Thread: Question about powering serious psu

Originally Posted by Shadowstriker

Hey guys,
It's me again.

Wasn't that a Ray Steven's song?

But as for my computer, I'm going to need A LOT of power, I plan on running between a 1200-1400 watt PSU.

WTF?!?!?!
My god, man... WHY?!?!?!?!
The butt-kickingest gaming PCs don't need a PSU that potent! What on earth are you planning on doing with an uber-powerful PC in the car? And why do you think you need a 1200w PSU? What hardware do you indend on running?

Hell, a high-end gaming system with a couple of 10,000rpm hard drives, dual high-end video cards running in SLI, two optical drives and the fastes Intel EE CPU made overclocked to its melting point with a freon-based cooling system can use a 1000w PSU.....

Even if you were contemplating a system that potent in your car... Why? What would you be doing with a bad-*** PC in the car? Are you planning on some uber-fast 3D renderings or playing the latest and greates games in the car?

-What size battery would you recommend for this kind of power consumption, and approx how long to you think the battery life will last (hrs).

I'm not going to recommend a battery, because I don't know.
I will, however, recommend paring down your PC specs to something less powerful, as any setup that requires a PSU that substantial is severe overkill for the car.

DISCLAIMER: This is a purely intellectual exercise. I don't recommend any of this. Also, I don't know a lot about cars and generators; my expertise is in computers and batteries, so I'll focus there.

Electricity 101: Volts x Amps = Watts. Power storage on a battery is rated in Amp-Hours, a measure of how long a battery can supply one amp at its rated voltage.

To give you an idea, 12V car batteries tend to run 30-60 Ah. (Based on a quick Google search I just did, and we all know that the Internet is 100% fully accurate and true.)

Pulling 1400W from a 12V, 60Ah battery will give you nearly 31 minutes of operation from a brand new, fully charged battery to a dead weight in your trunk, and that's assuming your battery's 100% charged to its listed capacity (it won't be), it'll deliver reliable power down to 0Ah (unlikely), it's rated at 60Ah (most aren't), and there's no loss anywhere in your system (there will be - wires are resistors and 100% efficient components are a myth). Plus, fully discharging a car battery does not do wonders for its lifespan. The next time you charge it, you won't get 60Ah out of it.

You can get 250Ah marine batteries for about $400. That might last you two hours in a theoretical situation, but that's a bad assumption to make. In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they never are.

On the subject of chargers, what sort of power supply do you intend to charge it with? A generator running in your trunk would result in carbon monoxide in the cabin, and I can't think of anything else that would be able to sustain the kind of drain we're talking about here. You could try to contain it and vent it, but I wouldn't trust my life to it. You certainly don't want to use the car engine to charge it.

Minimalism, doing more with less, seems to be the prevailing philosophy on these boards, based on what I've seen in the short time I've been here. People are doing wonders with 50W. Take a look around, and good luck.

LONE STARR: What's this? I said take only what you need to survive.

VESPA: It's my industrial strength hair dryer, and I can't live without it!

Originally Posted by Nacho

In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they never are.

Nacho, that is one of the best one-line comments I've heard. With your permission I'll use that one !!

Cheers,

Long.1

Thanks. You have my permission, but I probably stole it from somebody else. A good memory for quotes combined with a poor memory for attribution can lead to a false sense of originality.

Anything I post, unless otherwise noted, is released under GPL - you can use it freely and without compensation, but you have to make it available to others and include the letters you used to form the words.

I don't encourage you to have a 1200-1400watt system in your car.

However, I believe that you can add a second battery and change your alternator to a "Dual-Output Alternator". If you have the Car PC Hacks book, read hack #10 on page 39 about this.

Again, I'm a n00b here so take my words as 100% correct

Parsa (PdLoadeR)

P.S. Nacho, I loved your quotes and since they are licensed under GPL then I shall use it in my signature

Originally Posted by Nacho

In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they never are.

Originally Posted by long.1

Nacho, that is one of the best one-line comments I've heard. With your permission I'll use that one !!

Cheers,

Long.1

Originally Posted by Nacho

A good memory for quotes combined with a poor memory for attribution can lead to a false sense of originality.

Another goody!

What I planned on running in the pc was this:
-IN9 32X-MAX nForce 680i SLI 775 ATX Motherboard
-Quad core intel pentium 3.0 Ghz per core.
-2 150 gb 10k raptors in RAID 0.
-1 750 gb 7200 rpm hdd
-4 gb ocz 9400 ddr2 ram
-Single or Dual Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra Black Pearl
-Sound Blaster X-FI Elite Pro PCI Sound Card
-a Blu Ray Burner
-20x DVD+-RW burner
-15 in 1 media card reader
-custom case with custom cooling
- D-Link Xtreme N Desktop Adapter (http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0247105)
-remove all three of the antennas and connect each of them to large powerful range extenders thus having three of those for uber range.
-mouse keyboard and all that other crap.

I just figured 1200watts would be a good amount, not too little and generously enough.

So is there any actual advice about the rv battery of any of that stuff?

-Shadow

Hi There Shadowstriker,

Well I'm blown away by that list of components. Surely you'll agree though that the majority of members here would only dream of owning that type of PC.

The problem comes when you talk about integrating this type of thing in a car. Most members here will label it as extraordinarily excessive and unrealistic for a car application. So, the reason why you'll not get much help with your plans is because most believe it's extreme for the car environment and it has probably never been done before.

Good luck, but unfortunately I doubt you'll get the help/advice you're after.

Cheers,

Long.1

Ok, First of all, what type of car do you have?

You are talking about 2 graphic card and a Quad core CPU... where do you want to put 2 screens that need such a huge need for sharp video?

You can have such a system, but you have to have an RV battery ( or maybe 2) which are huge in size. That's why I'm asking what car are you trying to install this system in? Also recharging those battery would release toxic fumes which you have to vent out of the passenger area.