How hot should the HDPlex 160w combo get?

[chingi5]

I just got hold of a 160w AC-DC + DC-DC combo a couple of days ago to power my G4560/GTX1050 system and it works like a charm so I haven't even thought about cooling it. However after a long session of PUBG and running Furmark + Prime95 for half an hour I've decided to check how hot does the heatsink get and almost burnt myself.

It's my first time ever using DC-DC converters so I don't know whether it's safe or not. Strangely it seems to be perfectly stable but both the heatsink on the converter and the brick itself get REALLY hot to touch to the point where It's burning.

That was very concerning for me so I've taken the brick outside of the case and put an 80mm fan on top of it and also the converter gets cooled by a 120mm fan right now.

I want to know whether it's normal or should I just continue actively cooling them? I would like to avoid all of that mess with guts and wires outside of the case because all of that looks very janky. I'm using a CoolerMaster Elite 110a case by the way which has very poor airflow and I wasn't able to properly mount the AC-DC unit to the case using the ATX bracket because apparently the bracket is not the same version that is shown on the website and it doesn't fit with the AC input installed. I didn't even know there were different versions of the ATX bracket before ordering it.

 

[NateDawg72]

I have a HDPlex 160w direct plug and mine can get very hot to the touch as well. That's just the nature of these units. They convert 120/240v from the wall to 19v at the brick, and once 19v gets to the direct plug it still needs to convert it into 12v (and a little 5v/3.3v) and heat is produced at both of those steps.

Going by their product pages, the 160 direct plug states 70C for upper bound of operating temperature, and 160 ac-dc states 75C. I'm pretty confident you're running at safe temperatures.

However as an enthusiast I understand how running within operating temperature doesn't feel good enough sometimes, and I'm sure I'd end up wedging a quiet fan into the chassis (if there is room) to direct a little air at the combo.

https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-160w-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html
https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-internal-160w-ac-dc-adapter-with-active-pfc-and-19vdc-output.html

 

[bichael]

I have the dynamo mini (160w dc-atx equivalent). Powering an i5 and a 1060 in a 30oC ambient and yeah it gets pretty hot. No issue at all though. Worth remembering that 50oC already feels hot to the touch so it's probably not as bad as it seems and well within spec.

 

[Choidebu]

If you're concerned, check it with proper thermometer.

Transformers and mosfets does run hot, the fact is that the hdplex bricks are internal bricks which means metal frame, is meant to conduct this heat to the case.

A plastic cased brick (like laptop bricks) of course won't conduct heat to the outside very well (e.g. not very hot to the touch), but that doesn't mean the inside is not hot.

And if you're used to atx psus, it's another beast altogether because of a few other factors: bigger components so they don't get as hot, bigger heatsink, plenty of space inside so air insulates, plus active cooling.