[geeks] Little Falls 2 System Power Consumpion Question

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

Mark Benson wrote:
> On 13 Dec 2008, at 03:23, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> 
>> Don't forget to consider PSU efficiency - that PS may only be 65-75%
>> efficient, so as much as 1/3rd of the power may be lost to an inefficient
>> PSU, and the 60 Watt Pico may be fine.
> 
> Well I'll have it apart tomorrow so I'll hook the Pico, the brick and
> the computer up to a Watt meter and see what it does, if it's pulling
> any more than 45W idle it's a no go in my book.
> 
>> The Intel MBs are very stable, and don't "fall over" as you describe
>> (in my
>> experience, but of course, YMMV - I don't use any cases smaller than
>> uATX,
>> so I don't have heat issues...
> 
> Heat wasn't the primary issue (it was resultant from the primary issue),
> the issue was the PSU (a 80 Watt DC-DC board) was suffering voltage sag
> under, or was just plain overloaded, as a result of the load from the
> USB ports.

You are very lucky you didn't fry the motor on the hard drive.  I have
seen cases in my own experience where under-powering drives results in
them being screwed out and requiring a new PCB (basically the hard drive
motherboard).

--Patrick