I was looking at pico psus and got a little confused. For this forums sake the power brick will be the part that plugs into the wall and adapts to dc(laptop charger) and the pico the part that goes on the motherboard. Say I got a 120watt pico would I need a 120watt power brick or would a 90 surfice? Do you need to match the wattage or will the puco convert up or will the pico just run at whatever the power brick outputs? I also found some hd plex power supplies which look like a good alternative and if anyone has any expiernce with them does the same I asked above apply to them.
I think in general your power brick should match or exceed the wattage of the pico in order to gain maximum output of the pico but you could use a 90W brick and get less power output from the pico.
That's how I understand it, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I think in general your power brick should match or exceed the wattage of the pico in order to gain maximum output of the pico but you could use a 90W brick and get less power output from the pico.
That's how I understand it, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Glad I'm not the only one unsusure. What really threw me is tjat iv seen some bundles(pico and brick) thar dint match like a 90 watt pico and 60 watt brick
The pico power supply wattages are misleading since they don't actually do anything with the incoming 12v before passing it out to the motherboard and drives, and 12v is where a bulk of your consumption goes.
I have seen some alternative SFF PSUs that took a 19V laptop adapter and also converted that to 12v on them, which means that its 12v output should count.
In anycase it seems that most pico PSUs are only about 40-50 watts max on the 5v and 3.3v, the rest they say on the 12v is just passed straight thru a mosfet to switch it from the input socket, so in theory should be able to pass 100s of watts except for their small cabling.
The powerbrick you use will limit the total wattage of the system, so you really need to add up everything in the PC and see how many watts it all is and then add some fudge factor, but if you are using a CPU and graphics card that runs on 12v, then upgrading the pico PSU and not the brick will not achieve anything. Also the wiring on most of the pico PSUs looks rather pathetic for their claimed wattages.
Edit: If you get the car pico PSUs they do actually do stuff to regulate the 12v rails during both cranking and charging in the car so can affect the total power used, but the rest of their range seem to just pass the 12v thru unprocessed when switched on.
The pico power supply wattages are misleading since they don't actually do anything with the incoming 12v before passing it out to the motherboard and drives, and 12v is where a bulk of your consumption goes.
I have seen some alternative SFF PSUs that took a 19V laptop adapter and also converted that to 12v on them, which means that its 12v output should count.
In anycase it seems that most pico PSUs are only about 40-50 watts max on the 5v and 3.3v, the rest they say on the 12v is just passed straight thru a mosfet to switch it from the input socket, so in theory should be able to pass 100s of watts except for their small cabling.
The powerbrick you use will limit the total wattage of the system, so you really need to add up everything in the PC and see how many watts it all is and then add some fudge factor, but if you are using a CPU and graphics card that runs on 12v, then upgrading the pico PSU and not the brick will not achieve anything. Also the wiring on most of the pico PSUs looks rather pathetic for their claimed wattages.
Edit: If you get the car pico PSUs they do actually do stuff to regulate the 12v rails during both cranking and charging in the car so can affect the total power used, but the rest of their range seem to just pass the 12v thru unprocessed when switched on.
So it is in reality better to find a better sff psu. I don't neccesary use a 90 watt laptop adaptor. The unprotected lines on the pico worries me as if you have a cheap cruddy power brick. Like I mentioned before have you ever heard of the hd plex power supplies? Iv found them and they actually look better to me.
bm2016: So it is in reality better to find a better sff psu. I don't neccesary use a 90 watt laptop adaptor. The unprotected lines on the pico worries me as if you have a cheap cruddy power brick. Like I mentioned before have you ever heard of the hd plex power supplies? Iv found them and they actually look better to me.
About the only thing that will use 12v directly is 3.5" HDDs and fans, so the quality of that supply is less important, HDDs use it for the brushless motor to spin it, which should cope with some sag in voltage fine, as will fans.
CPU and graphics cards have another DC to DC converter (or many of them) delivering their core voltage of 1.something volts from that 12v, so are well regulated since they have to be.
The HD plex I found has a 16v minimum input so will be bucking that down to 12 which means you will have better regulation than with a 12v powerbrick which has a long cable and many connectors and the power switching mosfets resistance to worry about, but if that matters enough to pay more is entirely up to you.
I would just get the biggest pico PSU since the price difference is stuff all and get a decent quality 12v brick and see what the voltage you end up with at the motheboard is.
bm2016: So it is in reality better to find a better sff psu. I don't neccesary use a 90 watt laptop adaptor. The unprotected lines on the pico worries me as if you have a cheap cruddy power brick. Like I mentioned before have you ever heard of the hd plex power supplies? Iv found them and they actually look better to me.
About the only thing that will use 12v directly is 3.5" HDDs and fans, so the quality of that supply is less important, HDDs use it for the brushless motor to spin it, which should cope with some sag in voltage fine, as will fans.
CPU and graphics cards have another DC to DC converter (or many of them) delivering their core voltage of 1.something volts from that 12v, so are well regulated since they have to be.
The HD plex I found has a 16v minimum input so will be bucking that down to 12 which means you will have better regulation than with a 12v powerbrick which has a long cable and many connectors and the power switching mosfets resistance to worry about, but if that matters enough to pay more is entirely up to you.
I would just get the biggest pico PSU since the price difference is stuff all and get a decent quality 12v brick and see what the voltage you end up with at the motheboard is.
My build uses about 125 watts so I would need a 150 watt pico and a 150 watt brick? About how much should that be?
That is a hell of a lot of current for a DC connector at 12V. Im not really a fan of these types of power supplies for gear that actually needs a decent amount of power. It was fine when there was just atom and other low power stuff on ITX boards to make something small, but with real CPUs and even graphics cards it really is pushing what is reasonable to deliver from a power brick into a seperate piece of equipment.
If someone reputable is selling the 2 things togther it should be fine, but if you are getting the cheapest piece of crap 12v brick off aliexpress to go with something from somewhere else then I would expect problems with voltage drop.
That is a hell of a lot of current for a DC connector at 12V. Im not really a fan of these types of power supplies for gear that actually needs a decent amount of power. It was fine when there was just atom and other low power stuff on ITX boards to make something small, but with real CPUs and even graphics cards it really is pushing what is reasonable to deliver from a power brick into a seperate piece of equipment.
If someone reputable is selling the 2 things togther it should be fine, but if you are getting the cheapest piece of crap 12v brick off aliexpress to go with something from somewhere else then I would expect problems with voltage drop.
The build has a g3258 with a micro atx board 8gb ram 1tbbharddrive and a small laptop harddruve with tv tuner no graphics fard. I don't know why it got so much wattage actually. If I did buy one however I know better than go cheap
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