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Hi all! I always see there is high interest for this server PSU and thought to write everything i know about it.

HP DPS-1200FB is server type PSU. Normally it is inserted into servers where it runs in parallel together with 2 or 3 more. You can not simply get this PSU and plug and play it with your machines. You also need to get the distribution board that will connect to this PSU, and many PCIE cables to power your graphic cards.

I have 2 versions of this, one is HSTNS-PD11 and another HSTNS-PD19. PD19 has somewhat higher efficiency, but unless you can get them for the same money as PD11, they are not really workt the money.

This PSU only has 12V output. This means you can not use it together with normal motherboards because normal motherboard uses ATX port that also has 3.3 and 5V wires.

To use this PSU with normal motherboard, it is necessary the following:

Run in parallel with normal ATX power supply. 12 port PDB (power distribution board) for this PSU comes with small port where you can plug your normal PSU, when normal PSU is started, it will also start HP PSU. I highly DO NOT recommend this mode for AMD VEGA, because the server PSU starts like few moments too late, and then your VEGA will not start properly, instead there will be green indication on vega cards and system will not boot. I don´t know if this is valid for other graphic cards as well. I had to use arduino to start my motherboard manually after the power was applied to PSUs.

Use this PSU as solo PSU, and have special tiny power supply to power the motherboard. This small psu is normally rated 100-150w and is there only to provide ATX power to motherboard. I never tried this.

Use specialized motherboards like OCTOMINER or similar. They can be powered only by 12V PCIE cables and work beautiful. Highly recommended to keep your rigs simple and super reliable. Less parts = more reliable. Now I am using 17 port PDB, 14 ports are used for 7 vegas and 3 ports for motherboard.

1200W of this PSU is rated for OUTPUT. This is not what your rig takes from the wall, from the wall will be much more, like 1300-1350W at full load. I am powering 7x Vega 56 without any issue. Depending on the rig, power consumption from the wall is around 1280W with PD19 version. With PD11, the power consumption is 30-40W more.

Unlike normal computer PSU, these are extremely robust. You can load them up all the way to 1200W and maybe even more. The cooling fan of the PSU is like a jet engine. With 6 Vegas I barely hear the PSU, with 7 Vega it sounds like the rig will take off. I thing the fan can do more than 20 000rpm.

PSU is very small in dimensions. In fact, it is hard to believe such power and efficiency is packed into such a small thing. Together with PDB and cables, it is much easier to arrange than normal desktop PSU.

PSU is thermally and overload protected. In case something goes wrong, it should protect itself. Never had experience with fan failing, or making a short circuit (dou do NOT want to make short circuit with this PSU as it will instantly melt wires and make big flash)

Now, I am on the other side of the world, away from my rigs. To simly power on my rig, i use very cheap china SONOFF POW wifi power switches. there is minimal Do-it-yourself involved to connect this switch, but for 10$ (banggood dot com) you get WIFI switch, power meter (it is measuring and logging your consumption) with this I can see by power consumption if the rigs are stuck or not mining. But this is offtopic now.

PD19 has a little bit better efficiency than PD11. I got them because it was super sweet deal on ebay. When I replaced PD11 with PD19, consumption of the rigs dropped by 30-40W.

There are special techniques to start this PSU without the PDB. PDB contains electronics for reliably starting this PSU, but it can be done without. If you need them for special purpose, you will not find the way how-to in this post. But it can be done.

Photos attached:

PSU with PDB and all cables populated. Also SONOFF POW device for remote power on/off https://i.redd.it/2gs8jw966hd11.jpg

https://i.redd.it/2gs8jw966hd11.jpg

Rig assembled with only such PSU is very clean and minimalistic. https://i.redd.it/hs8zejus6hd11.jpg

https://i.redd.it/hs8zejus6hd11.jpg

Another view https://i.redd.it/gkggpz0n6hd11.jpg

https://i.redd.it/gkggpz0n6hd11.jpg

And one more https://i.redd.it/dpvjb52z6hd11.jpg

https://i.redd.it/dpvjb52z6hd11.jpg

Did I forget something? I have no idea. Ask anything you are interested!

Merited for good writeup + +

Great post! Thanks for sharing bud

Do you have any video or any recorded sounds of this PSU I honestly didn't know the actual sounds of any server PSU I always use corsair ATX psu for my mining rigs because this PSU sounds is just like the same as gtx 1080ti super jetstream.

Do you think that this PSU is not too loud because all my rigs are in my own room and I don't like to sleep with annoying sounds?

If you sleep in the same room as your rigs, I recommend you stick with the PSU you are using now. If not overloaded, the HP server PSU is not so much loud, but it is loud for sleeping. Also, when you just start your rig, the HP PSU will slowly ramp the fan speed up until really loud, and then regulates back to normal, but this ramp will for sure wake you up. Unfortunately I don´t have the video, I am away from my rigs for next 20 days.

My first merit. Thanks!! :D

Everything is looking fine and clean however as an IT I want to stress out that you have your cards "too near each other" risking the temperature of the cards to go really high.

I maybe wrong but I don't see any dedicated cooling fans to the card. As you know heat makes the life of any electronic products shorter. I have learned this in my CompTIA A+ certification a few years ago.

Hello! Thanks for your input, a valid one for sure as I saw plenty things destroyed by heat. There is enough air being sucked from the fans, that all the surrounding is actively cooled, basically everything is ambient temperature. I have a thermal camera and basically the only things that heat up is the GPU core. Cpu, cables, capacitors, motherboard, everything stays at ambient.

It's loud as fuck. <600W is quiet, 700-800W load is tolerable, everything above that sounds like a jet engine.
I wouldn't use it in a living room.

Great post,

I would be interested in a more detailled breakdown of your sonoff solution (model, wiring, what you use for remote, and so on)

Cheers. 8)

You don´t need a ATX power supply. You can use a pico psu for the mainboard. There are also breakout-boards avaible.

Hi, great post. I am interested in the cables, connections, etc. The board connectors are only 6 pin, but your Vega 56's are two 8 pin? Are you using a single 6 pin cable to 8 pin, so two cables for each Vega 56? I have read so many differing opinions on how many watts a 6 pin cable can take and what an 8 pin plug requires, etc, so Id be very interested on your take on this.

Kind regards.

Should mention these are rated for 1200watts on 220/240v and only 900watts on 110/120v lines.
I have had several over the years.  My last was connected to a 255v feed for over a year with no issues.  Very durable and compact little buggers.

A bit more info about the internals of the subject here https://github.com/raplin/DPS-1200FB

A 6-pin can handle more then 75 watts of power. For example if a 6 pin were restricted to 75 watts then we would be getting  2.08A per 12v yellow cable 2.08*3*12 = 75 watts , but awg 18 are able to deliver up to 10A per yellow under optimal circumstances  , so theoretically  10*3*12= 360 watts.  But thats the cable then we have the terminals..

Standard terminals are rated for 8amps then  there is HCS terminals that are rated for 11amps and Plus HCS terminals 12amps

so with a 6-pin pcie  with 2*8*12= 192 watts from 6 pin pcie 18awg
               8-pin pcie with 3*8*12=  288 watts 8 pin pcie 18 awg   

So 6 pin 75 watts of power rating are vastly underrated.

Thanks for the detailed info.
I currently use, just to play it safe, a coupler cable which goes from two 6 pins into a single 8 pin, so on a single HP 1200w server power supply and a 12x6 breakout board, I can run a maximum of 3 1080 Ti's (which require two 8 pin's each), as this would then require four 6 pins per 1080 Ti. Is this overkill? Or could I safely do away with the dual 6 pin coupler to single 8 pin, and just use a single 6 pin to 6+2 cable into each 1080 Ti 8 pin port?

Hi there!

I bought on ebay pci-e cables that are 6p on one end (This plug into the breakout board of PSU) and 6p+2p on other end (this plug into your GPU or wherever you need them)

I am using 2 cables per GPU and never had any issue. But I did screw up when i connected only one cable to power my Octominer mining motherboard, and then the plug burned, now i am using 3 cables to power the motherboard.
I use 17 port breakout board from ebay, these work great for me, and the one with 12 port, i didn't like so much, i think the connectors on them are not as good as on 17 port.

If you don't mind the noise, powering 6 vegas (optimised, of course, not at default settings where they pull 300 watt each) is easy with this PSU. Now my rigs are 8 GPU, i just use 2 1200W PSU, one powering 4 vegas, another 4 vegas and a motherboard, and that works nice for me and PSU is not as noisy as working with 6 vegas.

if you connect 2 separate PCI-e cables for powering the Vega (actually, vega will not work with one cable, both must be plugged) you will not have issues with burned connectors or instability. My only fuckup was that, powering a mobo with only one cable, and that was on 12-port breakout board and the plug burned. I think it was the plug fault on breakout board, not the cable itself.

cheers! Smiley

Hi, great info, I really appreciate it.
Im having trouble finding the 17 port breakout board, do you have a link please?

I don't know if it is allowed to post links, but here it is

I copied the link from my app, ot reroutes to ebay.co.uk for some reason, but the boaed itself is from china

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F372386003892

Thats overkill alot!  You can more then feel safe with 1x6 pin to 8pin x2 for 1 1080ti . So yeah one cable per  8 pin and you are set :)
Just dont use those sata connectors for risers. Happy mining.

It is now more than a year since I opened this post, so here are few more experiences.

1. One PSU died on me because i was constantly cycling the power (like hundreds of times). After it happened to me, i learned that if the rig has an issue, visit the actual rig and fix in place instead fucking it remotely

2. Tried to reverse cooling fan flow direction. When loaded PSU with 1200W of load, it shut down few minutes later on over temperature. Fan didn't speed up, because when reversing the flow, you are screwing up with temperature sensor that relies on correct air flow direction

3. Difference between PD11 and PD19 is about 30-50W of power which they take from the wall, when loaded to the maximum

4. I had many of these PSUs working in overload (1350-1400W from the wall) and while they sounded like SpaceX rocket launch, they never failed.

5. When used with Octominer board (minin riserless board) I used 2 PSUs in parallel. One was powering 4 Vega, and other 4 Vega and a motherboard. There were no issues and system works perfectly like that, but i noticed that plugs that power the motherboard heat more than usual. Maybe due some voltage differences there are some currents flowing where they should not. I now use 3 pcie cables to power the motherboard. Already working like that for half a year on 4 rigs.

Overall, I love these PSUs. Small, powerful and efficient, perfect solution for rigs with mining motherboards that can be powered only by pcie cables.