Makeshift power supply tester

All of those look rather anaemic for a P4 and a power-hungry GPU.

Never heard of AcBel, so can't judge either way on it, but advertising peak wattage as opposed to continuous is generally a big no-no. In any event it's no more than 300W, which would be very much at the low end of what you need, even if it actually meets its claims (which I doubt based on advertising peak), FSP is good quality stuff, but 250W is too little, and Dell - problem is that those systems generally were supplied with a PSU that could exactly handle the load of the pre-installed components, not that plus a heavy GPU.

I'd recommend getting at least a 350W (350 real continuous Watts, not peak) for this setup. A new, quality one would be best - but I'd personally risk it with a quality FSP 350W or similar, at least after checking for bad caps.

Nuance: you don't say which P4 you have. A late Willammette or Prescott runs much hotter than an early Northwood, so depending on the CPU you may or may not have wiggle room.

Acbel does OEM supplies for IBM amongst others. They're generally well made and reliable.

gdjacobs wrote:

Acbel does OEM supplies for IBM amongst others. They're generally well made and reliable.

I have a few they made for Apple G4 MDD machines that are all dead.

Even a great OEM will have a hard time overcoming a case with poor thermal design.

For my ATX boards, and even a MMX build on the TX97 board with a ATX connector, I just have 2 EVGA 450W Bronze PSU's I picked up. They are dirt cheap when on sale, like south of $25, have plenty of molex and floppy connectors, and you'll never ever need another PSU. I was for a while going the same route, buying older, original 200-250w PSU's, but with age, and loud fans, I just caved and replaced my systems with the modern PCU's that have molex connectors. They are whisper quiet, if the fans even run at all.

300W or so might be enough. Here's what I do:

First, look up your CPU. The ark.intel.com pages will show TDP and I think max design power as well. If not them, then one of the CPU benchmark pages does. Anyway, add that to the published TDP of the video card. That shouldn't be too hard to find. Look at the max draw ratings on your HDD(s) and ODD(s). Add 50W or so, unless you just have a ton of RAM or other cards, then maybe 80W. That's all max power draw, so if you get a PSU with a max rating of that amount, you should be fine.

I generally prefer Delta, and have a few FSP OEM supplies as well. I don't have much first-hand experience with AcBel, but if you are willing to take some racy pics of their naked insides, we could all ponder and postulate about their build quality.

My P4 Prescott runs fine with a Radeon 9600 Pro on a Corsair VS450, to be honest i use VS450 on most older ATX builds, even my barton with a Radeon 9600 XT can run, but on some heavy benchmarking the system is unstable due to the lack of 5V current capability, but the system never crashed on normal loads.
But on my S7 build and my Geode the Corsair VS450 makes the system run rock solid.

I just checked and I'm using a 300W FSP for a 1.7GHz Willamette (64W TDP). It only has a Matrox G550 GPU, though. I have no problem with PSU stability -- rails barely droop under 100% CPU load -- but I have my hands full with the thermal constraints of a SFF desktop case trying to exhaust that socket 423 CPU, northbridge, and RDRAM. My initial push/pull fan arrangement from the front of the case to the PSU, with some mocked-up posterboard ductwork in between, did not prove sufficient. Those things run HOT.

It's worse than I thought, It's a Dominsion 8200 (RDRAM) with if I recall, a 2GHZ P4
Stock PSU is rated 14A at 12V (250W overall)
The FSP 250W takes that up to 15A.

The other 2 don't have splittable 24's, and this is a 20 with no room for overhang.

One more, and this is bottom of the barrel...
LPG2-40 400W
Rated - oh nuts, just 15A on the 12V, and high on the 5V, but they may not be accurate as on a 5V heavy system, the 5V sagged badly, crash level, I thought maybe it was 12V heavy, but not by the look of it.

Guess I'll have to hit ebay - I did get a rather nice FSP 300W 80+ bronze before, but already used that, other alternative may be a 24 to 20 adapter for the Dell one... keep it in the Dell family

Matth79 wrote:

The other 2 don't have splittable 24's, and this is a 20 with no room for overhang.

Same story as my Socket 423 board and the new SFF PSU I got for it. You got a Dremel? I went as far as buying a new Molex Mini-Fit Jr. 4-pin plug and the crimp pins for it, so I could make the +4 ATX connector in case I ever needed it for another build. Then I just converted that ATX connector to a 20-pin with a cutting disc.

I was looking at the connector and thinking "what if".
Also looking at 24 to 20 adapters, but they don't make it easy to sort by which way.
Finally, the place I got my FSP 300W from on ebay doesn't have any more, but does have the 350W model at £8.99 - and it's the 80+ bronze - if I get that, I'll probably substitute it to the system I used the 300 in, as that has a 125W X4 965, and then give the 300W to the other one.

But yes, it is the cheapest option, and I do have a rotary tool with a cutting disc - and I guess the key is to sacrifice the 4 rather than try to cut even.

I found it pretty easy to cut a reasonably smooth line on the outside of what would be the outer end of the 20-pin plug. YMMV. The newly-freed +4 side will be worthless, which is why I just bought a new plug for it. I don't need it now, but might some day. You may as well snip the wires as close to the receptacle as you can, since unless you have a proper extraction tool, you probably won't get the female pins out in one piece. Just crimp new ones on.

BTW, I think I was mistaken about the plug I bought. The +4 uses a different key than the 4-pin 12V ATX plug, since the +4 is actually the last four pins of the 24-pin ATX plug. You can't buy that, as least not that I've found anyway. However, if you buy an 8-pin Mini-Fit Jr. plug, you can cut the first 4 off of it and the last four will match the pin keying of the +4 end of the ATX connector.

Alternatively, you can also use a 20-to-20 extension cable. It will fit in the 24-pin plug just fine, if that's easier than finding the right orientation for a 24-to-20 adapter.

Deciding which one to cut, and then found both had the power in the wrong place, only 250W FSP would fit.

Admits defeat, buys the 350W FSP, that will go in in my current "B" system, bumping the 300W FSP out of that, and the 300W FSP has an impressive 12V capability.

If I letter all my systems, I'll get quite far down the alphabet.

Matth79 wrote:

If I letter all my systems, I'll get quite far down the alphabet.

You've always got the Greek alphabet to start in on.