How much power does a psu supply, while pc is powered down? And dual system solutions?

[Jae Tee]

So the gist of this question is how to power 2 pc's with one power supply. The first pc has a 550w 80+ bronze rating, more than enough( about 150 "overkill") My plan is to use a spare 8 pin or even a molex if possible to power my second pc which has a maximum draw of 120w. My first issue is having a solid way to connect the 2. Worst case scenario i can just solder some wire from the 8 pin to the receiving PICO psu. on the 1 hand I want a more elegant solution (a clean adapter could work), but on the other hand i want to get rid of (bypass) the pico entirely (also a good adapter). Any suggestions here?

 

But after all of that is said: will i be able to power the second pc while the first is powerd off?

[Gremlin_FLG]

There is no PSU with 2  24 pin connections.. unless I can be wrong.. 

[Jae Tee]

Just now, Gremlin_FLG said:

There is no PSU with 2  24 pin connections.. 

Not my qustion.

[Electronics Wizardy]

buy a psu splitter, phanteks made one http://www.phanteks.com/PH-PWSPR.html

 

But really, best option is to get a second psu, those splitters aren't cheap.

[Gremlin_FLG]

Well I am trying to understand what you are asking .. You have 2 systems side by side. You have the first system powered on by the 550W PSU.. What components are in the second system? 

[Jae Tee]

1 minute ago, Gremlin_FLG said:

Well I am trying to understand what you are asking .. You have 2 systems side by side. You have the first system powered on by the 550W PSU.. What components are in the second system? 

r5 2400g, ssd, not much else. As i said 120w max, and the pico runs on 12v....just like an 8 pin. you see where in going here

[Jae Tee]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

buy a psu splitter, phanteks made one http://www.phanteks.com/PH-PWSPR.html

 

But really, best option is to get a second psu, those splitters aren't cheap.

this is WAY overkill. Im just looking to feed 12v @10amp. I dont need anything fancy, im just trying to borrow an 8 pin

[Sakkura]

AFAIK the PSU only supplies 5V when the system is "off."

[Jae Tee]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

AFAIK the PSU only supplies 5V when the system is "off."

I was worried about this. Is there any work around, like at all?

 

I feel like im trying to borrow a dozen eggs from a disgruntled neighbor.

[Aaron_T]

I see what you're trying to do, but keep in mind that your existing 550w PSU is "550w max load" and it's never a good idea to run a power supply over about ~80-90% max load for longer than brief periods of time(seconds to minutes). Running a PSU at close to 100% for a long duration can cause damage to the unit and be potentially dangerous.

 

However, You can wire a switch into the PSU to turn the unit on and off independently of either of the PC systems you're powering. This would allow you to keep the unit on when "the main PC" is powered off. You would have to alter the main 24 pin cable to do this though. You can see an example of this in the exact alternate use case you're describing: https://www.newegg.com/battleborn-131106131282/p/35Y-000B-00009?Item=9SIA85V3DG9612&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Data Adapters-_-9SIA85V3DG9612&gclid=Cj0KEQjwzZe8BRDguN3cmOr4_dgBEiQAijjVFgmCuhgUIFaTzN08YDT6ixnAPlpPIMjx4K_bMV4NVc4aAiTN8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Do keep in mind though that it's much safer to just buy a dedicated PSU for your mini second system.

[Kilrah]

12 minutes ago, Jae Tee said:

I was worried about this. Is there any work around, like at all?

No, well nothing simple. If you power both systems from one PSU then anytime the PSU is on to power one the other will run too.

Unless you install a bunch of switches to cut power to certain parts manually, but meh...

 

[Jae Tee]

1 minute ago, AaronThomas said:

I see what you're trying to do, but keep in mind that your existing 550w PSU is "550w max load" and it's never a good idea to run a power supply over    .snip. 

 

However, You can wire a switch into the PSU to turn the unit on and off independently of either of the PC systems you're powering. This would allow you to keep the unit on when "the main PC" is powered off. 

.snip.

 

Do keep in mind though that it's much safer to just buy a dedicated PSU for your mini second system.

1stly. the 550w is way more than i could draw on both combined. Main system has a GTX 1060 3GB MINI + r5 2600x, second system is r5 2400g, so were more than fine on maximum draw plus it'll almost never be combined maximum any way.

 

2ndly. that doesn't seem to help my current position, as in, i don't see how i can integrate that.

[Aaron_T]

The specific part is not applicable to your situation. It is an example of how one could wire an "on-off" switch into their PSU such that it could be turned on and off independently of any PC that it is connected to.

 

With an independent switch in place, one could easily integrate power relays into the supply lines that could be controlled separately of each other via the signal voltage from the specific system's power button, such that one system could be powered and the other not.

 

It involves a fair amount of wiring though. This is essentially the solution a commercial PSU spliter would have to use, but in a nice, more user friendly package.

[Jae Tee]

3 minutes ago, AaronThomas said:

The specific part is not applicable to your situation. It is an example of how one could wire an "on-off" switch into their PSU such that it could be turned on and off independently of any PC that it is connected to.

.snip.

Ah, i understand. this COULD get rid of 1 problem, so thanks, but we still have another 1

[mariushm]

You don't even need a pico psu or anything like that.

 

You could just get a 24pin atx extension and an EPS extension (if the original psu has only one cable) and connect the wires from the extension to the original power supply... EXCEPT the PWR_ON wire.

You have the pinout of the 24 pin connectors :

PS-ON wire you don't want to connect because if you do, one pc would shut down and also shut down the other pc and so on.

So you want only one PC to control the shut down.

-5v is no longer used, -12v can be ignored (it's only used for serial ports and motherboards will most likely work without it present).  You could take 3.3v and 5v from a strip of sata connectors and 12v from a 6-8 pin pci-e connector... but it would ideal to open the power supply and solder the wires of the extension directly into the power supply.

If you don't want to do that, next best thing would be to take a couple of strips of sata connectors (so that you'd have at least 2 wires with 3.3v to wire to the 4 x 3.3v wires in the 24pin connector and 2 wires with 5v to wire to the 5 5v pins and the ground wires)  and a 6-8 pin pci-e connector for the 12v

 

 

 

 

ps.  but yeah , if you want to use pico psu to power a 2nd pc then yeah, you could use pci-e 6/8 pin to power a pico psu with 12v  , and you could use an eps cable or   pci-e 6/8 pin to eps adapter cable to power the cpu.

 

6pin pci-e to EPS:

Amazon.com: AYA 7" (7 inch) 6PIN PCIE to P4-12V/8PIN EPS Adapter: Electronics

 

6 pin to 8 pin pci-e just so you won't have to modify your psu : cut the 8 pin connector and you have 12v wires (yellow) and ground (black, negative) to connect to your pico psu.

Amazon.com: Cable Matters 2-Pack 6 Pin to 8 Pin PCIe Adapter Power Cable - 4 Inches: Home Audio & Theater