Power requirements

[swayda]

During my last question about a ps problem someone brought up a question which I've never found an answer to. How do you calculate the power requirements for a pc. I've been to several sites and found some contradictory information. Does anyone have a list of power requirements for different components? If I have a computer with;
2 hdd
1 cd-rom
1 td
1 3" fdd
1 5" fdd

what would be a good estimate of required power. I've looked at some of the components but they don't give data.

Next, does anyone have any recommendations about ps manufacturers? Don Swayser

 

[edfair]

M/B manufacturer has power specs. Disk drive manufacturers have power specs. Tape drive manufacturer has power spec, fans have requirements on them..
You add it all up and buy the next larger. Sometimes you need to buy larger because of one voltage being in critical need. Or buy the 250, or the 300. Too much doesn't hurt, two little will kill you and your data.
In the good old days, (don't you hate that), circuit board designers would start adding up the chip draws to size the PS requirements. Problem was the bottom line, use larger than what you needed, and the profit went down. Then somebody would insinst that certain chips needed Schoocty (sp?) and the power requirements got kicked. Or a field change would come out that changed some chips to a higher draw.
I would suspect that a company like Compaq probably has two or three engineers working full time making calculations like this. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[swayda]

Thanks Ed. I thought I was pretty up on it until I started reading about power distribution. That threw me. Don Swayser