Power Supply HDPlex 160W AC-DC News!

[Morris]

The new unit arrive. It's interesting. It uses a 3 position connector, like the 300w AC/DC adapter. It's slightly thicker than the original 160w adapter, and unlabeled. Still fits in the NFC Skyreach case.

Paired with a EVGA 1060 6GB SC and an i7-6700T it can now run 3D Mark without shutting off. It unfortunately still shuts down with the Oculus Rift. I am experimenting with underclocking the GPU to lower the power draw.

I think I might need to move onto a larger enclosure with a more robust PSU if underclocking is ultimately unsuccessful.

I'm surprised how much more power the 1060 takes than the 1050 TI. Previously my entire build would pull 100w under load. Now it peaks over 200w.

Edit: It seems to be perfectly stable with the 1060 optimized to a power target of 75% in EVGA's "Precision XOC" application.

 

[BeerNsoup]

Has anyone else tried a 1060 based build?

I bought a s4m after seeing this thread planning to do a brickless build but if Morris had to lower the power draw on his 1060 just to make it stable with a "T" series processor I can't see how it would work with my 65w cpu :/.

Edit: also @Morris did it manage to fit without interfering with the 1060 power connector?

 

[Morris]

@BeerNsoup I had to shift it towards the back of the case, meaning it couldn't be mounted. It's a tight enough fit with the 1060 that there wasn't any significant movement. I'm sure the power coupling on the 1060 could be re-soldered and modded to point at a different angle.

The AC-DC adapter also fits in front of the motherboard, just behind the power button panel. I'm toying with the idea of running two; one in the original spot, and one in front of the motherboard, coupled with KMPKT's dynamo 360/160 combo. This would be more than sufficient for the 1060 along with a 65w CPU.

I spoke with someone at HDPlex who mentioned they're actually working on a 400w adapter that might fit in the Skyreach case, but that would be a more down-the-line.

Edit: Though tricky, another option would be to sand the 300w AC-DC adapter down 2mm to fit in the case. Those 2mm only account for the passive cooling metal, so if you applied some thermal tape the aluminum case itself would act as the heatsink.

 

[BeerNsoup]

@BeerNsoup I had to shift it towards the back of the case, meaning it couldn't be mounted. It's a tight enough fit with the 1060 that there wasn't any significant movement. I'm sure the power coupling on the 1060 could be re-soldered and modded to point at a different angle.

The AC-DC adapter also fits in front of the motherboard, just behind the power button panel. I'm toying with the idea of running two; one in the original spot, and one in front of the motherboard, coupled with KMPKT's dynamo 360/160 combo. This would be more than sufficient for the 1060 along with a 65w CPU.

I spoke with someone at HDPlex who mentioned they're actually working on a 400w adapter that might fit in the Skyreach case, but that would be a more down-the-line.

Edit: Though tricky, another option would be to sand the 300w AC-DC adapter down 2mm to fit in the case. Those 2mm only account for the passive cooling metal, so if you applied some thermal tape the aluminum case itself would act as the heatsink.

Thanks for the reply. I have a laptop brick so maybe I'll use that for now and wait to see if hdplex comes out with another internal ac unit that will work.

BTW if you are thinking about running two 160w units check out @Kmpkt 's build. you'll need a 24pin atx extender to use the dynamo mini as is wont fit with a 160W unit installed in front of the motherboard

 

[TheHig]

@Morris did you change out the stock power plug on your new 160w with a c8 or ? I actually have one of the new 160w units also and am now thinking of upping my 1050to a 1060 brickless as well. I’m also not opposed to sanding the 2 mil off the 300w as you all mentioned if it comes to that. It’s a lot of fun to mess with all this anyway! Personally I want to avoid the external brick unless going 1080 on the gpu. Never saying never but the 980 in my main box is fine for me and getting that performance to a brickless S4 would be sweet.

 

[tmackerm]

This is disappointing to hear. I bought a HDPLEX 160 AC-DC based on this thread in anticipation of using it with a EVGA 1060 SC and i5-8400.

 

[Morris]

@Morris did you change out the stock power plug on your new 160w with a c8 or ?

@TheHig I used a C8 for the original 160w adapter, which used a 2 prong ELR adapter. The new version updates it to a 3 prong, which adds the grounding wire.

Rather than clipping it, grounding it to the case, or cutting a larger hole into the chassis itself, I soldered a female 3 prong ELR adapter to a normal 3 prong power cable. I'm sure there's a more elegant solution to this, but I just kind of winged it to have something that would work without needing to wait for more parts. It essentially creates a permanently attached power cable to the case when finished.

 

[Morris]

This is disappointing to hear. I bought a HDPLEX 160 AC-DC based on this thread in anticipation of using it with a EVGA 1060 SC and i5-8400.

To be fair, I don't know if it is the 160w DC-ATX or the 160w AC-DC adapter that is the problem child when running a demanding game. It'd be worth testing the new 160w AC-DC adapter with a more robust DC-ATX adapter to find out for sure, but I haven't purchased a new one yet.

 

[TheHig]

Also @tmackerm it has bee stated by @Josh | NFC in some of his posts and videos that when you are getting into the nitty gritty on these smaller wattage builds that 'per game' tweaking comes into play. For instance to keep my Ryzen 1600 at 1.2v 3600 mhz in my S4 from getting too toasty in Civ6 I only need to use a frame cap of 60fps any res ( like 1440p my native monitor res or even 1080 or even 1366x768 on TVs) to get the gpu to run like 15 or more C cooler. It can render the lower fixed fps without working so hard. This in turn keeps the case temp lower and my cpu under 65c after hours on end. Other titles require no such changes as they don't hammer the cpu as hard so the GPU running all the way up to 75C or so doesn't impact the CPU as much. Also frame capping will reduce your power draw as well which could keep you from shutting down or resetting due to that. Each game or app you run may need some type of tuning to live within these tight power and heat constraints.

All part of the fun and challenge of going smaller in size and psu.

 

[bichael]

I wonder if the EVGA 1060 SC is causing more problem than other cards would. Looking at the Toms roundup it gets called out for having a high peak power...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-graphics-card-roundup,4724-4.html

 

[Josh | NFC]

Also @tmackerm it has bee stated by @Josh | NFC in some of his posts and videos that when you are getting into the nitty gritty on these smaller wattage builds that 'per game' tweaking comes into play. For instance to keep my Ryzen 1600 at 1.2v 3600 mhz in my S4 from getting too toasty in Civ6 I only need to use a frame cap of 60fps any res ( like 1440p my native monitor res or even 1080 or even 1366x768 on TVs) to get the gpu to run like 15 or more C cooler. It can render the lower fixed fps without working so hard. This in turn keeps the case temp lower and my cpu under 65c after hours on end. Other titles require no such changes as they don't hammer the cpu as hard so the GPU running all the way up to 75C or so doesn't impact the CPU as much. Also frame capping will reduce your power draw as well which could keep you from shutting down or resetting due to that. Each game or app you run may need some type of tuning to live within these tight power and heat constraints.

All part of the fun and challenge of going smaller in size and psu.

Thank you for restating this! Depending on the game there is usually something you can tweak or a conif line you can input to make a dramatic difference, and you just need to google around for a few mins.

Most of them time the recommended hardware on my BOM sheets work great with no tuning, but it is a system per system basis.

Peace!

 

[zovc]

'per game' tweaking comes into play. For instance to keep my Ryzen 1600 at 1.2v 3600 mhz in my S4 from getting too toasty in Civ6 I only need to use a frame cap of 60fps any res ( like 1440p my native monitor res or even 1080 or even 1366x768 on TVs) to get the gpu to run like 15 or more C cooler. It can render the lower fixed fps without working so hard. This in turn keeps the case temp lower and my cpu under 65c after hours on end.

Yeah, it's definitely a per-game thing, but generally capping your frame rate is a great idea if you're worried about thermals. Civ is extremely easy for most video cards to work on, as such, it's really really easy for them to go "above and beyond." The interesting thing is, an unchecked GPU running an easy workload at like 200+fps is much more liable to get too hot than a GPU 'working really hard' to push 60 to 120fps in a demanding workload.

You're also going to use a lot of power rendering all those extra frames you can't even see!

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

Hi all, I'm in the middle of planning a brickless system using the HDPLEX 160W direct plug and AC-DC adapter. Now the case I'll be using is likely way too small to fit the c13/c14 connectors and I've been looking at going to c7/c8 connectors similar to what people have done with the S4M and S4M-C.
I started by ordering Josh's polarized C8 inlet so that it was pre-wired for the PSU.
Then I thought it would be as simple as ordering a C7P connector however I'm finding it IMPOSSIBLE to find a C7P connector with a UK style plug.
So I'm considering my options. I've searched for if it is safe to use a C7 (non p, figure 8) connector with the C8P (square end) inlet and I've found answers saying both yes and no. Can anyone explain if it is safe? Would plug type or different mains voltages affect this? (hence differing answers)
I'm guessing my next option would be to wire a plug to a C7P connector myself. I've wired plugs before so I feel confident in doing this, I just feel that I'll no doubt need to strip the connector from an American style plug which may mean it's rated to a different voltage. Would this matter at all?
Another option may be to sack off the polarised C8 inlet and use a non-polarised C8 inlet. Why shouldn't I do this? I think I seen on the orangulan brickless S4M-C build that he started with non-polarised then changed to polarised. Something to do with not wanting to fry the PSU. However I know plenty of games consoles that use the non-polarised inlet, how do the get around that problem?

I'm an electrical noob and I've been scouring the Internet for days and can't seem to find direct answers to my questions. In fact I've found conflicting answers a lot of the time.
Any help is appreciated and sorry if any of my terminology is wrong or misleading (electrical noob and all that). As a wee side note the case I'll be using is full aluminium.


Edit: As clarification I've seen all these things referred to differently, the main way I've seen is that the male end or the connector is called C7 and the matching inlet is called C8. With the polarised versions being called C7P and C8P. This is as per Schurter's website, page 5, table 2. This table also states that C7 is intended for C8 and C7P is intended for C8P.

Here is a website that states non-polarised C7 connectors can be used with polarised C8 inlets, TL;DR "Unpolarised C7 connectors can be used with appliances equipped with polarized C8 sockets."


Edit2: I eventually found a website selling a C7P connector with a UK style plug on it. Funnily enough it was a US website selling one and can be found here for anyone in the same situation as me. May need to swap out the fuse but this is a solid start. I'm still interested in answers to my previous questions if anyone has been reading this but for the time being I think my problem is solved

 

[eth0lo]

@Flumper Dinkle The two prongs on the c8 are neutral and live, al PSUs should have a bridge rectifier, this means no matter how you connect your neutral and live wires it should work, now ground (third prong) is a different ball game altogether the whole point in that is able to take the electricity out when a short happens.

The polarized plugs where introduced because old electric installations could have the live and neutral reversed, meaning that the off switch in the (ac) devices wouldn't work as expected, meaning they were still on when you thought they were off; that's why is you live in old building with an old electrical installation and use an old toaster for example you could the toaster throw discharges at you.

This is extremely important for ac devices (fridges), in dc devices since you are forced to have the rectifier on front; otherwise you could no do ac/dc transformation, so inverting live and neutral is irrelevant.

For more information on rectifier have a look to wikipedia, they have and awesome picture how rectifiers work.

Also for all EU people an interesting fact a C8 which is rated at 2.5Amps can net you roughly 575W of power since most EU countries has 230v lines (check before your plugs before getting a massive PSU with a C8), if you live in the US you are kind pushing the limits since the lines are 110v at 2.5A (from the C8 specs) you could get 275W.

Also for all EU there's no way to distinguish between live an neutral lines unless you check yourself or live in France which the shucko connector has a extra prong in the middle.

Keep in mind that all PSUs have an efficiency rating for example a 80 plus PSU means it will consume at worst 120W when your system uses 100W to run.

Hope this clarifies your doubts.

Finally this is a guess from my side, I think most PSU uses a C14 since that will theoretically net you (minus efficiency) 1100W (110v*10Amps) in the US while at the same time in EU would net you a whopping 2300W (230v*10Amps) and since having two inlets would mean two different lines of production all manufactures took the easy route, use a C14 connector so they could sell the same item in EU and US. From my point of view a C14 it's way over specced for countries with 230v lines

As a side note if just the S4M had the opening for the C8 just a little bit wider you could fit this awesome C8 connector rated at 6Amps which also comes with an EMI filter just like the C14 from the HDPlex PSU @Josh | NFC

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

@eth0lo Thank you so much, this clarifies everything a lot. My worries have definitely vanished!
So in short DC appliances are safe to use non-polarised connectors even if the inlet is polarised due to the PSUs having a diode bridge/rectifier?

I am in the UK with 230v so it sounds like I have some leeway if I get power hungry using a single C8 inlet!

Very informative, thank you again

 

[Josh | NFC]

As a side note I didn't mean to be confusing with the polarized vs non polarized.

I wanted to carry a C8 connector as a convenience to modders, not as a necessary part in an engineered solution. Because I don't want to carry two similar products, I chose the one that is more versatile even if its function is only going to be needed by 1% of customers.

You might have an application for wanting to know which wire is which from the outside. Just like you might have an application for one of the many weird mounts I integrated into the S4M which I have no use for or intended use for yet.

Peace

 

[Flumper Dinkle]

As a side note I didn't mean to be confusing with the polarized vs non polarized.

I wanted to carry a C8 connector as a convenience to modders, not as a necessary part in an engineered solution. Because I don't want to carry two similar products, I chose the one that is more versatile even if its function is only going to be needed by 1% of customers.

You might have an application for wanting to know which wire is which from the outside. Just like you might have an application for one of the many weird mounts I integrated into the S4M which I have no use for or intended use for yet.

Peace

Not your fault at all! That's solid logic on your part.
The people buying your products (me) should be more knowledgeable in what they're buying and doing

 

[bichael]

Thought this would be a good thread to share my experience so far power tuning a 1060 evga sc 6gb. I'm using a dynamo mini with dell 330w and get resets at stock with my undervolted i7 4790. Tried a small 40mm fan over the dynamo but didn't seem to make a notable difference (maybe resets took a little longer to happen?).
What does make a big difference is finding the right clocks and power limit. Coming from an r9-290 I still find gpu boost pretty unfathomable but results are pretty good.
Now running at +210 gpu clock and +330 mem.
Firestrike graphics scores as below;
75% power = 13430
80% power = 13636
85% power = 13918
So basically I think even at 75% power it can perform in line or better than stock which is pretty awesome. So in conjunction with frame capping I think this should make a good performing, quiet and very solid build.

 

[Thirumal Kumaran]

Has anyone else tried a 1060 based build?

I bought a s4m after seeing this thread planning to do a brickless build but if Morris had to lower the power draw on his 1060 just to make it stable with a "T" series processor I can't see how it would work with my 65w cpu :/.

Edit: also @Morris did it manage to fit without interfering with the 1060 power connector?

Hi mate,
Have you tried with your 1060 build?
I'm planning to build one with 1060 & 8700 (non-K)
please let me know how it goes...

 

[BeerNsoup]

Hi mate,
Have you tried with your 1060 build?
I'm planning to build one with 1060 & 8700 (non-K)
please let me know how it goes...

I'm running my system on a 330w dell brick right now. Waiting on the rumoured 400w s4 compatible unit to spend the money. Sorry i cant be much help.