Is it possible to upgrade sawtooth power supplu unit?

[Sharky II]

Hi guys

I love my sawtooth and love modding it (no crazy stuff though ) and upgrading it - but I've just noticed (to my horror) that the psu is only rated at 200max Watts!!! I think it's actually 208

I have 2 fast hd's (2x 80gb WD's w/8mb cache) in there, a radeon 8500agp, a slot fan (running at 7v) and was thinking of a 1.4ghz upgrade. it also runs the keyboard and mouse, a midi controller and a usb audio device (that has it's own power though) (the usb midi controller runs of an adaptec pci 5way) - usb card.

I wanna wait for the 7457's to come out, but if i got a 7455b wouldn't it kill my psu/push it over the edge? The thing must be near max output already? What do you guys think?

Is it possible to use a PC psu in mysawtooth, or to stick a psu from a quicksilver or something in there (i don't wanna put it in an atx case though)? I think it could do with some extra power?

Ps - anyone know when gigadesigns are bringing out 7457 chips? The 7457 is now on their number scheme on their website!

Cheers!

 

[Sharky II]

No body?

I think mine is at it's limits and i dont' wanna sell my computer - but i can't upgrade it any further now.

I'm pretty pissed off with apple about this - even a crap £30 powersupply is gonna be like 300w

Cheers

 

[DrBoar]

Do not worry
The HDs take som juice to spin up but then they take very little even in use and the rest is not to bad. I have 2 HDs, ATI 8500 an extra USB card, a SCSI card and a FW powered external CDburner and no problem running 24/7 distributed folding

I have a GigaDesign 1.2 GHz G4 and I think it produce less heat than the 200 MHz 604E in my old 7600/200.

If you add a IDE card and 4 more HDs and a dual 1.4 Ghz G4 upgrade overclocked way past 1.5 GHz you might stress the PSU but not with only two HDs and a plain vanilla CPU upgrade

 

[Sharky II]

Hey man, THANK YOU for replying!

The reason i thought that my system was struggling was because i have an adaptec 5port usb card - when you plug a usb device into it which ISN'T powered it fails to power it at start up from sleep.

To recap, I have: 2 hds, ati 8500, i just bought a 1.25gigadesigns (which is tested to 1.4 so i wanna run it at that! waiting for it to arrive ), and a usb card (mentioned above). I have the usb keyboard (and therefore mouse) and also a MIDI keyboard controller (essentially just like a keyboard) coming from the usb of the system - they use up the 2 ports. I have to plug my usb soundcard into the adaotec usb card as it's powered - if i stick the system keyboard+mouse into the adaptec card then i can't use the keyboard or mouse to wake the sysem from sleep!

I never use the zip drive so i disabled the power from it (and ide cable). No firewire devices. I changed the stock case fan to an expensive acoustifan, and i also have another fan running externally.

After all that my question is - will it be ok to add the gigadesigns (which has its own fan) AND another fan into the system?? Any info would be great cheers I also wanna get rid of the dvd-ram drive soon! CDRW/DVD combo drive!

Cheers

 

[DrBoar]

Plug in as many fan as you like
A big 120mm fan is ususally 12V and 0.4A or about 5Watts, smaller fans usually is one watt or even less so even if you cram the case with fans your are unlikely to run into problem. The PCI slowblower is perhaps 2 watts ardly taxing the powersupply even running it at 12V

Regarding the upgrade at least my 1.2 GHz CPU does not seem to generate much more heat than the orginal 400 MHz. It is hard to try to compare the two as one has a big passive cooler and the other a really small one with a fan.

I run a PCI slot fan using a 47 Ohm resistor in series to lower the speed, if you get 7 V by using the 12V and 5V tap, Are you avere that if you get a short in the fan you will get 12V were you only are supposed to have 5V (until the fuse blows)

I have not bothered dissconnecting my ZIP drive even if I have not used it since I got a USB pendrive

 

[Sharky II]

hi there

i'm upping this thread, as i just bought a ati 9800 pro for my mac, and i think along with other stuff i've upgraded, i'm gonna have to change the psu in the end!

i've seen the atx psu conversion on xlr8yourmac.com, but i still can't quite understand how it's done. sorry, i'm crap at soldering. i've tried soldering in the past, and failed, miserably.

here's the article: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ATX_G4_AGP_conversion/G4_AGP_to_ATX_case_pg2.htm#next

anyway, can anyone tell me what the writer means by 'splicing' the wires together. it looks like he's stripped the rubber shielding off the wires but not but the actual core.

i dunno, can anyone help explain how it's done it a bit more detail?

thanks

eddie