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Can multiple boards share a PSU?

T

Taranabas

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 17, 2013
Messages
107
Has anyone here ever tried running multiple motherboards in parallel off one power supply? I'd like to reduce some heat and power waste in my rack and if I could run 2 or 3 boards from one psu it could help a lot. Obviously I would be paying heed to wattages, but would any issues be caused with this, perhaps due to multiple CPU's VRMs using the same reference?
 
As long as the PSU can handle the load, no issue. I do believe they make adapters to allow you to connect your PSU to multiple motherboards. Though this is normally common with using multiple PSUs on a single board, not the other way around.

I also don't think your heat or power waste will be effected very much.
 
The reason I figure its worth it is I have a box with a 460 and a q8400, plus a box with a Phenom 9950, using a 600w and 350w psu respectively. If I ran them both off the 600, it should bring the psu into its more efficient range. sorry I missed the previous post, should searched.
 
ive been doing it on a 3 Node intel D525 atom cluster for about 4 months.. no issues so far..
then again, i am not pulling much power...
and yes i know a atom cluster is stupid.. but i had 3 boards laying around and got the "what if i did this" syndrome.
 
I'm not sure why everyone is recommending against doing this, especially with lower powered systems. My only guess is that for the price of the ATX splitter cable, you can come close to the price of a decent PSU on sale. I personally wouldn't hesitate doing this if I had the systems and money was tight.
 
I have actually seen commercial servers that share a psu between two mobos with a similar cable

cant see any reason why you would not

but if you do make sure to use a good psu that can handle the load
 
SysOps said:
ive been doing it on a 3 Node intel D525 atom cluster for about 4 months.. no issues so far..
then again, i am not pulling much power...
and yes i know a atom cluster is stupid.. but i had 3 boards laying around and got the "what if i did this" syndrome.
Click to expand...

I want to know more about this Atom cluster!

Sharing PSUs is not uncommon these days. Blades, micro clouds, twin servers. My Dell C6100 has 4 server nodes, 8 CPUs with either one or two 1.1kW CPUs.
 
Interesting, the reason I asked was because I thought I might have access to 10 or so small Dell C2Duo workstations and it would be far more space efficient to stack the boards, and split one or 2 PSUs for them, than to run all the boxes simultaneously in their cases. This way one can bring PSU load up into it's efficient load range, and eliminate a bunch of fan noise and waste heat. I dunno it seems like a decent idea, but alas it turns out work won't let me have them after all so its a moot point. Oh well, saved me hours of soldering..
 
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