3) do you make similar judgements about people running 600W psu's when they only draw 200W of ac current? theirs a reason you get a psu that has more than the intended current draw rating, because you dont want it operating on the edge of its capabilities (therefore overheat or wear out quicker). and secondarily, because crap brands sometimes wont be able to supply the rated power

I never said such a thing...

[NewKleer]

yep thats another reason why you might not be able to get the full 120w (that you cant max out all rails at once)...i wouldnt even try, as only at around 40W the picopsu gets very hot

60w ac/dc power supplies (12V at 5A) are extremely common so perhaps that could be a reason...though i think itd make more sense if they paired up the 90W picopsu with the 60W supply

hopefully people only use the picopsu for its size and not efficiency, as while the picopsu itself is effecient, the power brick is extremely inefficient. for a setup that would only draw ~20W, it was using around 45-50W AC from the wall (only 5-10W less than my ~55W C2D HTPC with 300W noname psu)

[charithjperera]

Originally Posted by NewKleer

hopefully people only use the picopsu for its size and not efficiency, as while the picopsu itself is effecient, the power brick is extremely inefficient. for a setup that would only draw ~20W, it was using around 45-50W AC from the wall (only 5-10W less than my ~55W C2D HTPC with 300W noname psu)

woah, thanks for that. I was going to go for one thinking it will use almost no power because i read it was 90%+ efficient and that with the low powered motherboard.

Looks like i might as well save some money and go with a $20 seasonic 200W micro atx PSU

[NewKleer]

yeh its a shame more thought wasnt put into that side of things. and of course theyre "cheating" a bit to get the 90+% efficiency since they have the 12v input to start with, and thats a much simpler task than taking 240vac and bringing it down.

[phreeky82]

The other advantage of a normal PSU, which is what I'm using (but a small one out of an IBM PC), is you can just grab the computer and move it, take it elsewhere and whatever and power is via an IEC plug.

[charithjperera]

would these via machines be good with pfsense or other firewall software?
They seem much cheaper than one of those $300 boxes with 300mhz processors.

[nelson92]

Would the 120w PicoPSU +adaptor from vastute handle a 1gz PCV2 motherbaoard, 2.5" HDD, 80mm fan, 40mm fan? This is gonna be my download box for offpeak so its gonna run overnight

[NewKleer]

yep it should handle that fine

[Imitation]

Originally Posted by charithjperera

would these via machines be good with pfsense or other firewall software?
They seem much cheaper than one of those $300 boxes with 300mhz processors.

Of course. I setup a pfsense today box and it's working quite nicely.

[charithjperera]

What kind of network controller should I get as the secondary one for pfsense?

Would any chipset be compatible or does it have to be a bit more specific?

Thanks,
Charih