PSU, where can I get one!

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Kendrak

[H]ard|DCer of the Year 2009
Joined
Aug 29, 2001
Messages
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Ok, I'm cheap.

I don't like to spend lots of money on individual things (I have spent lost of money on my mini and growing farm)

I grabbed some earthwatts when they where on sale at the egg. Alas they are much more now and I need power.

Does anyone know where a deal may be had on a low power 80+ PSU?

I'm at a loss, can't find anything under 50 or so and I spent 35 on the earthwatts when I got them.

Also a "Kendrak your to tight, you need to spend a bit more" is also (possibly) a proper response.

I'm sure there are a few other folders that if a deal is found can make use of this with summer (and higher electric bills) just around the corner.
 
Kendrak said:
Also a "Kendrak your to tight, you need to spend a bit more" is also (possibly) a proper response.
Click to expand...

When any of my boxen have died, the power supply has always been involved. Right now a relatively new C2D is getting warranty work done resulting from a failed PSU. :(

There's nothing wrong with inexpensive (as in a good deal), but I suggest having good-quality "juice" running your boxen.

Fold on!

 
/shakes fist at sky

Why, why

I lothe the person who dreamed these up!

/sigh

I'll probably get the earthwatts, but I'll pay more to not have to do the MIR

 
Go with the earthwatts - I'm running 6 yr old PSU's, Antec's and waiting for them to fail, with two hot spares standing by.

 
I know the Earthwatts are expensive .... but best way to go ...

When I first built my farm.. I was using some >70% ones ....

Now, I have been buying one Earthwatt a week, and mailing off the rebate.

Hurts a little in the wallet, but I will get them back, + I need them

 
Wharf_Rat said:
Dunno if you will tolerate a 50.00 MIR, but i just got and hooked this one up:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC&Item=N82E16817103938

It is pretty quiet and modular is a bonus! This is a diskless machine, So all i needed was ATX, +4 pin AUX and only one molex for additional fans. I am thinking about picking up another one.
Click to expand...

If you look at the specs on this one it’s a far better deal. The extra current will allow it to run cooler and deal better with stress especially if you go the Quad route.

Blown PSU’s are probably the biggest long term cost of running a folding box:)


 
Doesn't a striped Q6600 box only pull about 150 watts?

That's not even have of the rated power of a earthwatts.

 
Kendrak said:
Doesn't a striped Q6600 box only pull about 150 watts?

That's not even have of the rated power of a earthwatts.

Click to expand...

150ish stock.. OC'd with about 1.4v to the CPU = more toward 190ish... Regardless if it is a folding only machine the 380 is perfect for an OC'd Quad, 190 is dead center of the efficiency range and where it should perform very very well!

 
Crazy Larry said:
Here's a Seasonic 300w PSU with Active PFC and 80+ certification for $36.99 here
Click to expand...

That be great if I was never going to run quads in the boxen.... but all of my boxen will have quads in less than 6 months.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

 
I have not hooked up my Kill A Watt to either of my mostly just for folding overclocked quads. However, my main system with a quad overclocked to 3.6 (the rig in my sig) under full processor load pulls 255-265 watts. That includes the 8800GT at idle (which pulls a bit of power) 2 500GB Seagate SATA hard drives, idle DVD ROM and DVD burner, 2 3" cold cathode lights, flash card reader (which probably doesn't pull much of anything at idle or load) and 4 Antec Tricool fans at full speed (including the one on the TRUE). This is all being run off of an Antec Neo 650. It's massive overkill for the system but I got a hell of a deal on it which I couldn't pass up.

I would expect a bare folding only quad with similar processor specs would probably pull 50-100 watts less than that. If I get a chance soon, I can check my third quad. It has a cheap ATI X700 in it, fewer fans, one hard drive, no optical drives and no lights. I have it running on an Earthwatts 380.

My third quad running 3.51Ghz has a single SATA hard drive, no optical, 7600GT and fewer fans as well running off an Antec NeoHE 500. If I get the chance I'll see about hooking up the Kill A Watt to that as well.

As a warning, I hate taking my folding boxen down for anything so it may be a couple days before I nerve myself to shut one down much less both of them. :p

 
Kendrak said:
That be great if I was never going to run quads in the boxen.... but all of my boxen will have quads in less than 6 months.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

Click to expand...

Actually, it would probably handle a barebones quad depending on the specs. I'm at work so I can't check at the moment but if the specs on the 12 volt rail is good enough, you could probably get by with it. Before taking into account the different voltage rails and things like that, it would technically run my main system until I started up a game.

 
SmokeRngs said:
Actually, it would probably handle a barebones quad depending on the specs. I'm at work so I can't check at the moment but if the specs on the 12 volt rail is good enough, you could probably get by with it. Before taking into account the different voltage rails and things like that, it would technically run my main system until I started up a game.

Click to expand...

The question is will it take 3+ years of 24/7 folding with out dieing, and taking something else with it.

Yes it will run it.... but under what strain?

 
the Earthwatts is built by Seasonic and rebadged by Antec from what I've heard. They should be very robust and will work fine in the long run. A folding-only box with cheap video card, 1 hdd, 1 DVD drive and 2 GB of ram should hover around 50% of the 380W output, which is the efficiency peak ;)

I have 1 Antec NSK4480 box (include a Earthwatts 380w) running E2160 soon to be upgraded to a Q6600 when the next price cuts happen. I plan to buy 1-2 extra NSK4480 for more farm boxes. i paid 70$ for the case, which is cheap knowing how much the psu cost.

 
Why do I get an uneasy feeling with any PSU with the name SPARK in it? /shiver

 
Xilikon said:
the Earthwatts is built by Seasonic and rebadged by Antec from what I've heard. They should be very robust and will work fine in the long run. A folding-only box with cheap video card, 1 hdd, 1 DVD drive and 2 GB of ram should hover around 50% of the 380W output, which is the efficiency peak ;)

I have 1 Antec NSK4480 box (include a Earthwatts 380w) running E2160 soon to be upgraded to a Q6600 when the next price cuts happen. I plan to buy 1-2 extra NSK4480 for more farm boxes. i paid 70$ for the case, which is cheap knowing how much the psu cost.

Click to expand...

see I'm even more stripped down than you think ;)

My folding boxen:

Motherboard, 1-2gb RAM, CPU (E2160's, E4500, and a Q6600), and a thumb drive.

No CD-ROM, No HDD, No vid card, unless onboard with mobo, and soon to be no more cases

All that crap cost extra $$ that can go into buying more mobo's, CPU's and RAM

 
If you have free HDD and free DVD drives laying around, the cost is nil ;)

 
Kendrak said:
see I'm even more stripped down than you think ;)

My folding boxen:

Motherboard, 1-2gb RAM, CPU (E2160's, E4500, and a Q6600), and a thumb drive.

No CD-ROM, No HDD, No vid card, unless onboard with mobo, and soon to be no more cases

All that crap cost extra $$ that can go into buying more mobo's, CPU's and RAM

Click to expand...


Same here...have two E2160's in the basement naked with just 1gb of memory and a thumb drive. Once it's booted from the CD-ROM, I unplug it and let'em fold :D

There's heatsinks on the proc, of course....as well as the chipset and the mosfets :D
 
I've gone the Seasonic 380 watt PSU route on my new Boxen.
I've built and tested 4 so far.
Q6600's overclocked to 3.2 Ghz 400x8, 2x 2Gb memory, onboard vid, 80 Gig SATA hard drive.
The worst one is at 170 watts, the best so far is 155 watts. Measured on a Kill-a-Watt.

I've found the v-drop on the Gigabyte G33M-DS2R is just over 0.1v full load at that speed.

Luck ............ :D
 
My C2D that was out of commission because of a bad PSU is back folding with a new Antec power supply. Don't the the details as it was a "shop" job, and I was so keen to get it folding, I didn't even open the case and peek at the unit.

Fold on!

 
Not at all sure where some of you are getting your numbers. The Kill A Watt does well on AMPS and KWH but misses badly on watts.

There are some rules though that will never change:

http://www.powerstream.com/Amps-Watts.htm

The 380 Seasonic in question clearly says it pulls 6 AMPS at the wall:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151022

Do the math, please. 6 AMPS of input at 120 volts to get 25 amps of 12 volt power is not exactly efficient.

SmokeRings numbers are about in the ball park, I'm a bit higher because of my video card.

If I could find a way to run my machines on 150 watts I'd be all over that like white on rice;)

 
BillR said:
Not at all sure where some of you are getting your numbers. The Kill A Watt does well on AMPS and KWH but misses badly on watts.
..............
If I could find a way to run my machines on 150 watts I'd be all over that like white on rice;)
Click to expand...

OK.
Just retested one of my boxen with the Kill-a-Watt meter.

Volts = 245.9 Volts
Amps = 0.72 Amps
VA = 177 Watts.
PF = 0.96%
Watts = 172 Watts.

And thats the box I've overclocked the most, so it has got the highest figures.
My other new boxen are 10-15 watts lower.

The last time I checked all the boxen with the Kill-a-Watt meter, I worked out I was pulling ~1,900 watts for all the boxen.
In 7 hours my meter recorded I used 13.1 kW/h or 1.87 kW per Hour.
Thats well within the margin of error I expect from measureing straight off the meter.
Also my electric bills support this figure as well.

Luck .............. :D
 
I like this site here it shows you the manuacturer and lists the psu's that qualify. I just find one in the list and look it up in google shopping ;)
 
Damn! :( That C2D ^^^ with the new PSU is still craping out periodically.
I paused folding on both cores and it is still flakey (folding or not).
Back to the warranty shop and hopefully soon back to the cause. The two
twin boxen are solid...:confused:

 
Celerator said:
Damn! :( That C2D ^^^ with the new PSU is still craping out periodically.
I paused folding on both cores and it is still flakey (folding or not).
Back to the warranty shop and hopefully soon back to the cause. The two
twin boxen are solid...:confused:

Click to expand...

By crapping out, do you mean randomly rebooting? If so, what are your core voltages and speeds on the CPU?

 
Celerator said:
Damn! :( That C2D ^^^ with the new PSU is still craping out periodically.
I paused folding on both cores and it is still flakey (folding or not).
Back to the warranty shop and hopefully soon back to the cause. The two
twin boxen are solid...:confused:

Click to expand...

Could be flakey memory...or something overheating on the board like the voltage regulators or the northbridge/southbridge. Also check the bios and make sure the settings look ok. If you're overclocking, try giving the cpu/memory a little more volts to see if that will stabilize it. ;)

 
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