Topic: Need PSU help. PLEASE!!! (Read 1678 times)

Yeah that's a great deal on the PCP&C unit, if OP is still looking for suggestions, I bought these for my mining rigs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182067

They have been powering a 3x 5850 and 2x 5870 rig for over a year with plenty of headroom.

Normally I wouldn't buy a Rosewill branded PSU but this one received good results from JonnyGuru's fairly thorough review seen here: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=60

WOW only $90? I have one of those and it cost me over $400 new, like 5 years ago.... Runs like a champ!

FWIW I bought one of these http://www.directron.com/t12wb.html (PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200 1200W Refurb) and set it up on a MSI 890FXA-GD70 running 2x 5970 and 2x 5870 (6 gpu core total). It is a refurb but a manufacturer refurb. It doesn't have a bullet proof warranty but for $90 I took a chance. It is alot more quiet than the gpu's themselves and works like a champ. Actual measured power at the wall 8.6 Amps @ 115V for 995.9 Watts.

Not pumping PC Power or Directron just my experience on a finite budget with unlimited dreams .....

Server PSUs are awesome and bulletproof and will never die, but they are also loud, require soldering, and don't usually fit in any standard consumer form factor.

5870s are TDP rated for 188 watts, so a 5850 would have to be less than that. TDP is like the absolute maximum it can go too, unless you are overclocking. So at a guess let's say a 5850 is 150 watts, x3 = 450 watts. Add a few more for the rest of the components, and I could make a recommendation for a 750 watt PSU or larger, which would allow you to run at around 80% PSU usage continuously.

I could without hesitation recommend any PC Power & Cooling model of PSU, and any Seasonic. PCP&C has a 7 year warranty, and Seasonic also rebadges some of their stuff under other names, check jonnyguru for recommendations.

If you just want something to tide you over that should last at least a year, the GX750 ought to be fine on either rig.

Think about it this way. For every day you are down and not mining you are loosing that much that you are trying to offset in cost. Just bite the bullet and buy a PSU!

If you don't have the skill to solder or play with high amperage electronics, than I can't really recommend anything else that would be cheap and good such as those server psu's. Even more, I wouldn't want someone who isn't sure that he could do such a mod in a safe way try to mess with lethal amperage present in those psu's. If you're not up to it, just forget them, and get whatever you can buy for your buck, and you're comfortable and safe with. Maybe you'll be lucky and it will work for an extended period or maybe not, while under such a load.

I can't vouch for psu's that rjk is offering as I haven't been using them, but as far as I've read on this forums, many people would recommend Rosewill psu's to be of good quality.


Big fat disclaimer first: Don't do it if you're not sure you can do it safely. It may kill you or burn your house down! I take no responsibility for what you do with this information.

I wouldn't do what I've did with my psu's and charge for it to anyone else, as they aren't meant to be used in such way, and they carry a big warning to the one who is messing with them. But if you read and learn how to do it safe, it is not that hard at all.
I've read, asked and studied how can I mod those supplies in a safe way, not to harm myself, or others, or burn my house down. So the greatest price attached to them was the time spent learning and gaining knowledge, which was time well invested for me.

The best source of info from which I've followed the steps how to safely make such a modification I've found on rcgroups forum here. You can find info how to switch on those and many similar server psu's, how and where to solder wires, which wire gauge types to use, and other specs and info needed for such a modification.

1300W HP psu thread and 800W psu thread, which has the same pinout like the 1100W that I've linked in previous post, from where I've learned how to modify/use those psu's.

As for connectors, I've used cable terminal blocks where I've connected the 12V terminals from psu, and on the gpu end I've used molex connectors and wire that I've cut from many dead psu's I have laying around the workshop, and connected those to the wire terminal connector. I didn't have many 8pin connectors, so for 6990's I had to resort to splice 20pin atx connector and cut and modify it to 8pin standard that 6990 needs.

The cost of this mod was about 20$, excluding the psu price.

I've mentioned those psu's because I've thought that anyone who mines/hacks with electronics is a bit hacker by the nature and electricity and similar devices are somehow close to his interest and knowledge, and that such a person has a drive to safely pull a mod like this.
I'll report to the "What I've learned today" thread that not all cryptocurrency miners are comfortable with high power electronics. No pun intended.

What would you charge to turn those high power server PSU's into something a miner could use to power their graphics cards? I saw some big 1000+ server PSU's on ebay for cheap too but I can't find any useful connectors for them. I really wouldn't expect to pay more overall than a standard compuuter power supply.

SHIIIIIT

Any good server or alienware PSU's you can think of that would take ATX boards?  Any adapter kits?  I really don't wanna play with wires if I don't have to.  BUt if I fry another PSU, it is suicide at this point 

I've replaced exact that XFX 850W 80+bronze with the above server PSUs. 4x5850 ate it in 4 months. It was GPU dedicated, and still didn't make it. It looks good though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207011

Good enough for 4 5850 cards?  Seems adequate for 4 5870's even. 

I'm not good with soldering, and don't trust so much $$$ worth of GPU's up to my electrical skills.  Are there any out there that would fit regular ATX boards? 

I've used 1100-1300w server PSU's, that I've bought used and cheap off of ebay, such as DL740 1100W for like $20 and DL570 1300W for 50$. They were the best bang for the buck, if you're going on cheap.
And I've got to play around with custom connectors, soldering and wiring, but that was lots of fun.
The 1300W is a noisy bitch (as in airplane takeoff noisy), but I've managed to slow down it's fans to a bearable level, and still kept the PSU cool enough to drive 3x6990 880/150 24/7. Still, you don't want to be in a same room with it, or in a same building that is .
1100W is cool and quiet, just runs whatever you throw at it, like 3x5850+1x5870.

There are used Dell/Alienware 1100W ATX PSUs cheap, like this one here, but I/ve never used them as USA is too far in shipping for me.

I've got some barely-used quality PSUs available, if you want to take a look: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/wts-custom-power-strip-92925

The smaller two would work great for your setup. They should last for many years.

Having trouble here.  I burnt up a PSU because I bought a shitty bargain one and ran 3 5850's with Reaper.  I have 2 computers. One with 3x 5850.  Other 2x 5850 and one 5870.  What power supply on newegg should I buy?  COST is a HUGE factor.  Hopefully single rail/under $100 would be great for both.  Should it be 850watts+ or more?  Is a $100 target viable for a power supply that could last possibly a year litecoin mining, or bitcoin mining for at least 6 months/whenever ASICs hit?