PSU PCI-E Wattage? And Some General PSU Info?

[GunXpatriot]

So I just caught a great deal in the dark corners of Ebay, from a legit U.S. seller. Always good, huh? I've been hunting for a good Ebay gem, and while I don't think I came accross THE gem, but I've certainly found a hell of a deal. Unfortunately, I lost an equally good one yesterday. Anyway...

I'm basically getting a bundle of Antminers and PSU's, but the PSU's actually make up the price for the auction, so more or less, I just got two free antminers. Not too bad. They're S1's, but when you get 'em for almost nothing, and you have fairly cheap electricity, I don't think that's such a bad thing, even if they're inefficient. However, despite having build a PC a few months ago, and already running a couple of miners... It turns out, I don't know a whole lot about PSUs!

First off, I've recently been looking for a bigger gold rated PSU for units that don't have their own built in power supply, such as Antminer S1, S3, and now, S5. But you guys know what I mean. However, with this stuff coming in, I was thinking about using that Add2PSU thing, and combining two PSU's. But I have some questions on that, and I know there are quite a few around here, who are using that product. To my understanding, it lets you use two PSU's on one system, without... Well, whatever bad stuff would happen, if the two units weren't connected properly. But the uses seem to be limited.

I'm understanding it like this... Suppose you had two 600 watt PSU's, and you have a unit that needs like 800 watts. You could now safely combine the two 600 watt PSU's, to power the unit, correct? But that leads me to another question...

How much power can safely go through a 6-pin PCI-E connection? When I got my first S1, I had a Corsair CX500m. It had only a single 8 pin connector, which branched off into 2x 6+2 pin connectors. Whether it was safe or not, I ran the non-overclocked S1 (360 watts) through that single 8-pin connector. One 6 pin for each rail. And I see that often. However, when I look it up "officially", people say that those connectors are only rated for like 160 watts, or, whatever. Now I should say that those wires got fairly warm running 360 watts through them, so I didn't DARE overclock. Has anyone blown a PSU running an overclocked S1 through a single 8-pin slot? I've been running an Ant on a CX750m and it's been going fine, but that's through 2 of those 8 pin slots, and one 6-pin through each connector.

And another follow-up... In regards to CX600(non-M)... Well yeah, even the semi-modular ones... Do the modular ones have two 8-pins, or only one? I'm getting these extra units in, and I'm afraid to overclock if they're running off the same connector, if that makes sense? I'm not great at articulating this technical stuff. It's a curse, really.

I just hope someone can give me a bit of guidance on any of this. Sorry if I'm unclear, and I'm sorry the post is so long.

[dogie]

You don't need AD2PSU. Most types of unit power blades individually, and so you can power a few of the blades via one PSU and a few more via others. Do NOT connect two power supplies to anything which is electrically joined (ie a shared hashing board).

PCI-E 6 pin is officially rated for 75W, however virtually all bitcoin designs ask for 150+. Less ask for 200+, and even less 250+W.

You can see the PSU resource in my sig for what connectors specific PSUs have and other information.

[Unacceptable]

It depends on AWG size of the PCIE wires & the 6 pin connectors.The larger the wire the higher amps it can pass (16 AWG about 200 watts @ 12v DC).

NEVER run more than 200 watts,unless you have 14 AWG or larger,which most PSU's are 18 & 16 AWG,it's printed on the wires BTW  

The 6pin connectors have several classes too,don't have a link,but someone will post that info soon I'm sure  

As for S1's,your better off with something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028&cm_re=CX_600-_-17-139-028-_-Product

It has 2 separate PCIE cables    I ran several S1's for 3 months with no problems,the wires didn't even get warm 

[y_boonstra]

It depends on serveral points.

- quality of your pci-e pins .. good quality pins can handle up to 9A per pin.
- wire guage and isolation of the wire, a 16AWG wire (wich is the maximun a pci pin can handle) with an isolation wich can handle up to 70C can handle less amps than an wire with an isolation wich can handle a temp up to 105C.

- type of conductor (coper or aluminium)

with 250W your on the save side, with 320W (almost 9A per pin) your pushing it (you will need good quality components).

[GunXpatriot]

Dogie, so in other words, suppose I was using an antminer S3 , which has two boards and 4 pci-e slots... You could power one board, with one PSU, and the other board, with a different one? However, you could NOT power the same board from two different PSU's? Not that anyone would ever configure it that way, but that would be when you'd need the Add2PSU?

y_boonstra, that's good information on wire gauge. I don't have anything in front of me at the moment, but the info is duly noted. Thanks.


To Unacceptable, in regards to the CX600's. Yeah, coincidentally, I'll be getting two CX600's in. To clarify my original post... I originally was running the S1 at normal clock 180 GH/s through a single 8-pin slot, with the two 6+2's the branch off. That was on the CX500m that only has that single 8-pin. THAT was when my wires were getting warm. And what I was wondering... If the CX600's two PCI-E wires, were coming from the same "link", so to speak. Like, to simulate, would they be coming from the same 8-pin? I think they were only getting hot, because they were BOTH coming from the same 8-pin slot, and I think I was overloading it..? Again, I'm not sure if that made sense.

But on the non-modular power supplies, that didn't seem to be a problem for you, which is good news. It's reassuring that I know they'll work fine. Were those overclocked Ants? Granted, if they're not getting hot at 360, I doubt they'll be screwed at 400 watts.

[klondike_bar]

Dogie, so in other words, suppose I was using an antminer S3 , which has two boards and 4 pci-e slots... You could power one board, with one PSU, and the other board, with a different one? However, you could NOT power the same board from two different PSU's? Not that anyone would ever configure it that way, but that would be when you'd need the Add2PSU?

yes. The idea is that different PSUs may have slightly different readings or 12V and GND, and any differences caused by two PSUs on the same board can rely in the PSUs trying to equalize a large amount of 0.05-0.2V current through the hardware.

y_boonstra, that's good information on wire gauge. I don't have anything in front of me at the moment, but the info is duly noted. Thanks.
But on the non-modular power supplies, that didn't seem to be a problem for you, which is good news. It's reassuring that I know they'll work fine. Were those overclocked Ants? Granted, if they're not getting hot at 360, I doubt they'll be screwed at 400 watts.

non-modular is fine, but messier. A few zipties can easily tuck away extra length. remmber to link the PS-ON (green) and GND (black) pins on the mobo connector to allow the PSU to run without a motherboard.

IMO: most <$100 power supplies can handle 100-150W on a dedicated PCIe cable. Higher-end stuff (ie: gold rated and/or >$100) tends to be capable of 150-250W.
generally: 18awg: good for about 100-150W  ----- 16awg: good for 200-300W   (this is for entire 6-pin connector, not just a single strand)