[Gllug] Power supply problems - question...

[Peter Ball]

On 10 Oct 2003 at 10:24, Darren wrote:

> First post, so hello folks! :-)
> 
> Regarding power supplies...I'm wanting to build a
> low-power-consumption mini-itx box, just running Debian base.
> 
> Standard power supplies are a lot cheaper than the specialised 65 or
> 100 watt ones and I just want to confirm what I think I remember from
> GCSE Physics ;-) "Conservation of Energy" - If I use a 350w power
> supply to power this setup, it'll only consume whatever power the
> connected equipment draws (excluding losses through heat generated
> etc).
> 
> Does this sound reasonable?

Not necessarily so.

It depends on the efficiency of the power supply which is likely to worse (probably much 
worse) when you are using only a small percentage of the capacity of the power supply.  
Also the cheaper supplies have fans which are always at full speed even when that is 
not needed.

The only way to be sure is to run some tests with a meter on the input side of the power 
supply.

Doing some test is on my to do list but I haven't got down to it yet :-)



-----------------------------------
Peter Ball
Computers For Linguists
peter.ball at marguet-ball.net
Tel:    +44(0)20 7732 1741
Fax:    +44(0)20 7358 9214
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45 Endwell Road, London, SE4 2PQ, United Kingdom


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