S4 Mini - An ULTRA-SFF Chassis shipping this December!

Whether it's average or max here depends on what fraction of time you're taking into account and how often are you sampling and of course how precise your measurement equipment is in this matter.

If your equipment is slower than the time between change of max power spikes and low power cycles than it'll average the measured values.

To get accurate measurements on power draw on 50Hz power line you'd need 100Hz sampling rate. Meanwhile most of the resources you listed show graphs with range of 1 minute. Of course their equipment may be precise enough but we don't know that.

Not sure if you noticed this graph at Tom's:

07-Gaming-Zoom_r_600x450.png


and that their "Graphics Card Overall" maximum result below is 437W while the average is 186W, and this graph:

27-Torture-Zoom_r_600x450.png


where their "Graphics Card Overall" maximum result below is 332W while the average is 182W.
 
The average or maximum consumption is likely irrelevant in this case: the problem is the sudden transient load. The ATX12V specifications require an ATX compliant PSU to be able to handle a transient slew rate of 1A per microsecond without and failures in voltage regulation. For example, a 50W to 350W ramp on the 12V rail would need to occur in less than 25 microseconds for the R9 Nano to actually be outside of ATX specifications. Sadly the Toms Hardware graphs are kind of worthless here, and it looks like their sample rate is too long to measure if transient were that fast. Regardless, we can safely assume this as the R9 Nano does not cause ATX12V PSUs to crap out all the time.

However, the laptop PSUs being used with the HDPlex supplies are NOT ATX compliant devices. If they cannot handle such a massive transient slew rate (and they're designed to charge batteries, not power highly variable loads) there's no guarantee they will not fail to regulate the 12V line properly when forced to perform such a slew, and trigger a protection circuit either in the PSU, the HDPlex, or the GPU (or worse, fail to trigger protection and do permanent damage).
 
If that is true (irrelevance of spikes) then you should be able to run R9 Nano on some low wattage SFX psu (like 300W one) without fail but that's very unlikely.

If some bricks can handle that and others don't then its yet another thing needed to be researched and documented for hd-plex builds because it means 970's and other power hungry cards might also be affected by this.
 
SaperPL said:
If that is true (irrelevance of spikes) then you should be able to run R9 Nano on some low wattage SFX psu (like 300W one) without fail but that's very unlikely.
Click to expand...
I ran the somewhat-less-spikey-than-Nano GTX 970 on the ST30-SF without issue.
 
Yeah, but 970 is 145W and Nano is 175W + 970 spikes to 200W while Nano spikes to 400W.

Running 970 which has recommended 400W psu on 300W 80+ isn't the same as running Nano which has 600W recommended psu.

For example I ran 970 on 430W oem SFX without problems while i had to lower the power limit on 270X which is 185W to run stable under load.

I think that wattage matters but I'm not sure how does it correspond to hd-plex and different bricks.
 
updawg said:
First set of bad news is the 4790t + Nano is too much power for the HDPLEX 250 and the Dell 330 Watt power adapter. It hard powers off when playing a game.

I also have a Pico 160XT that I might be able to run in tandem with the HDPLEX. What is everyone's thoughts?

Lastly are all Dell Power adapters made equal? I picked up a XM3C3 - it doesn't seem to be getting warm when using the system - not sure what to think.
Click to expand...


Curious how the HDPLEX + Pico work out for you if you decide to go that route.
 
Huh, curious. So you're saying that these power supplies most likely cannot handle that sudden spike. I wonder how those mean well power supplies that Josh mentioned would handle this. They're pretty sturdy and look to be used for industrial usage. I'm curious to try out this scenario. I already plan to buy one of these power supplies though the nano may become outdated by the time I get around to buying it. Lol. It would be interesting to test different power supplies at a similar wattage and see how they handle the r9 nano. These are the power supplies I am talking about:

http://distributor.meanwellusa.com/webnet_usa/search/seriessearch.html

You can look under the enclosed switching power supplies section. They can get to a pretty high wattage on 12 volts. I just don't know how to wire that strange cn100 pinout. If I could figure that out, I wouldn't mind going higher than 300 Watts. I'll have to do more research, see what I can figure out. I'll also see if its necessary to wire that pinout at all.
 
TheDrifter363 said:
Huh, curious. So you're saying that these power supplies most likely cannot handle that sudden spike. I wonder how those mean well power supplies that Josh mentioned would handle this. They're pretty sturdy and look to be used for industrial usage. I'm curious to try out this scenario. I already plan to buy one of these power supplies though the nano may become outdated by the time I get around to buying it. Lol. It would be interesting to test different power supplies at a similar wattage and see how they handle the r9 nano. These are the power supplies I am talking about:

http://distributor.meanwellusa.com/webnet_usa/search/seriessearch.html

You can look under the enclosed switching power supplies section. They can get to a pretty high wattage on 12 volts. I just don't know how to wire that strange cn100 pinout. If I could figure that out, I wouldn't mind going higher than 300 Watts. I'll have to do more research, see what I can figure out. I'll also see if its necessary to wire that pinout at all.
Click to expand...

You can also just buy a 1000w Meanwell and never worry about if your brick has enough power again! :D
 
NFC said:
You can also just buy a 1000w Meanwell and never worry about if your brick has enough power again! :D
Click to expand...

Hah! Thanks Josh! I would too if I knew how to wire that pinout. Most of the higher watt power supplies have this strange pinout. I don't know how to make that work. Here's an example:

Edit: I had a link here but apparently I can't link to it. http://distributor.meanwellusa.com/webnet_usa/search/seriessearch.html You can then click on the rsp 1000 or any other high wattage series. It'll show you the pinout.

They give you the mating housing part number but I would have no idea how to connect it or if it needs to even be connected.
 
There isn't anything strange about the pinout of the RSP-1000.
By default you get a connector that turns on the PSU and sets it to it rated output voltage. Only if you're going to do some other stuff. Like control the voltage or have multiples hooked up in parallel that you need to mess with the special connector.
Source: Myself. I've messed with a couple dozen of those times of powersupplies. And i've performed my tests using one.
 
TheDrifter363 said:
Hah! Thanks Josh! I would too if I knew how to wire that pinout. Most of the higher watt power supplies have this strange pinout. I don't know how to make that work. Here's an example:

Edit: I had a link here but apparently I can't link to it. http://distributor.meanwellusa.com/webnet_usa/search/seriessearch.html You can then click on the rsp 1000 or any other high wattage series. It'll show you the pinout.

They give you the mating housing part number but I would have no idea how to connect it or if it needs to even be connected.
Click to expand...

I might be looking at it wrong, but it looks like a simple V+, V-.

I wish I knew what the wire gauge for this product is...it would make things easy!

Or you could grab some cool connectors you like and make your own sweet looking power cable, like this one I did for a customer:

oQmglpu.jpg
 
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Hey thanks QinX,

So you're saying I wouldn't have to bother with that special connector if I was just using it as an external ac to dc power adapter? I can just wire up the one V+ and V- to a 4 pin Kycon connector? Like this:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kycon/KPPX-4P/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtnOp%2bbbqA009InjtOSxl2rhfRsxoO9OKo=
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/222/KPPX-365228.pdf

Also wire up the neutral, load, and ground to an AC power cord? Similar to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Prong-Power-C...1451606281&sr=8-1&keywords=ac+power+cord+open

If that's the case, then this is great. I don't need to mess with that special connector then. The RSP 1000 is a 720 Watt power supply for the 12V range.
 
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TheDrifter363 said:
Hey thanks QinX,

So you're saying I wouldn't have to bother with that special connector if I was just using it as an external ac to dc power adapter? I can just wire up the one V+ and V- to a 4 pin Kycon connector? Like this:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kycon/KPPX-4P/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtnOp%2bbbqA009InjtOSxl2rhfRsxoO9OKo=
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/222/KPPX-365228.pdf

Also wire up the neutral, load, and ground to an AC power cord? Similar to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Prong-Power-C...1451606281&sr=8-1&keywords=ac+power+cord+open

If that's the case, then this is great. I don't need to mess with that special connector then. The RSP 1000 is a 720 Watt power supply for the 12V range.
Click to expand...

Yes to all, but honestly, don't bother with that powersupply.
It's meant for 1U use and has 2 load controlled 40mm fans.
The fans change speed depending on the power drawn from the PSU, extremely annoying.
 
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Do you have any meanwell power supplies you recommend? It seems as if most of them either have one or two fans. There is also the PFC series. I thought 1U would be neat since it would be smaller than the other ones. The less bulk the better, since I was planning on using the S4 Mini as a portable gaming computer. Currently that's how my Lone Industries L3 functions as.

The G5, MSP, and HEP Series also look good. Hmm....decision decisions.
 
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Are you planning on using the R9 Nano? If not I'd just stick with either the HP Voodoo 350W or the Dell 330W.
I've had it run a GTX970 and 4670 with no problems.

If you do want to run a R9 Nano. You can look for something in the 500W-600W range.
My own choice would be this USP-500, you can run it without a fan. You're continous load should be some where around 300W but this should be able to handle the peaks. You might be able to get away with an even low wattage one, but that would require some trial and error.
http://www.meanwell.com/webapp/product/search.aspx?prod=usp-500

This LRS-350-12 might also be worth looking into.
These types of powersupplies can often run a higher wattage for a brief moment without any problems.
http://www.meanwell.com/webapp/product/search.aspx?prod=LRS-350
It is rated to 140% output power overload so it can briefly run at 490W

It isn't even that expensive I might grab one for testing.
http://nl.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mean-Well/LRS-350-12/?qs=ah3jBNVE1PRuo5/c9niR6A==
 
Cool. I planned on getting the r9 nano. I didn't consider the LRS Series because I was looking for a power supply with an active PFC. That series doesn't have that feature. As for the USP Series, those are actually open. They're not enclosed like the others.

I'm probably going to stick with the RSP Series, either the RSP-320-12 or the RSP-500-12. Both only have one fan so noise should not be a problem. It seems as if all of Mean Well's power supplies have at least one fan.

Edit: Josh, if you're available, you mind telling me how you made that power connector? :D It looks really cool. I like the sleeving and that power connector you're using. It's the Kycon 4 pin correct? The same one that comes with the pico power supplies?
 
It was too simple. Just soldered 16AWG for V+ and V- to one pin each. Two pins don't even do anything.

Then I use thick heat shrink over the whole of the cable to get it smooth and then sleeved in MDPC SATA sleeving.

I made a similar cable for the Pico and that was slightly harder (still simple) because I used all four pins and ran four wires back to the Meanwell.

As for the connectors, no, they are much larger and used in some hospital equipment. I had some leftover from a job and need a good source myself. I was looking at Digikey but they are pricey there. Digikey is where I like to browse for exotic connectors though.
 
Hmm, so I don't need to use all the pins on the Kycon connector? If so can I do this, take three 16 awg wires from the three V+ and V- terminals on the power supply, then twist all three of the copper wires together and solder them together. Take said combined wire and solder it to one pin on the Kycon connector. The same can be done for the other set of three. Since the PicoPSU only has one V+ and one V- on its PCB, it doesn't matter to have more wires. Hmm...I'll reference that sheet to see how thick conductors I can use for the current I want.
 
So is anyone going for nano with a pico + hd-plex combo?

Like martinmsj I'm also curious how would this turn out since you might still have problems running nano on hd-plex since its peak power is 400W and nano can spike over this by itself.

The good high wattage brick might not be everything here.
 
SaperPL said:
So is anyone going for nano with a pico + hd-plex combo?

Like martinmsj I'm also curious how would this turn out since you might still have problems running nano on hd-plex since its peak power is 400W and nano can spike over this by itself.

The good high wattage brick might not be everything here.
Click to expand...

Using a Pico and HDPlex with the Nano doesn't work change anything without using a proper powersupply

Again my testing conclusion was as follows.
HDPLEX is capable of powering the R9 Nano if used with a good powersupply, in my case the RSP-1000-24 was used.

Using a HP Voodoo 350 solely to power the R9 Nano is not enough to have a stable system. The rest of the system was powered with a secondary powersupply.

So yes a good high wattage powersupply should be enough to power the R9 Nano. Although if you want to run it with a high TDP CPU you might need a Pico to offload the powerdraw from the CPU and motherboard/
 
I assumed that already - I mean with lets say 600W brick.

But what about the peak wattage on hd-plex which is 400W? Even going for 35W cpu T model, if nano spikes to 450W then aren't you still going to be almost 100W short overall under load?
 
SaperPL said:
I assumed that already - I mean with lets say 600W brick.

But what about the peak wattage on hd-plex which is 400W? Even going for 35W cpu T model, if nano spikes to 450W then aren't you still going to be almost 100W short overall under load?
Click to expand...

I've had the RSP-1000 and HDPLEX combo hit 550W peak power. It seems to handle it fine.
Dondan has tested that a 420W continuous load is possible with airflow over the heatsink. So I wouldn't worry about that.
 
Was about to post this over here, but a made a separate thread instead. Why not use a modular ATX bridge.

7ATX.jpg


It looks like the S4 might could fit it and that let you cut out the cost of the HDPLex and use your power supply of choice.
 
eutholevonik said:
Looks good! What gpu do you plan on using?

Really liking this case, hopefully I will be picking one up soon!
Click to expand...

An R9 285 ITX.

For the 24 PIN ATX cable I plan on just using black wire and not sleeving the cable as it will add too much volume. I will also shorten and sleeve the power switch wire and for the time being leave the fan wire alone as I don't have any c type fan pins. However, I could cut the wire and solder it shorter and then sleeve it but we'll see.

My final two mods will be adding Lian Li caster feet to the bottom as well as cutting the hard drive tray in half and mounting one ssd on the side closest to the hdplex.
 
updawg said:
An R9 285 ITX.

For the 24 PIN ATX cable I plan on just using black wire and not sleeving the cable as it will add too much volume. I will also shorten and sleeve the power switch wire and for the time being leave the fan wire alone as I don't have any c type fan pins. However, I could cut the wire and solder it shorter and then sleeve it but we'll see.

My final two mods will be adding Lian Li caster feet to the bottom as well as cutting the hard drive tray in half and mounting one ssd on the side closest to the hdplex.
Click to expand...

Somebody is modding my case!!!!!! I'm so happy. :D

Are you going to test it all outside the chassis first? That's what I like to do with my sleeving/wiring projects. Nothing is more frustrating to me than realizing I got something wrong and that I have to take all the parts out of a case to fix it. xD
 
NFC said:
Where did you get that epic SATA cable? Is it r3.2?
Click to expand...

I am not sure where I got that sata cable from - maybe performance-pcs? I also don't know what r3.2 is....?

But here are some more pictures!

Feet Added:
MkEUtuMl.jpg


All closed up:
BRvdQs8l.jpg


Wiring is done:
eQ1cJMWl.jpg


Hard Drive Cage Mod:
hQ7Puk2l.jpg
 
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updawg said:
Sneak peek at my build with custom wiring/sleeving
COgEpyhl.jpg
Click to expand...

Nice build and looking forward for then finished build and your thought on the case.
Btw, isn't that scythe fan mounted in the wrong direction?
 
Yep, those feet really tie the room together. If I hadn't bought that many cases last year, I would surely get me one of these.
 
Great to see something like this come into fruition and to be reasonably priced! Much respect for not targeting the biggest of gpu's! I've been saying that forever. Most people don't need or buy 980's, etc.

Looks ideal, though not really looking to build atm. Hope this succeeds so there is more to come! Maybe I should just pick one up and sit on it until I do...

Hmm, now I'm thinking of custom paint job and custom power button! haha. Oh and please throw up the liters size up on the sales page, I realize measurements are on there but looking at a quick liter count really wows me. Thanks.
 
EnzoFX said:
Great to see something like this come into fruition and to be reasonably priced! Much respect for not targeting the biggest of gpu's! I've been saying that forever. Most people don't need or buy 980's, etc.

Looks ideal, though not really looking to build atm. Hope this succeeds so there is more to come! Maybe I should just pick one up and sit on it until I do...

Hmm, now I'm thinking of custom paint job and custom power button! haha. Oh and please throw up the liters size up on the sales page, I realize measurements are on there but looking at a quick liter count really wows me. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement! Good idea on liters suggestion...I added it now. When I crawled in my hole to work on this project Mini ITX exploded and I am still learning what people think is important. :D
 
Turns out there is enough room up top to where I didn't need to shorten any cables...and I don't think it would make much of a difference in terms of cooling in a stock chassis.

All I did was dye the HDPLEX wires black (ran out of dye but it looks fine with the cover on).

So if anyone is interested in what a fully wired system looks like in addition to what has been posted:

pRDDbEH.jpg
 
NFC said:
-snip-
Click to expand...

Looks great! I've got the HDPlex installed in about the same way at the moment and there's just enough room to loop the ATX and Aux cables around the stock Intel cooler in mine. I don't have pics right now, but I'll edit this later when I can snap some later today. literally my only gripe with the HDplex is the placement of the HDD/SSD power cable connection, but since I plan to ultimately only use an m.2 drive in this build it's not that much of an issue. I've got the psu attached to the front of the case in about the same position with Scotch Dual-Lock strips since my Lowe's was sold out of velcro. I actually prefer this stuff anyway!
 
redivulpis said:
Looks great! I've got the HDPlex installed in about the same way at the moment and there's just enough room to loop the ATX and Aux cables around the stock Intel cooler in mine. I don't have pics right now, but I'll edit this later when I can snap some later today. literally my only gripe with the HDplex is the placement of the HDD/SSD power cable connection, but since I plan to ultimately only use an m.2 drive in this build it's not that much of an issue. I've got the psu attached to the front of the case in about the same position with Scotch Dual-Lock strips since my Lowe's was sold out of velcro. I actually prefer this stuff anyway!
Click to expand...

Glad you got it in! There is just too much cabling with HDPLEX builds for my tastes, but it pretty much is the only option for beefy GPUs. The SSD connector is tricky, but positioning it right over the bottom right mounting screw for the motherboard seems to make it all fit...tightly...
 
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