Will it work? Your best guess. Opus 150

**the_dude** · 04-20-2004, 09:00 PM

Well here's my first post after 2 solid weeks of browsing the forums.

I know there isn't a definate yes or no to my question but maybe there's someone out there that has almost the same set up. I want to use the opus 150 to power my computer:

WinXP
MSI 648 MAX ATX motherboard(not an ITX obviously)
Celeron 2.0 gig
Geforce 4 MX 440
512 DDR 333
120 gig WD HDD
DVD Rom Drive
Earthmate GPS USB device
Maybe a sound card if the internal one really ends up sucking

I've read some posts that are very close to my setup but differ in the motherboard or a usb device used. I know that the ITX style computer setups eat up a lot less power so that's why I'm just not sure(most people have those setups). I've used the wattage calculator and I come to around 250 watts which still doesn't help me out much since that's the "peak".

I want the opus because it's the coolest and everyone my age is doin it. :-) Other than the opus there's the keypower but I don't think it can still function the same even with controllers. Can I get something else that can survive cranks, make my computer go into hibernate or just a soft shutdown? An ITPS added to a DC-DC converter almost does that stuff with a few exceptions right?

- Kyle

**tom2112** · 04-21-2004, 09:21 AM

The easiest way to tell would be to hook up your setup in the house, using a normal PC power supply, then connect a multimeter and see how much current it pulls. Typically boot up time is the biggest power draw, since all the drives spin up at once and the processor is busy loading the OS.

If you're over the 150 watts of the Opus, you can always switch to laptop hard drive and optical drives. That will reduce your power consumption significantly. Typical hard drives can soak up 25 to 30 watts, whereas a laptop hard drive will only use about 5. You motherboard is probably in the 60-70 watt range. I don't know about the AGP graphics card. But from that calculation you're running pretty close to the 150. It would be worth measuring it with a meter.

**Zip-Lock** · 04-21-2004, 09:59 PM

That's going to be a close call with the OPUS 150. You have a lot of power hungry devices listed there. Specifically that motherboard and video card is what's killin' ya.

I agree with tom2112 you should measure the current draw to see if it would work.

Ideally you should try to find a way to limit your consumption.

**studmonk3y** · 04-26-2004, 11:07 PM

Originally Posted by Zip-Lock

That's going to be a close call with the OPUS 150. You have a lot of power hungry devices listed there. Specifically that motherboard and video card is what's killin' ya.

I agree with tom2112 you should measure the current draw to see if it would work.

Ideally you should try to find a way to limit your consumption.

I'd like to do this, where exactly do I poke the multimeter around to measure the current draw?

**tom2112** · 04-27-2004, 08:57 AM

To measure current, you interrupt the circuit and use the multimeter to complete the circuit at the point you want to measure. There are some expensive meters out there that will measure it without interrupting the circuit. They wrap around the wires, and measure the magnetic field given off by the power, and calculate how much power would create that magnetic field.

The catch is putting it somewhere in the circuit that all the power flows thru. In a home PC this would be between the wall outlet and the power supply. In a carPC this would be between the Opus and the battery. That includes the draw and inefficiency of the power supply. To get the draw of just the PC (without the power supply) you have to measure a lot more places and add them up - because a PC power supply splits the incoming power into separate 12 volt and 5 volt circuits.

Another approach would be to measure each device and add them up for a total. So you would pull the power connector on a drive and measure just that drive (twice - once for 5 volt and once for 12 volt). But that's a lot of work, since there's a bunch of devices. The motherboard is the hardest, because there are a couple different power feeds into the motherboard, and the ATX connector doesn't make it easy.

**the_dude** · 05-04-2004, 07:45 PM

So I measured the ac current while setup in my house and the most I ever saq it draw was .9 amps ac. So about 108 watts the computer was drawing. This seems really low to me and I'm wondering if anyone else has similar readings for this:

ATX MB
1 512 stick of ram
celeron 2.0 gig
slim usb hub
usb mouse
ps2 keyboard
usb touch screen
Geforce 4 MX440
DVD Drive
60 gig IDE Drive
1 case fan and 1 PS fan

If that's the most I can get out of it then an Opus should work.

- Kyle

**Vandyll** · 05-04-2004, 08:21 PM

Great question here, and I'm interested in the outcome also. My current plans are to run a standard sized PC (AMD Athlon) in my car, and am wondering if the Opus 150 can handle my needs. I was hoping that there was a larger version available, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

**MrPerfectionest** · 05-05-2004, 02:21 AM

So I measured the ac current while setup in my house and the most I ever saq it draw was .9 amps ac. So about 108 watts the computer was drawing. This seems really low to me and I'm wondering if anyone else has similar readings for this

Was this in the steady state? Ie, was your pc just running normally and this is what you measured? What were the conditions?

**the_dude** · 05-05-2004, 09:09 PM

This was the peak that I got when running WMP, a DVD movie and a Video Game. Booting the computer was less than also less than .9. It seemed to average about .55 or .6 amps just sitting idle with no apps running.