HTPC Case

[Torque]

FWIW, the Coolermaster ATCs case I own (and the one I posted) use a standard ATX PSU, they don't come with one so you're free to put whatever you feel you'll need. I have an Antec SL400 in mine.

[wtg]

As you can see from my signature, i have a fairly heavily specced server running to keep all my stuff on.

I thought i'd need a massive power supply to feed 7 hard drives. But, turns out i don't. Well, i bought a little meter which plugs into the mains and you plug whatever into it. It tells you current draw, wattage of whatever is plugged into it. You can even program the cost of electricity into it in kilowatt/hours and it'll tell you how much it's costing to run! I tried it out on my server, and after the initial 250w draw at power on, it generally runs at about 150w. It probably goes up when the software RAID-5 is being written to, but it's nowhere near the 450/550w (i forget which!) my PSU can deliver.

I'm sure you could find a similar gadget to what i have. Got mine from ebay, but i beleive maplin.co.uk (i know you're in the US) sell them. Have a quick search for power meter.

I've wondered if you could get something like that... figured you could but never saw one. I might just do that, if only because I like gadgets.

I was kind of surprised the 300w I had couldn't keep up to be honest. It took me a little while to realize it was a power problem I was having anyway. If my MB and BIOS hadn't had a utility for watching the voltages on the 12v, 5v and 3v lines, I probably wouldn't have figured it out. But sure enough, where my 12v line held steady before adding my second harddrive, afterwards I could see the 12v dropping. From what I've read the total amperage your 12v line can hold is one of the most important factors of a quality PSU, and I suspect thats been the problem, not the raw wattage. It's been fine with a 350w.

I found this really nice PSU size calculator here http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp You can put in all your hardware (it's very thorough) and it tells you the size it recommends. It says the 300w should have been enough for me.

[wtg]

FWIW, the Coolermaster ATCs case I own (and the one I posted) use a standard ATX PSU, they don't come with one so you're free to put whatever you feel you'll need. I have an Antec SL400 in mine.

Yeah, as long as you aren't locked into them as a supplier for something there's not a big problem. I mean, how often does a case itself cause a call to tech support? But if my experience is the norm, you definitely don't want to be dependent on them for anything.

[Torque]

Yeah, as long as you aren't locked into them as a supplier for something there's not a big problem. I mean, how often does a case itself cause a call to tech support? But if my experience is the norm, you definitely don't want to be dependent on them for anything.

I hear ya on that. Antec is a PITA with honoring their "A3Q" warranty. You have to call and leave your info in voice mail and then they call you back at their leisure. The first time I had a fan go out in one of my Antec cases' PSU, they called back in about a week... I had them cross ship a new PSU. Then the replacement died about 2 years later so I called them and left a msg that I needed another replacement. I got fed up waiting and ordered an Enermax 435W whisper (very nice and quiet PSU, btw). Two weeks later they send me an RMA in email to send the old one back. A week after that, I received the replacement, the SL400 that's in my PVR!

[Torque]

I found this really nice PSU size calculator here http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp You can put in all your hardware (it's very thorough) and it tells you the size it recommends. It says the 300w should have been enough for me.

Cool, thanks for the link.