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STX with m.2 GPU fun build

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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In very feint writing on the side of the green part of the plugs it says: 300V 8A 14-26AWG. I can't imagine anyone actually putting 300V through this though lol.

It's standard. Almost any piece of wire or power connector is rated at 300V (at least the type of stuff we're dealing with for computers).
 

TheGooseIsHere

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Dec 26, 2016
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Experiment 2 was a success. I succesfully attached a 5.5x2.5mm plug onto the end of a Dell PA-13 adapter and it actually worked to power the motherboard. I am somewhat surprised about this! I was half expecting something to catch fire from the way I crudely wrapped the wires around each other.

Anyway, this means that I should be fairly easily able to split the power into two devices (hopefully!). When I actually get round to making it I will probably use solder.



 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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I'd be skeptical of the voltage regulation and ripple claims on the cheap units. But otherwise it should work in theory.
 

TheGooseIsHere

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The one I linked states 50mV as the 'max' value for ripple, some other models state 'under 100mV'. Not sure how I could go about testing it myself other than borrowing an oscilloscope from one of my university's labs, but I at least hope it will be under 120mV...

I think it's worth at least trying and testing if it is stable since it's a relatively cheap solution...
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Yeah, only way to know for sure is to use a scope. ATX spec says 120mV max on the 12V so it's worth a shot if you have an old video card you don't mind possibly sacrificing to test it.
 

TheGooseIsHere

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I've ordered one and will test the voltage output with a multimeter first to make sure it is within a few tenths of 12V (lets say +-0.4V). If this is the case and it remains stable, I might look around for an old graphics card and try it out.

However I don't really want to rush into trying dodgy ways of powering the system in case I destroy the motherboard/cpu (the most expensive components), so I will probably not try it with the adapter splitter at first.
 
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TheGooseIsHere

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P4SM2 Arrived!

Surprisingly the graphics card fits directly onto the P4SM2 and the motherboard without use of a pci-e extender, although the m.2 adapter can't be screwed down in place due to the rear USB/Ethernet port box thing being in the way. The slight lift of the p4sm2 doesn't seem to be putting much pressure on the M.2 slot though so it seems safe, as long as the card doesn't move around while in use.

Currently using an ATX power supply to power the GPU and I've had heaven benchmark running on it for about 15 minutes so it seems stable. Bandwidth is PCI-E Gen 3.0 4x which is good

Picture album:
(or click spoiler below to see full res pics)













EDIT: Tested and working with riser cable too. This riser isn't very flexible though

 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Haha, me too. Now I'm thinking about a console-style layout with this card but with Mini-ITX for a gaming computer the size of a college textbook.
 

Kmpkt

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I'm just hoping that AMD releases an RX Nano card for this kind of build. As long as the power spiking isn't insane like the R9 nano, we could end up with a 4K/VR build right around 3L using mini STX.
 
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TheGooseIsHere

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Dec 26, 2016
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Yeah, I just realised that the 1050 ti LP looks to be about an inch longer than the 750 ti LP unfortunately :(

1050ti

750ti

 
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TheGooseIsHere

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I seem to have encountered some instability with the graphics card after about half an hour of playing SC2.

Suddenly in the middle of a game the FPS dropped from around 100 to about 30, and from checking afterburner the GPU core clock and memory clock seem to have both dropped to 405MHz (normally around 1.1k MHz)
 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Those cheap PCIe extenders are known to cause issues. If you open up GPU-Z and run something that'll put a load on the GPU (I think it has a built-in tool to do that) and check what PCIe gen and lane configuration it's running at. It may have dropped to 2.0 x1.
 
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TheGooseIsHere

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Those cheap PCIe extenders are known to cause issues. If you open up GPU-Z and run something that'll put a load on the GPU (I think it has a built-in tool to do that) and check what PCIe gen and lane configuration it's running at. It may have dropped to 2.0 x1.
I did check GPU-Z after it occurred and it said it was still running at 3.0 x4. Restarting seems to have fixed the problem, will do some more stress testing and see if it happens again.