What power supply do you use for your miniITX ION atom boards?

[purps]

I have just bought this...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173797

...and I am having to run it using a rather chunky 450W 20 pin PSU (the board is 24 pin). It works fine, but  I was hoping I'd be able to use my much smaller 1U 120W PSU, also 20 pin, but the mobo won't even power up using this!

What PSU are you guys using for this board? I understand newegg ship this boad with a 90W PSU - is that 20 pin or 24 pin? Will a 90/120/150W PSU that has 24 pins solve my problems? Cheers.

[purps]

No one going to share? Go on!

[maybeoneday]

Hi purps
didn't respond before as my setup is a bit of a lash up........on initially testing the board I decided to ditch the  asus fan and replaced it with a 100mm case fan + zalman fan controller and threw it into an old atx case with a 450 watt psu........not much to look at (but it's hidden anyway) but it sure is QUIET 

regards
Ian

btw can you be of any help re http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9689.0   ?

[trentend]

I'm using these:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500W-CIT-micro-ATX-PSU

I also have some tyan ion boards with 20pin motherboard power connectors, and am using the power supply from a supermicro 1U chassis with a 20 to 24 pin converter cable - you can also find these at scan.  You can also find (at least I thought so when I looked into this, although I can't put my hands on them at the moment) converters that go from 20 pin psu to 24 pin motherboard.  They should power up a 24pin motherboard with minimal load requirements.

I've also got something like (but possibly not exactly) this from ebay to try with a laptop type power brick (as yet untested).

Note: I'm mounting in an electrical cabinet, not behind the tv, with these boards.

[maybeoneday]

sorry,
what I meant to say was that when considering this board I looked at some  silent solutions on a car modding site, sorry can't remember the link....I dismissed idea as I wanted to setup as a hybrid and the psu wasn't man enough for a dvd and int HDD , but if it was for an MD it would be ideal

Ian

[purps]

Thanks for the replies chaps. Ian, I've answered your other post.

I should have said, I want to use a 1U PSU ideally (or a brick/picoPSU, but this looks like a more expensive option to me). I have a 120W already, but it's 20 pin.

I can either buy a 20 to 24 pin converter, and see if the 120W works, but I'm wary of this option as, at the end of the day, the PSU was not designed for this.

Or, I can buy a different, low-powered PSU with 24 pins and hope it works (this is why I wanted to know how many pins the bundled 90W one from newegg has, if anybody has this?).

Or, I can buy a proper beefy 400 - 500W PSU (20 or 24 pin) and be fairly certain that it will work (I'm currently using a 450W ATX PSU with 20 pins).

[trentend]

Look at the power supply section of the ATX specification.  You really should have no problem with an adaptor on a 20pin power supply, when all we're looking at is an nvidia ion chipset with (presumably) little in the way of expansion boards and hard drives.

If ever a system board can be powered with a little power supply, this application is it.

[purps]

But if a 20 pin 120W PSU won't even power the mobo up, I mean the fan literally spins rounds a few times before it flakes out, is adding a 20 to 24 pin adapter really going to make all the difference? I'm genuinely asking here, I'm not questioning your expertise.

I appreciate the link, I have read that, but electronics is probably my weakest area - I'm afraid it doesn't really mean anything to me.

FYI, you're quite right, there are no hard drives or expansion boards of any description.

[trentend]

There's no doubt a 120 watt power supply should have enough for one of these boards.  Under heavy load (playing HD video) you should not expect a load of much more than circa 40watts from them.

I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure that powering up the extra rails on a 24 pin connector woukld see this board come to life.  Of course rather than a seperate supply to the rails from the psu this will involve commoning up the existing outputs - in this case because of the low power requirement I'm pretty sure it would work.  You need to be sure that your power supply is the most recent standard ATX 20 pin connector (using the link I gave before).  If so, try it with an adaptor, they're very cheap.  If you don't feel like taking the chance buy a new 24pin power supply.

[purps]

Cheers mate, that's a lot clearer. For 2 quid, I'll give the adapter a go.

Thanks again, will let you know how I get on.

[seth]

I use this case on my new Zotac ION Nvidia MD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

It is almost completely silent, and stock with this case.

Make for a very nice MD.

Regards,

Seth

[tkmedia]

Since were talking power supplies.
Some cases appear to have good value but have cheap inefficient power supplies.

I use this case on my new Zotac ION Nvidia MD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

It is almost completely silent, and stock with this case.

Make for a very nice MD.

I say you can pay me now or pay for ever

It appears the specs for the psu on the above case is as follows

AL-8250SFX Suggestion Box
     -Input range: 90V~132Vac or 180V~253Vac -Frequency: 47~63Hz -Input Current: 200W 6A/4A @ 115/230 Vac -Efficiency: 65% at full load, nominal line.

That's at full load ... it's even less efficient at idle.

Not sure how many watts that turns into for your ATOM.

Give it a test maybe its not that bad

But my watt meter averages between 18-22 watts for all the ATOMS running in my house or sold at my web-store. An Other Pc's I suggest Plus 80 power supplies which are 80+ efficient even at idle.


HTH

Tim