Radical Vision wrote:

For f**k sake just find some Delta PSU from HP or Compaq and compare it to your new junk PSU, and you will see for what im talking, or if you want i have here test Delta 300W PSU i will make pictures of it to show you for what im talking about. Also i have here junk PSUs from some computers some people did giveaway to me, and i found them inside, like JNC, KME and such trash, so is not hard for me to make comparison between junk unknown chinese PSU and some Delta, EnermaX or Aopen as they are good build as well.............

You don't need anything special to power a freaking Pentium 3 man, that Startech will be more than enough. Compared to what most of us used in that era I'd say it's almost a luxury.

I don't know about the ATX ones, but I have a couple of the AT 230W from Startech, they are well built, have proper protections, and at least mine have a few Nippon Chemi-con KY caps in the output.

It may fail some day but it won't take the rest of your PC with it.

The thing is that i have seen in the years how even low powered PII 350MHz with a HDD, a DvD, Video some Trident AGP (the newer ones 🤣...) and a single SDram, the mobo was some Soltek or Soyo not sure...
Well guess what i did get the machine from a trade, x2 wooden chairs for garden, for the PC, a TFT 17 inch monitor, an Fijutsu ICL keyboard with really strange switches and a mice and all the cables..
And guess what the PSU inside was brand new, (some junk similar to the one from the link) i did for a second wonder why the PSU was new, and i did found out why, the MB was working, but it did have on x2 places traces of electricity and darkest colors there, but it was working, the RAm was toasted, same dark colors on x2 traces, not working at all. the Trident video was also working, but x2 of the traces was blown up from the PCB, and they was in the air, but still connected (now idea how was that happen, maybe the current was not too powerful) and when i moved the traces that card was losing signal. DvD was toasted, on the PCB i did saw blown up elements and very dark spots, the case did have LED on the front, and this thing was really toasted on the back...

I did have other adventures with trash chinese power units, so no thanks, i just avoid that trash PSUs and "brands" and i will use what have quality and reliability, not chinese bombs, that tend to kill components....
So to be very clear the PSU is the most important component in every computer, no matter vintage, old or new one. There absolutely CAN`T be made compromises with the quality of a PSU no matter what ................

For PIII rig pretty much anything will be good enough. It is retro gaming PC... so I doubt it will run for more than couple of hours per month. And very low-power on top of that. So no need to tell scary stories about blown up PSUs, relax.

Delta and other PSUs from OEM machines might be good... but often non-standard size, short cables, etc. Which makes them hard to use in different case than they were designed for.

Startech makes PSU's now? I never knew that. If its anything like the rest of the stuff they made id be willing to give one a try.

I have seen some fairly crappy Deltas. Mostly in p4 class gateways. So keep a close eye on OEM Deltas. However their retail stuff is grade A.

Personally my retro system has a 300w SPI. SPI makes good power supplys, but watch out for the caps, they tend to skimps with them on their older cheaper power supplys.

The systems has a 1.4ghz Piii-s SBC, 2 sticks of pc133 ram, a ati rage pro (soon to be NVidia 6200), SB32, SB Audigy 2, 4 I/O cards, 6 Scsi hard drives with raid card, 1 IDE drive, 1 CD-rw drive and ls120 drive.

Radical Vision wrote:

Compaq is not the manufacturer of any of the things they have, they are just designer like HP is, DELL is, Compaq uses OEMs to manufacture all the parts for them, but all is branded as the Compaq name.
That is not the case with IBM, that did have their own things like HDDs, Keyboards, processors and others...

Oh are you sure ? Nope. IBM hdds were made by Hitachi, their keyboards were made by Lexmark not counting early model F's and Ms , their x86 processors were made by Cyrix .

WTF..................
Seems you don`t know a thing about IBM if you say that.............
IBM have tons of patents, also they are bigger then Intel as corporation just saying.......

havli wrote:

For PIII rig pretty much anything will be good enough. It is retro gaming PC... so I doubt it will run for more than couple of hours per month. And very low-power on top of that. So no need to tell scary stories about blown up PSUs, relax.

Delta and other PSUs from OEM machines might be good... but often non-standard size, short cables, etc. Which makes them hard to use in different case than they were designed for.

Im not telling scary stories, im telling what will happen in some moment with junk power units, now if someone will use them is his own business not mine, im just giving advice, bcuz layter one someone will bang his head, as the junk cheap PSU did blow up with half od the old systems, that will possibly have 3Dfx rare card, some rare CPU and Mobo that will be hard to find later... Some of the OEM Delta units are in sizes that can`t fit in most cases, and all of that PSUs have shot cables, but that is no problem, at least for me, also they are extenders that can be used in order to use the good PSU...

Yeah, will happen... maybe, one day, at 1:1000 chance. I've seen many P1/2/3/4 rigs with crappy PSUs and not a single one of them was burned due to PSU failing. Sometimes the PSU can die, but killing the MB and everything else inside is very, very rare. So if PSU dies, it is easy to replace it and move on like nothing happened.

Also good luck with the cable extenders, they are much more likely to burn out than those crappy power units itself. 😵

I bet i will have better overall experience with some old Delta PSU or EnermaX, even with extenders, then someone with chinese bomb, that will blow who knows when...

Radical Vision wrote:

I bet i will have better overall experience with some old Delta PSU or EnermaX, even with extenders, then someone with chinese bomb, that will blow who knows when...

Is everything alright with you buddy? Take a deap breath and accept that people aren’t always going to accept your ‘radical visions’

RE the Startec option - I have 4 of their AT PSUs in various machines and think they’re great.

To add another modern PSU data point: I'm running a dual Tualatin 1400S on a Corsair HX750i with a home made 6 pin aux cable. Machine is loaded with 4GB ram, 4 PCI cards, an SSD, DVD, two floppy drives, and audigy front IO drive. No matter what load I threw at it (ran prime95 stress test although I don't remember how I stressed the GPU) the 150W minor rails was plenty according to Corsair link (not accurate, but based on reviews it seems to error high). But I did end up swapping out the Geforce 4 for a Quadro FX 3000 to give extra head room, but from what I can tell it wasn't necessary.

So based on that I would say if one is using a single CPU Pentium III, a 120-130W minor rail modern PSU would be more than enough which are not hard to find once stepping into the decent PSU space. Definitely nice having a modular PSU.

Blzut3 wrote:

To add another modern PSU data point: I'm running a dual Tualatin 1400S on a Corsair HX750i with a home made 6 pin aux cable...

I also had to make a 6pin aux cable for my modular supply: It's a funny feeling plugging an old style AT connector to a modern PSU!

Is there anywhere I can read about your system? I'd like to see it 😀

(Also glad the talk about old PSUs stopped and we returned to the actual topic.)

slivercr wrote:

Also glad the talk about old PSUs stopped and we returned to the actual topic.)

I'd be interested to hear the topicstarter (who hasn't responded since dropping his question) on that one.

His issue was that he considered Antec PSUs to be the only decent older ones, and that they were prohibitively expensive/hard to get. His assumption was that the only alternative was a new PSU. That assumption is incorrect, so it's quite possible that he actually will have been helped by suggestions for older PSUs that are at least comparable to Antec (if not better - particularly when it comes to caps) and can be found for a fraction of the price.

Sometimes you can help someone better by addressing their situation than staying laser-focussed on what the specifically asked, particularly if that question was based on incorrect assumptions.

dionb wrote:

I'd be interested to hear the topicstarter (who hasn't responded since dropping his question) on that one.

His issue was that he considered Antec PSUs to be the only decent older ones, and that they were prohibitively expensive/hard to get. His assumption was that the only alternative was a new PSU. That assumption is incorrect, so it's quite possible that he actually will have been helped by suggestions for older PSUs that are at least comparable to Antec (if not better - particularly when it comes to caps) and can be found for a fraction of the price.

Sometimes you can help someone better by addressing their situation than staying laser-focussed on what the specifically asked, particularly if that question was based on incorrect assumptions.

I dont want to fight over the internet, but how did you get all that from the following original post...

buckeye wrote:

I leaning on going this route after swinging/missing on NOS antecs and etc. Like to know what newer PSU's everybody else uses successfully on their upper end P3 systems so I'll have an idea what to look for.

It seemed to be a very focused question, which wanted a focused answer. What I read from it is "tried to get old stock antecs/other but couldnt, has anyone used modern PSUs to power P3, which modern PSU?"

The assumptions you mention are your own.

Blzut3 wrote:

To add another modern PSU data point: I'm running a dual Tualatin 1400S on a Corsair HX750i with a home made 6 pin aux cable. Machine is loaded with 4GB ram, 4 PCI cards, an SSD, DVD, two floppy drives, and audigy front IO drive. No matter what load I threw at it (ran prime95 stress test although I don't remember how I stressed the GPU) the 150W minor rails was plenty according to Corsair link (not accurate, but based on reviews it seems to error high). But I did end up swapping out the Geforce 4 for a Quadro FX 3000 to give extra head room, but from what I can tell it wasn't necessary.

So based on that I would say if one is using a single CPU Pentium III, a 120-130W minor rail modern PSU would be more than enough which are not hard to find once stepping into the decent PSU space. Definitely nice having a modular PSU.

Then seems i need to trow on the trash all my old Delta and EnermaX, TT units and start buying 700-1000W power unites for old machines........

dionb wrote:

I'd be interested to hear the topicstarter (who hasn't responded since dropping his question) on that one. […]
Show full quote

slivercr wrote:

Also glad the talk about old PSUs stopped and we returned to the actual topic.)

I'd be interested to hear the topicstarter (who hasn't responded since dropping his question) on that one.

His issue was that he considered Antec PSUs to be the only decent older ones, and that they were prohibitively expensive/hard to get. His assumption was that the only alternative was a new PSU. That assumption is incorrect, so it's quite possible that he actually will have been helped by suggestions for older PSUs that are at least comparable to Antec (if not better - particularly when it comes to caps) and can be found for a fraction of the price.

Sometimes you can help someone better by addressing their situation than staying laser-focussed on what the specifically asked, particularly if that question was based on incorrect assumptions.

Sorry, still "digesting" all the input to this point. Yes my antec issue is aggravating since my newly acquired 400W model fails to start my target system but has no problem with another P3 setup while the 350W model will start both. Just tried a newer 500W Thermaltake (2 yrs. old) that powers my P4 setup and it too failed on my target system so this definitely is not an exact science.

Currently deliberating on buying a new Corsair CX430 and trying that out or just swapping the antecs. Really need a reliable backup ps regardless. The other option is buy another slot 1 board (Asus P3B-F perhaps) and run thru some tests again - this is why I'm broke!!! Just kidding, it's all about solving/beating the problems - it's why I'm hooked on this stuff!

Radical Vision wrote:

Blzut3 wrote:

To add another modern PSU data point: I'm running a dual Tualatin 1400S on a Corsair HX750i with a home made 6 pin aux cable. Machine is loaded with 4GB ram, 4 PCI cards, an SSD, DVD, two floppy drives, and audigy front IO drive. No matter what load I threw at it (ran prime95 stress test although I don't remember how I stressed the GPU) the 150W minor rails was plenty according to Corsair link (not accurate, but based on reviews it seems to error high). But I did end up swapping out the Geforce 4 for a Quadro FX 3000 to give extra head room, but from what I can tell it wasn't necessary.

So based on that I would say if one is using a single CPU Pentium III, a 120-130W minor rail modern PSU would be more than enough which are not hard to find once stepping into the decent PSU space. Definitely nice having a modular PSU.

Then seems i need to trow on the trash all my old Delta and EnermaX, TT units and start buying 700-1000W power unites for old machines........

Holey moley Batman don't trash the deltas!!! Sorry, couldn't resist - I am checking on some delta/enermax units w/o cases, don't have much storage room. I plan to experiment, get a few more units and maybe another mobo slot 1 and see what happens. Besides binge watching Fallen Skies nothing else to do.

slivercr wrote:

Is there anywhere I can read about your system? I'd like to see it 😀

Guess I could write about it for you.

buckeye wrote:

Currently deliberating on buying a new Corsair CX430

While probably fine for your build, do keep in mind that the 550/650 are often not much more (sometimes the same price even) and do have 10 and 20W stronger minor rails respectively. (Since you're looking at the older CX430, the same goes for the 500/600W units from that generation.)

Radical Vision wrote:

Blzut3 wrote:

To add another modern PSU data point: I'm running a dual Tualatin 1400S on a Corsair HX750i with a home made 6 pin aux cable. Machine is loaded with 4GB ram, 4 PCI cards, an SSD, DVD, two floppy drives, and audigy front IO drive. No matter what load I threw at it (ran prime95 stress test although I don't remember how I stressed the GPU) the 150W minor rails was plenty according to Corsair link (not accurate, but based on reviews it seems to error high). But I did end up swapping out the Geforce 4 for a Quadro FX 3000 to give extra head room, but from what I can tell it wasn't necessary.

So based on that I would say if one is using a single CPU Pentium III, a 120-130W minor rail modern PSU would be more than enough which are not hard to find once stepping into the decent PSU space. Definitely nice having a modular PSU.

Then seems i need to trow on the trash all my old Delta and EnermaX, TT units and start buying 700-1000W power unites for old machines........

Jesus Christ, man, stop being so dramatic. Different people might have different approaches to solving a problem. Some of them might be approaches you wouldn't personally take. There is no One True Way to build a retro PC handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

dionb wrote on 2018-02-14, 09:07:

I recently picked up a Seasonic 350W with 30A on the 5V line, both -12V and -5V present, ATX20p, but also ATX12V 'P4' and 6-pin AUX connectors. Oh and a few SATA as well. Pretty much the ultimate 'old style' ATX PSU in other words. Best measure of quality as usual: sheer weight. This thing weighs a ton (and no, that's components and heatsinks, not a block of concrete faking it). It cost me all of EUR 5.

Which model is it and would you have a photo handy? I’m trying to look for this same unit for my build.

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-03-20, 14:42:

dionb wrote on 2018-02-14, 09:07:

I recently picked up a Seasonic 350W with 30A on the 5V line, both -12V and -5V present, ATX20p, but also ATX12V 'P4' and 6-pin AUX connectors. Oh and a few SATA as well. Pretty much the ultimate 'old style' ATX PSU in other words. Best measure of quality as usual: sheer weight. This thing weighs a ton (and no, that's components and heatsinks, not a block of concrete faking it). It cost me all of EUR 5.

Which model is it and would you have a photo handy? I’m trying to look for this same unit for my build.

That was quite a while ago - I almost certainly still have it, but it's deep inside a build somewhere. I opened up a few, but they all have FSP CPUs (mainly AOpen-branded), so can't immediately find it for pics or specs I'm afraid.

Still, shouldn't be too hard to find - combination of ATX12V and AUX is pretty characteristic, as are the 5V specs.