Thermaltake W0029 Silent PurePower Fanless - Not for me.

brettmarl · Post by **brettmarl** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:34 am

OK - I admit I may have been pushing the envelope here for a 350W power supply - but I did do the basic wattage math and it appeared to be in range. Here's what I tried to build as my new silent but powerful rig:

- Abit AV8 Motherboard
- AMD 64 3500+
- Thermalright xp-120 cooler
- Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2PT 1GB DDR400 (2 x 512Mb)
- Thermaltake W0029 Fanless PSU (350w)
- Samsung 80gb Spinpoint (Sata)
- Pony Verto FeForce 6800GT
- 2 x 120mm Globe Fans (one for XP-120, one to exhaust case)
- Plextor DVD Drive

My experience wasn't great:

- At first, on power-on the system would run thro' most of the post-checks and then power itself off. Every third or forth time in a row it would complete the post and stay on.
- Next problem was that the RAM would bluescreen windows XP with PAGE_FAULT errors on boot. After unclocking the RAM and tweaking timings I got it to boot OK
- Now the sytem runs but sparodically blue-screens or reboots Windows when playing games, watching video etc.

My assumption at this point, is that I am drawing too many amps off the 12v rail and I need to get a beefier power supply. I have 2 questions for the group:

1. while i strongly suspect the issue to be low-power, how can i be sure? i have looked for rail-draw specs for my components but couldn't find much beyond simple 'average wattage' numbers.

2. if i do buy a new PSU - what should i get with this spec machine? From reading reviews here the "NX-4090 Nexus 400w" seems like a good choice - but it's only 50w more - however - it does have 2 seperate 12v rails that can handle twice as much draw and the thermaltake.

I'm somewhat new to thinking about PSUs in my system building - so looking for advise from the gurus!

Thx,
-Brett

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:44 am

I think 14 A on 12v line is not much(although i don't know what your hardware actually needs on 12v line), the total power usage probably isn't the problem.(maybe the 6800gt eats a lot, but that wouldn't explain boot problems)

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:07 am

madman2003 wrote:I think 14 A on 12v line is not much(although i don't know what your hardware actually needs on 12v line), the total power usage probably isn't the problem.(maybe the 6800gt eats a lot, but that wouldn't explain boot problems)

Good eye, Madman2003.

I wouldn't have thought of that since I'm not too familiar with the Thermaltake PSU series. But 14A on a single rail 12V means you get a total of 168W on the 12V line. Guess where the A64 and 6800GT require most of their power. 12V.

Look into getting one of the more recent PSUs that has either dual 12V rails or at least more power on the 12V line. Your total system draw probably doesn't exceed 200W DC, but you can bet that most of that 200W will be drawn at 12v.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:39 pm

With a single Samsung harddrive 14A should be enough. I'd say the problem lies with Thermaltake than with wattage. The Tt probably can't deliver the amps advertised.

My calculation: 3A for the 6800GT, 6A for the CPU, 2A for the hdd, 2A for the DVD. That's 13A for boot peak. Looks borderline but should have enough headroom. I bet you could run that system with a 14A 300W Fortron PSU.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:51 pm

burcakb wrote:My calculation: 3A for the 6800GT, 6A for the CPU, 2A for the hdd, 2A for the DVD. That's 13A for boot peak. Looks borderline but should have enough headroom. I bet you could run that system with a 14A 300W Fortron PSU.

You're forgetting things like the Northbridge, fans and accessories. Normally the power that they take up is pretty nominal, maybe 10-20W, but in this case, that might be enough to push it over.

brettmarl · Post by **brettmarl** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:03 pm

thanks for the feedback and advise. i found this interesting power-caculator on:

http://takaman.jp/D/index.html?english

and ran my specs against it. from the rough estimates on that site, i'm drawing about 15a+ on the 12v rail which is pushing the 14a max on the TT PSU. For those that are interested, on the 12v rail i have:

MB - .3a
CPU - 7.4a
FAN1 - .2a
FAN2 - .45v
RAM - 0a
HDD - 2.8a
DVD - 2a
Video - 2.5a (might be low estimate)

I'm going to order the "Nexus 400w NX-4090" PSU and see how that works out for me. I'll post back and let the group know if that fixes the problem.

Thx,
-Brett

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 7:33 pm

If you're going for that, be sure to check the voltage switch in the back. I have seen many pre-set @ 230V instead of 110V. Make sure it is set to that of your area, or it can cause many problems ~.~

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:18 am

sthayashi wrote:
burcakb wrote:My calculation: 3A for the 6800GT, 6A for the CPU, 2A for the hdd, 2A for the DVD. That's 13A for boot peak. Looks borderline but should have enough headroom. I bet you could run that system with a 14A 300W Fortron PSU.
You're forgetting things like the Northbridge, fans and accessories. Normally the power that they take up is pretty nominal, maybe 10-20W, but in this case, that might be enough to push it over.

It's true that 14A is a bit borderline. And most of the components you specified draw power from other rails, not the 12A line. But my main point is, those figures are very very top estimates (probably too bloated) at boot time, lasting a second or so. Any proper PSU should provide a little overdraw for a short period, so IMO it's still a Tt problem

brettmarl · Post by **brettmarl** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 6:21 pm

got the nexus and just installed it...

first time i tried it i have the 6800GT and the hard-drive on the same rail. same problem - fits and starts - failing with a 9F post-code (which is "not enough power")... swaped the 12v molex on the 6800GT to a different rail- bingo! boots great, seems to run great. no bluescreens thus far...

thanks for all the help and suggestions - can't wait to try this pc out!

brettmarl · Post by **brettmarl** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:17 pm

ok - i take it back. system is still unstable. it boots fine, but periodically bluescreens in windows with PAGE_NOT_FOUND errors. i tried setting the BIOS clock settings for the RAM back to Auto, and it blue-screens on boot. now i'm suspecting that it's a memory issue... any other suggestions?

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:48 pm

Power consumption of the 6800GT under load = 55W

That's just under 5A (assuming it's all off the 12V line) at full load. I realize this is now a moot point since it doesn't seem to be the power supply that's the problem, but keep this number in mind for future reference.

As far as an unstable system goes, all I can suggest is update firmware and relax the memory settings.

brettmarl · Post by **brettmarl** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:54 pm

Turns out that my system instability is not caused by the PSU at all. I'm not sure why I didn't try this sooner, but the system is rock-solid if I remove the XP-120 heatsink and put the RAM in slots 1&2. Unfortunatley the XP-120 heatpipe covers slots 1&2 and so I was forced to use 3&4.

I'll dig around and find a heat-sink alternative. But be warned with this RAM/MB combo in slots 3&4.

The price of silence!!