Discussion New Skyreach S4M keeps shutting down. Advice needed!

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
As the title states I just built a brand new system in one of Josh's AWESOME cases. Skyreach S4 Mini moving on from my S4M Classic(previous travel build).

Here's my issue. Every time I start a game the system crashes. It also crashes on 3dMark as soon as the test begins. I believe it may be power related. Please advise.

Specs:
Ryzen 3700X no Overclock and Power Boost disabled in BIOS
Zotac RTX 2070 Super Mini
G.Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 CL14 Samsung B-die Ram 2x8GB
HDPlex 400W DC-DC
Dell 330W Power Brick(authentic pretty sure, purchased from TigerDirect, and paid a pretty penny) One thing to note though is that the green power LED never turns on, no matter what order I plug things in. It has never turned on.

Other stuff:
Samsung 970 m.2 NVME 2TB Boot drive
2x 4TB Samsung 2.5 SSD's
Noctua NHL9A cooler with stock fan until I shave down my Cryorig C7G to fit without jet noise due to close proximity of case wall.

The system will actually be powered directly from my custom 24V Tesla Battery Bank in my RV here in a month when I move into it and go on the move(military). For now though I assumed the 330w power brick should suffice for this system during testing and when I want to go portable. I remember a bunch of people on here building their S4MC's with 1080ti minis and running more power hungry processors than I am with no issues. According to the Zotac site, the power consumption is the same. Does anyone else have a similar setup running without issues? Any advice is appreciated. I only have a short period of time to get this sorted out before I deploy to new location.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.
 

Fede

Trash Compacter
Jun 3, 2020
38
5
Yes, 330W it's not enought.

You can check in the Zotac website, this gpu has a power consumption of 215W
Zotac Spects

The Ryzen 3700X has a power consumption of 65W
3700X Spects

So, only CPU + GPU = 280W and your PSU is 330 W
The PSU never gives you the Maximum power, just between 80% and 90%, in your case (264W/297W)

And you have anothers components:
Motherboard (4/6 W)
The Noctua NHL9A (2.5 W)
Keyboard (3 W) if you have a RGB Keyboard (8W)
Mouse (1 W)
M.2 Drive (6 W)
2x 4TB Drive (12 W)
RAM (2/4 W)

So, minimum you need 400W PSU
The power limit is your dell 330W, if you put a HDPLEX AC-DC 400Watts you will plenty use your HDPLEX DC-DC 400Watts
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Yes, 330W it's not enought.

You can check in the Zotac website, this gpu has a power consumption of 215W
Zotac Spects

The Ryzen 3700X has a power consumption of 65W
3700X Spects

So, only CPU + GPU = 280W and your PSU is 330 W
The PSU never gives you the Maximum power, just between 80% and 90%, in your case (264W/297W)

And you have anothers components:
Motherboard (4/6 W)
The Noctua NHL9A (2.5 W)
Keyboard (3 W) if you have a RGB Keyboard (8W)
Mouse (1 W)
M.2 Drive (6 W)
2x 4TB Drive (12 W)
RAM (2/4 W)

So, minimum you need 400W PSU
The power limit is your dell 330W, if you put a HDPLEX AC-DC 400Watts you will plenty use your HDPLEX DC-DC 400Watts
Thank you for your help. Because I'm on a bit of a time crunch do you think I would continue to have the same issue if I just downgraded to a Zotac 2060 Super Mini? It's consumption is listed at 175W. So with what you've graciously detailed above that would leave me with about 279.5 Total wattage. That's right in between the 80-90%, but do you think that would be cutting it too close? I should also note that I went with the ASUS ROG STRIX B450I motherboard due to reading about the 550/570 boards using MUCH more power than the 450 series.There's also a standard 2060 that's only 160W Consumption, but then I'd only have 6GB DDR and it's on 192 bit memory bus. :( I would much rather not go with the standard 2060, and I'm researching now to find the lowest consumption card around the 2060 Super/OC/Amp or whatever buzz word they choose to use nowadays to signify a boost clocked card that will fit in the mini.

I don't want to have to buy another power brick. The Dell one is more rugged for my use case when I need to remove it from the RV. Also, the cabling does not appear to be as robust on the HDPLEX. Thanks for your help so far, let me know if you can assist a little bit more.

I haven't searched yet, but I seem to remember somebody modifying the Dell Bricks for 'slightly' more wattage capability. Looking into that as well atm.
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
How many amps have?
My battery bank is 2x 2018 Tesla P100D Battery Modules.
1032 cells / 534AH / 12.75KWH

I will probably be adding a 3rd cell as an upgrade in a couple months, if I feel I need it. That would bring me to
1548 cells / 801AH / 19.125KWH

Also, the BMS I designed doesn't fully discharge the batteries. I charge to 90% and discharge to 15% So utilizing ~75% of the battery bank leaves me with ~400AH or ~600AH with the 3 cell upgrade. My Solar system is 800W, and I regularly pull in about 700-750W constant here in VA. Plus I'll be in Florida Keys so I should have a pretty good amount of 'sun-time' most days.

I spoke with Gary(I think that was his name) at HDPLEX via e-mail and he said I should have no issues running 24V directly into the 400W DC-ATX v2.1 that I have now.
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Lol I stumbled onto the exact same choice, then came back here to find this. Ordering now. Thanks so much for your help!!

Looking forward to doing some thermal testing with that setup. Kinda wish it had a backplate, but owell. Hopefully my SSD's won't get too hot.
 

Fede

Trash Compacter
Jun 3, 2020
38
5
Lol I stumbled onto the exact same choice, then came back here to find this. Ordering now. Thanks so much for your help!!

Looking forward to doing some thermal testing with that setup. Kinda wish it had a backplate, but owell. Hopefully my SSD's won't get too hot.
Great!!
When you test please tell me!!
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Great!!
When you test please tell me!!
So since the Asus RTX Dual 2070 is delayed, I couldn't guarantee I would get one in time. I ordered one anyway. I ordered a Zotac 2060 Super for some testing while I'm waiting. It came in today. I can tell you that I still have the same issue, of the computer shutting down when attempting to play any games/3dMark benchmark.

The 2060 Super I have in it at the moment is the Zotac Mini version. If I bring the power down to 75% it will run. but at that point, I feel like I'm not getting my moneys worth because it's still barely stable and the 3D mark scores aren't that great. Since this is the same power requirement 175W needed for the 2070, I cancelled that order, returned the 2060 Super and purchased a Zotac GTX 1660Ti Amp edition. It runs at only 130W power consumption. After some tests I've seen in reviews, it does not go above 135W ever. The game I need the most is CSGO, and today I threw an old EVGA 1050Ti in for testing. I still get over 200 FPS with that. So from the reviews of seen of the 1660 Ti should easily get me the 240 constant I usually run at with my monitor.

Long story short. I don't think you can power the 3700X AND any of the RTX cards currently available. Not off the Dell Brick anyway, or I just got a really weak one. So I guess I'll settle for no RTX for now. The less power consumption the better anyway, since I'll be gaming off a battery bank in an RV. Sorry I won't have a testing update of the 2070 to share with you....
 

lagauche

Cable Smoosher
Jun 21, 2020
12
3
Why not go brickless with HDPlex AC unit and find something like the Inno3D 2070? That's my config and it's working flawlessly except for the crappy noise of the Inno3d fans and the coil whine. (Can't win them all)
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
Jun 22, 2018
738
1,512
Why not go brickless with HDPlex AC unit and find something like the Inno3D 2070? That's my config and it's working flawlessly except for the crappy noise of the Inno3d fans and the coil whine. (Can't win them all)

Deshroud and Noctua mod the fans and your golden
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Why not go brickless with HDPlex AC unit and find something like the Inno3D 2070? That's my config and it's working flawlessly except for the crappy noise of the Inno3d fans and the coil whine. (Can't win them all)
I'm not interested in going brickless because I already have a brickless S4 Mini Classic brickless build. That's the PC I use when I'm traveling. It is a little old in the tooth at this point. Ryzen 1700X and 1050 Ti.

This PC I'm building is specifically designed for use in my RV/Vanlife. Where I don't want to plug the Computer into AC outlets. Using the Inverter alone wastes power and generates heat. In an RV/Vanlife build both are a counterintuitive especially if you live in FL where it's going to be hot outside already. So basically I need the computer to plug directly into my 24V power bank. I need it to run off the Dell brick for the cases where I want to game somewhere else should it arise.

If it's an A/C powered computer, I would have waste/loss taking the 24V DC from power bank, converting that to A/C for the brick. Then suffering waste/loss again when the brick turns the power back into the 19V DC for the HD Plex 400W power supply. It may sound like it doesn't matter, but when you're building a Van to run completely off-grid from solar without the need to ever plug in, every little bit of power matters. This is specifically why I use the Asus ROG Gaming monitor as well. It uses a 19V AC/DC external power brick. So instead of utilizing the inverter and wasting power twice while converting it I can simply step the voltage down to 19V from 24V and plug directly into the monitor. No inverter needed and the power loss/waste/heat that comes with that process.

Everything in your house already runs off of DC, the appliance whatever it is, just converts the A/C power. I'm removing the need for A/C voltage entirely. My 24" TV and even the 4 USB-C and 4 USB-A charging ports in my van for phones etc. are ran directly off of the Tesla Battery Bank. I also have a 2TB Shield TV Pro that runs off 19V with the step down. I removed the A/C brick altogether.

Long story short. A/C power really only exists everywhere because it's ability to make LOOOOONG wire runs without significant losses in power. If your house was wired with DC the wire runs would need to be very thick because of the distance traveled. In a van I don't have the length issue.

Sorry if you already knew most of this information, but I figured it would completely explain my goals and the reasoning behind them. That way it doesn't seem like I'm just being stubborn about using the Dell Brick. It's just that a 1660 Ti can still run my main game at 244 FPS and the other games I play will be on the 24" TV where it only has a 60Hz refresh rate anyway, so no need to waste extra power making more frames if I'm only going to see 60 at a time no matter what.
 

Goatee

King of Cable Management
Jun 22, 2018
738
1,512
Please feel free to shoot this down but have you considered having two power connectors on the back of the case?

If have a 24v input you can run one connection directly to the dc-atx (which accepts the 24 natively) as your doing now, with a secondary connection to a AC/DC in brickless for when you have access to mains voltage?

My view is the dell 330W bricks are more hassle than they are worth.
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Please feel free to shoot this down but have you considered having two power connectors on the back of the case?

If have a 24v input you can run one connection directly to the dc-atx (which accepts the 24 natively) as your doing now, with a secondary connection to a AC/DC in brickless for when you have access to mains voltage?

My view is the dell 330W bricks are more hassle than they are worth.
This is something I thought about early on and would really like to do in the future. Possible with an HDPLEX brick internal and a C6 power connector. And just re-pin/wire the HDPLEX 400W DC/DC power supply to be wired into both connectors. I tried to buy one of the 'offset rear I/O brackets for 2070 cards' from someone off this forum to do exactly that from the get go. That didn't work out, I think they were all gone by the time I requested to purchase so I went with this setup for now.

I used a C6 power connector on my original brickless S4 mini classic. Since I have until after July 4th weekend to be completely finished and hit the road I probably won't right now. But like many of the others on a forum like this, I'm constantly tweaking my setup. If this is something I do in the future I will definitely do a build thread. Right now, my build is not unique enough to warrant one. Below is the connector I used on the last build. Don't mind the missing graphics card lol, I'm using it in the new build to my new one arrives.
 

Fede

Trash Compacter
Jun 3, 2020
38
5
Hi brandon!

I just build in a S4 Mini Case
i7 10700 + Asus RTX2070 + HDPlex 400 AC-DC + HDplex DC-DC and works perfect!!

I use the same C6 conector for PSU


You can see all the pictures here:
 

Brandon86

Trash Compacter
Original poster
Feb 15, 2017
37
48
Hi brandon!

I just build in a S4 Mini Case
i7 10700 + Asus RTX2070 + HDPlex 400 AC-DC + HDplex DC-DC and works perfect!!

I use the same C6 conector for PSU


You can see all the pictures here:
Very NICE!!

Just checked the build thread. Add some full body photos on there! would love to see the whole rig with panels on as well!
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
@Brandon86 Going by your shutdown issues I would guess your power brick is defective. Do you have access to your battery bank as of now? If so, try testing it connected to it and see if it shuts down using that as the power source; if it doesn't you will known your brick needs an RMA. If it needs replacing, getting a HDPlex AC-DC 400 and using it externally might be a better solution (particularly in a hot environment like Florida, given that it has the option of active cooling).