Hi there, I got bored a few days ago and threw together an old system from parts we have lying around our uni house. It's a p3 700mhz, and 512mb of ram, with a gf2 mx. I'm currently using 'damn small linux' on it, and running it completely from ram. This works perfectly as I've got no hard drive, or optical drives or anything else making noise. I unplugged all the fans and have left it running over night with no problems what so ever. The only fan in the whol system now is the PSU. Now what I'm hoping is, I can replace it with a fanless power supply, or a power 'brick'. But I have no idea how much power this system uses! Can anyone point me in the right direction so I can work out it's power requirements and begin the hunt for a fanless psu? /Cheers
Pentium 3 processors use something between 20 and 30 watts, and it's most likely the most power consuming component in that setup. My server has P3 700 Coppermine underclocked to 480 MHz or something and the only fan in the whole system is in the psu at five volts. This setup has never crashed and currently has 200 days uptime. And about the PSU. Unfortunately an Epia-mini-itx-PSU most likely won't be enought and the next step is something around 200 Watts. Some uATX-PSUs are rated to 145 watts which could be good wattage, but I haven't seen any of those passively cooled. Ofc you can make one of your own if you got the nerves
Thanks for the informative reply. I am curious though. If you say the p3 is about 30 watts, how much more do I really need on top of this? All I will have is my lame gf2mx for 2d duties, the ram, and (at some point soon) a CF card connected with an ide converter. I only ask because while I know you just discounted mini itx supplies, surely a 120w power brick would be enough?
Actually I'm not sure how much mini-itx mobos draw, I guessed it's between 40-50 watts. 120 Watts is definitely enought.
Jipa guessed right, that's a pretty standard power draw for mini-itx systems. I think I've actually got mine running off a 30w brick, but it's also the very bottom-end 533 MHz Eden. The only problem you'll have using a power brick is that you'll also need a DC-DC converter inside. Those tend to be harder to find (more expensive) above 80 watts, though it might be easier now that Pentium M has shown up for mini-itx. http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=10#p1839
