Have you tried the setup without the front fan? There's nothing for it to spot cool really so it seems unnecessary. Possibly if you add a fanless video card. But with the top down CPU cooler, that should help keep the airflow moving around enough. I've never seen/felt a southbridge chip that got ver...

I previously posted about my work with a Dell RM112 80+ gold PSU . It was a fun project and an impressive PSU. But it was a lot of work and required a fair bit of hacking to make it usable in a normal PC. Not very accommodating for the average user. Our office at work recently merged with some other...

Okay, so I posted earlier about the Dell RM112 PSU that I bought and modded as a standard ATX PSU. It's a 235W PSU that is rated 80 plus gold . My own tests showed a noticeable drop in power even at low loads against a PicoPSU and Seasonic SS-300SFD which are both pretty efficient. But my tests aren...

Hey Mike, what about the Dell RM112 PSU I sent you a little while ago, does that fall into the new donation category? Should I start a thread for the review... Well, I guess I just have.

We have a PowerEdge SC1420 at the office which looks to be based on the same case design as the XPS 600. It's in use right now so I can't crack it open and look, but based on some pictures I've found online, it looks like it doesn't follow the ATX standard for mounting the motherboard. Not sure abou...

Dell's are good or bad depending on how you look at it. They actually incorporate some of the same silencing tactics that we at SPCR use. Rubber grommets for hard drives, large tower heat sinks, big fans, efficient PSUs. But they never seem to quite get it all together. I think their biggest downfal...

I’m just building a system with a similar combo of CPU/Mobo and that sounds a decent saving. What application did you use to load the CPU when measuring power consumption? I usually use Orthos but when I initially ran it only the first 2 cores in Task Manager were loaded and I’m not clear which...

I tried undervolting my i3-530 on a Gigabyte H55 MB. I could only get to 1.0V before it refused to POST AND their was NO power savings. I too have an i3-530 on a gigabyte H55 MB. Using the BIOS options, I was able to undervolt by 0.1875 which put it at 1.0V under load. It seemed to be fine under st...

Just received the modded Dell 80+ Gold you sent, BillyBuerger. Larry and I were just marveling at your handiwork. If the casing of the Dell was the same blue/gray of the FSP ATX12V casing you used instead of unpainted aluminum, we might think it's an odd form factor product from FSP! :wink: Hopeful...

How silent is it with low load? I believe it uses the low speed ADDA fan that is common in many PSUs. It will be quiet at low to moderate loads as Seasonic generally has a good fan speed controller. But if you're picky enough about noise, it will not be silent. The ADDA fan just isn't smooth enough...

Where can you get these motherboards and chips? Logic Supply is one place that has a lot of "mini" PC parts which includes MoDT stuff. They actually have an older socket-M motherboard for $99 right now. They also have CPUs for it for about $100. Which is reasonably cheap for MoDT. But then again, f...

Ah yes, I noticed right after I posted that that the plug is male and not female. Oh well. Can you tell me if the mini connector has different gauge wire / pins than a normal ATX connector? I'm hoping I can just get a tool to pull the wires out of the mini one and plug them in to a normal one. Yes,...

Thanks flyingsherpa. The HP mini connector looks like it might be the same thing. But it's going the wrong direction. It would need to be a mini to ATX not ATX to mini. Sure would be nice if if someone would sell that maybe with an adapter plate to let you screw the PSU into a normal case. Although ...

I have a list of product keys and serial numbers for software that I actually have legally just in case of any label or media loss. Also is easier to find when reinstalling stuff. I did a similar thing as you recently. My brother had two laptops that were both dead. One was just the hard drive so I ...

Alright, final testing with this thing from me. I put it in my desktop PC which is in a mini-P180 case. It fit fine. The extra length part covered part of the bottom vent. But being that the case is on carpet, I don't think anything gets in that way anyways. I needed an ATX extension previously so n...

1. Yes, I've done this with both mini-P180s I've bought. I just cut out a piece of heavy corrugated cardboard in the same shape as the fan. The same screws that hold the fan in place hold the cardboard. Might not be the best for sound deadening or anything but it works. Actually, for my white mini-P...

I would estimate about 30W AC at idle for everything except for the drives. Around 7W AC for each drive + 3 drives would but you around 50W AC idle. Definitely under 100W max. Any decent 300W PSU would be fine. You can get a 300W Seasonic 80+ bronze PSU for under $50 in the US. Or if you really want...

I do have the Y chromosome and I'm on the third book now that my wife's friend finally got them back to us. I find the story quiet interesting... If you can get past the whiny, gag-me me with a spoon aspects of Bella. Which I seem to be fine at ignoring.

http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_07.jpg http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_08.jpg http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_09.jpg http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_10.jpg I was going to ask MikeC if they wanted to run this through their test bench be...

I would not use a Celeron D on a 65W PSU. The 150W might be enough but I still would avoid it. All the measurements I've done with our Pentium D PCs at work (2.6-3GHz) seem to idle around 90W and load from 150W+ AC. Although this is with either a HD2400Pro or 6200LE video card. So maybe take off 15-...

My story is that we had 4 cheap PSUs in some PCs at work and within two years or so, all of the sleeve bearing 120mm fans froze up on them. Although these were definitely cheap fans and all the same brand. Maybe some are better than others. I had an AC 120mm PWM fan in my desktop PC here. But it see...

Apples Magic Mouse looks like the final solution for mouse noise. Wish I could get one for PC. I just got one myself for my PC. Overall works good but I miss not having a middle button. Maybe they'll eventually update the windows driver to give you more options such as a two finger click for middle...

Measured the same series of PSUs with a more power-hungry system. Athlon 64 3700+, Biostar TForce 6100-939, nVidia 7900GS, and a 3.5" hard drive. Dell RM112 picoPSU 150 Seasonic SS-300SFD State AC Power PF AC Power PF AC Power PF -------- -------- ---- -------- ---- -------- ---- Idle 87 0.96 92 0.9...

I'm wondering if it's even worth it for your system to be messing with picoPSU's and bricks. If your idle is 60W, a good/efficient ATX PSU wouldn't be far behind the pico at that range and would probably be better as you approach the limits of your pico and brick at 150W. For instance, a 300W 80+ br...

Is there a pinout diagram on the case? Or did you just match up the colors on the output wires of the Dell PSU to a standard 24 pin ATX connector? Dell makes quite a few high efficiency, low power PSUs actually, it's just too bad most of them dont follow ATX standards. No pinout but the colors look...

Soldering went well. Only connected one wire wrong and noticed very shortly after. (Grey wire to grey, instead of green. What was I thinking?) Everything seems to be working fine. Only odd thing is then every time I turn it on, it causes a ground fault protected socket to trigger. But it's in a diff...

Pic1 Is the bigger one a standard ATX connector? According to specs they should have 1 purple wire but on the picture I can see at least 4 or they are using this color instead of red/orange? Pic2 Those white things are potentiometers for regulating voltages? Pic3 What does that button do? :D Yes, P...

So, I was directed by others here about the Dell RM112 235W 80+ Gold PSU that's been showing up on eBay lately. So I grabbed one. Here's a few pictures of it taken apart. http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_01.jpg http://www.billybuerger.com/pub/thumb/DellRM112_02.jpg http://www.billybue...

You're just looking for the bare connectors? I've picked a bunch of these in the past for putting new connectors on things and custom wiring. I forget where I got them from but here are some I have bookmarked still...

Sidewinder Computers
Jab-tech (pins on a separate page.)

Oh yeah, I'll definitely be back to post my results. I have a picoPSU 150 + 200W brick from a Shuttle SD11G5 and a seasonic SS-300SFD to compare it to. These two both seem to be pretty even on efficiency. I don't think the brick is as efficient as some others are, at least at lower loads. I'll be te...