Log J-Hack Pure Mk2 with R5 5500 and RTX A2000 | Finally a power switch that fits

[robbee]

I would go with the Aliexpress vandal switches that @BaK linked. You're looking for a momentary 16mm switch with the LED working at 3-6V. You'll need to custom wire them though, because the premade connectors will make then interfere with the psu again. This is easily done by soldering them, if you're comfortable with that.

 

[Snerual]

I finally had some time to continue with this project. I still had super-occasional reboots, but disabling CPB in BIOS as suggested fixed this. However, without CPB you are also stuck at 3.6 GHz, basically making the CPU 20% slower... Efficiency is crazy though, all-core Cinebench with CPB off is only 30W.

Next up, soldering time! As suggested, I flipped the CPU power cables to the backside of the board. This was my fist soldering job in YEARS and I don't have flux, so it took quite long and doesn't look perfect but overall I am happy with the end result.

As expected, it helped with clearance quite a bit, but the on/off switch still sticks out by a few mm:

Now that the RTX 4000 SFF provides a potential (way overpriced) upgrade path in a few years, I am much more committed to the project and decided to make it my main build. I am not a very demanding gamer and building and tweaking my machine brings me as much if not more joy than the actual gaming itself, so the J-Hack makes perfect sense as my main rig.

This means I moved my B550 board to the J-Hack! The 24 pin is ever so slightly further to the left, and the CPU 8-pin is in a much more practical location. As a consequence, the switch now fits perfectly and cable managing the CPU power cable is much cleaner:

Much more importantly however, having full access to overclocking settings is a GODSEND. I restricted TDP to 45W which means an all-core boost of 3.85 GHz in Cinebench. At the same time I increased max boost clockspeed to 4.4 GHz so now it effectively matches a 5600G under low core count loads. This is really the best of both worlds and I can probably achieve better results still once I start undervolting.

Next steps (in order):

- I really need front USB for my use case, so I'll look on AliExpress for the shortest and most compact front USB module I can find. (ideally 2 ports, still doubting if I shouldn't go USB-C even though my mobo doesn't support it). Cutting the front panel of the case will be quite a daunting task!
- If/when the new HDPlex comes out, I will probably pick it up. Also look for a nice GaN brick at the same time.
- Shunt mod? I'm pretty sure the motherboard can handle it but I don't know if I'll be willing to deal with the noise.
- Alternatively, RTX 4000 SFF because yolo. I expect that thing will never ever be as cheap and widely available as A2000s are today though. We kind of got "lucky" with the mining craze ending. Nobody is gonna mine on RTX 4000 SFF and then dump them a year later...

 

[princess_daphie]

In the unlikely event my "300w" Aliexpress plugin PSU solves my reboot issues I'll happily sell you my PicoPSU. Otherwise I suppose we are both waiting for this summer for the HDPlex restock.

I'm very curious as to whether or not this unit worked well for you?! I've migrated my main build to this unit with the largest Mean Well 12V external power brick (the 330w model, finally bit the bullet and bought one) and it's been working like a champ so far. Was even able to withstand both a prime95 and unigine heaven test with a 5600G and a 1660 super, pulling close to 200w from the wall. Of course it also works well with my rtx a2000.

 

[princess_daphie]

This means I moved my B550 board to the J-Hack! The 24 pin is ever so slightly further to the left, and the CPU 8-pin is in a much more practical location. As a consequence, the switch now fits perfectly and cable managing the CPU power cable is much cleaner:

Much more importantly however, having full access to overclocking settings is a GODSEND. I restricted TDP to 45W which means an all-core boost of 3.85 GHz in Cinebench. At the same time I increased max boost clockspeed to 4.4 GHz so now it effectively matches a 5600G under low core count loads. This is really the best of both worlds and I can probably achieve better results still once I start undervolting.

Really happy to know that your build is working stable now!!!

 

[alexep7]

Closely following this thread, I'm sort of in the same boat.

I had a G4560 + GT 1030 until recently on that "200W" Realan pico from Aliexpress with a 120W brick, everything worked beautifully. Recently changed the GPU to the forum favourite A2000 and it still worked, no reboots even when stress testing, which I was not expecting at all. Turns out the G4560, despite its rated 54W TDP, only pulls about 25W maximum with iGPU disabled and that's why I never had issues. However, now that I've changed the CPU to a i7-7700T which pulls up to 45W under stress I'm experiencing reboots when doing something intensive.

I got a used minibox pico and a 150W brick at home which I assume is going to solve the problem but I'd like to upgrade in the near future to a modern CPU with more cores and that means more power too.
However the idea of keeping it all very efficient and under 150W really appeals to me and I'd rather play with CPU power limits than getting a new, bigger and more expensive PSU!

 

[Snerual]

Closely following this thread, I'm sort of in the same boat.

I had a G4560 + GT 1030 until recently on that "200W" Realan pico from Aliexpress with a 120W brick, everything worked beautifully. Recently changed the GPU to the forum favourite A2000 and it still worked, no reboots even when stress testing, which I was not expecting at all. Turns out the G4560, despite its rated 54W TDP, only pulls about 25W maximum with iGPU disabled and that's why I never had issues. However, now that I've changed the CPU to a i7-7700T which pulls up to 45W under stress I'm experiencing reboots when doing something intensive.

I got a used minibox pico and a 150W brick at home which I assume is going to solve the problem but I'd like to upgrade in the near future to a modern CPU with more cores and that means more power too.
However the idea of keeping it all very efficient and under 150W really appeals to me and I'd rather play with CPU power limits than getting a new, bigger and more expensive PSU!

In your case, it sounds ike the 120W brick could be the main culprit? Just GPU and CPU are already 115W combined. Add all other components and you are probably looking at 130W total system consumption under max load. Depending on how recent you are looking to go, I think the Ryzen 5500 or the 5700G are currently still the best chips in terms of performance per watt. They are basically recycled laptop dies and their monolithic design means you don't lose 15W simply powering the IO die like with "real" Ryzen CPUs. Any B350 or B450 board will let you play wth power limits all day. I'm curious to see if they will ever release similar Ryzen 7000 series chips.

 

[Snerual]

Really happy to know that your build is working stable now!!!

Thanks! I haven't had time for fine tuning yet but I am really looking forward to seeing how much performance I can squeeze out of the CPU at 40W (which would allow full GPU and CPU load with the current PSU). Also really curious to see if I can get the boost clocks equal to the 5700G. Purely for science of course, I don't think there are any games where the RTX A2000 isn't the bottleneck.

 

[alexep7]

In your case, it sounds ike the 120W brick could be the main culprit? Just GPU and CPU are already 115W combined. Add all other components and you are probably looking at 130W total system consumption under max load. Depending on how recent you are looking to go, I think the Ryzen 5500 or the 5700G are currently still the best chips in terms of performance per watt. They are basically recycled laptop dies and their monolithic design means you don't lose 15W simply powering the IO die like with "real" Ryzen CPUs. Any B350 or B450 board will let you play wth power limits all day. I'm curious to see if they will ever release similar Ryzen 7000 series chips.

I tried it with the 150W brick and it was the same, it was definitely the pico unit. It's the same one you had with only 8A on 12V. I measured power consumption with the A2000+G4560 and it was only ~100W

Assuming the new higher quality pico works, I have been thinking of a 5700G with a hard ~50W power limit but not sure how easy these hard limits are on AMD (as opposed to PL1 and PL2 in Intel CPUs)

 

[Snerual]

I tried it with the 150W brick and it was the same, it was definitely the pico unit. It's the same one you had with only 8A on 12V. I measured power consumption with the A2000+G4560 and it was only ~100W

Assuming the new higher quality pico works, I have been thinking of a 5700G with a hard ~50W power limit but not sure how easy these hard limits are on AMD (as opposed to PL1 and PL2 in Intel CPUs)

The 5700G has a configurable TDP out of the box. You can basically put it in 45W mode with a single switch on the BIOS (I think even on A-series motherboard but not sure about it) Other than that, what you describe is exactly what you can do with PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) You can limit the max wattage of the CPU to any value you want and the PBO algorithm will stay within those limits. You can even go a level deeper and limit the amps.

 

[smitty2k1]

I'm very curious as to whether or not this unit worked well for you?! I've migrated my main build to this unit with the largest Mean Well 12V external power brick (the 330w model, finally bit the bullet and bought one) and it's been working like a champ so far. Was even able to withstand both a prime95 and unigine heaven test with a 5600G and a 1660 super, pulling close to 200w from the wall. Of course it also works well with my rtx a2000.

It did! Sorry for not following up. No issues since replacing my old PicoPSU with this one. Still using a 200w meanwell internal AC/DC and still with just a 65w CPU and 75w GPU.

 

[princess_daphie]

It did! Sorry for not following up. No issues since replacing my old PicoPSU with this one. Still using a 200w meanwell internal AC/DC and still with just a 65w CPU and 75w GPU.

Nice! Happy to hear! Quite the economical solution compared to the mini-box one too, right?!

My new build is using this guy too, and I haven't had a single problem with it so far, even after modifying it like a noob, lol! I actually have 3 units, so if I feel like doing another version/mod, or another build, I've got them, and all 3 cost me much less than a single 160-XT would've cost me (the fact that I'm in Canada probably doesn't help, but still)!

I did buy a Mean Well 330w brick though and that one cost me, but it was more reasonable as far as shipping and all through mouser.ca. I paid roughly 200$ for a superb quality 330w 12v brick.

 

[Snerual]

Hmmmm now I'm curious and kind of want to order one just to compare it... Also curious if those empty holes on the PCB could be used to add a 6-pin PCIe cable. I also found this one which is also produced by IOASPOW but the PCB design is slightly different (wider and bigger caps?) and in this one all the holes are used for an 8pin CPU power connector vs 4 pin on the one you linked previously. Wondering which is better... maybe @REVOCCASES can help shed some light here?

Aside from that some small updates:
- CPU now reaches 4.4 GHz single core boost and 4 Ghz all core. This is with a 45W TDP and done by applying a -20 offset on the PBO curve.
- My soldering job didn't go so great and I have to re-do the CPU power cable (hence my renewed interest in Ali-Expres DC-ATX)
- I have ordered a copper heatsink from n3rdware and will try to pair it with 2 60mm Noctua Fans
- If the copper heatsink works as well as I expect I think a shunt mod with an added PCIe 6-pin cable is more likely (yet another reason to be interested in AliExpress 300W boards). However that shunt mod is definitely something I will have to outsource to someone with more professional soldering skills.


Bonus picture: A friend asked me to repaste his overheating Vega 56. The card was as big as my entire computer AND the RTX A2000 trades blows with the Vega 56.

 

[REVOCCASES]

Hmmmm now I'm curious and kind of want to order one just to compare it... Also curious if those empty holes on the PCB could be used to add a 6-pin PCIe cable. I also found this one which is also produced by IOASPOW but the PCB design is slightly different (wider and bigger caps?) and in this one all the holes are used for an 8pin CPU power connector vs 4 pin on the one you linked previously. Wondering which is better... maybe @REVOCCASES can help shed some light here?

AFAIK this is a modified version for "miners" but I don't see why it shouldn't also work fine for a normal PC build.

BTW, there is also a "380W" version but I didn't find any offers on Taobao/Aliexpress

iDDDIP380A-Dongguan Aokpower Electronics Co., Ltd.

 

[Snerual]

That's interesting! I also noticed the 300W version on their website has a PCIe 8pin cable coming out of it! I do not see this present in any of the AliExpress listings, but worst case, soldering such a cable should be within my soldering capabilities.

Edit: Looking at the specs of that 380W it actually has a weaker 12V rail but stronger 5 and 3.3V rails. I assume it's intended for NAS with lots of SATA drives.

 

[princess_daphie]

I think I've mentioned it in one of my posts about this unit, but I'm ahead of you guys, lol, YES you can add any kind of 12V wires you want from those empty holes. They're all 12v+ and 12v- lines.




This unit is very easy to mod. Depending on versions, you can see some are modified for miners or for stability by tapping those direct 12V lines into the 24pin 12V pins. You could also in theory make a stronger EPS 12V connector by using 4 of these lines to get 4 wires to the connector instead of the default 2, or you could make an auxiliary 12V 4pin connector like there are on some boards, etc.

 

[Snerual]

Nice! So you added those cables yourself, yes? I guess the pictures on the AliExpress listing are wrong then? Because yours clearly has the 3 big caps like the mining version has where as the pictures of the non-mining version look like they are from the "380W version" that Revoccases shared. Figure I'll just order 2 myself then because as you said price is low and it never hurts to have spare parts (especially with my soldering skills lol)

 

[princess_daphie]

Nice! So you added those cables yourself, yes? I guess the pictures on the AliExpress listing are wrong then? Because yours clearly has the 3 big caps like the mining version has where as the pictures of the non-mining version look like they are from the "380W version" that Revoccases shared. Figure I'll just order 2 myself then because as you said price is low and it never hurts to have spare parts (especially with my soldering skills lol)

Yeah, I added those myself. My soldering skills are still very iffy, but with the free vias, it was relatively easy to do.

As for the version of the thing, when I ordered (from a different seller than the link given, but this seller offers free returns, so I regretted not purchasing through them, just in case, you know, haha, that's why i linked that one), I got a message from the seller telling me that the unit they were shipping right now were a newer version, so I guess that's why I got the one with one more big cap. In theory, it shouldn't stop it from being able to give 300w though I guess. Good thing if it's rated at even higher. I tested it for a few minutes running a 200w load, using my custom cable plugged into a 1660 super, my 5600G, running unigine heaven and prime95, and it handled it just fine, without heating up that much.

 

[REVOCCASES]

Just a note: keep an eye on the temperature of those barrel connectors for 12VDC input... not sure what type they use exactly but if you're pulling more than 150W continuesly with your system, I'd use something better like XT60 connectors.

 

[princess_daphie]

Just a note: keep an eye on the temperature of those barrel connectors for 12VDC input... not sure what type they use exactly but if you're pulling more than 150W continuesly with your system, I'd use something better like XT60 connectors.

Indeed!!

I finally posted my build, so if you want to see an example of how I took care of this, take a look at my thread! https://smallformfactor.net/forum/t...its-a-4-19l-modded-k29-pc-lots-of-pics.18464/

 

[REVOCCASES]

Indeed!!

I finally posted my build, so if you want to see an example of how I took care of this, take a look at my thread! https://smallformfactor.net/forum/t...its-a-4-19l-modded-k29-pc-lots-of-pics.18464/

I see you used GX12 connectors? Unfortunately they're not much better or even worse (the cheaper ones are mostly rated for 5A only) ... the normal barrel connectors that come with many PicoPSUs are completely made from brass and can at least conduct some heat to the case, the GX12 can't because the PINs are embedded in plastic for insulation... so depending on your continuous load you *could* run into some issues here...

To be on the safe side, personally I'm always using XT60 or XT90 connectors for higher wattage 12VDC applications.