[ebolla]

hey all
I have a iMac that I stripped down into a 1U server enclosure (a homemade iRack)

Unfortunately the ethernet seems to have gone dead on the board and I havent had any luck reviving the machine

So i was considering taking the case and powersupply and putting a G4 motherboard in there and reuse a spare G4 400mhz processor i have lying around from when i upgraded my powermac

my question is:
can my standard ATX 1U 80watt powersupply handle a G4 400mhz processor and 2 harddrives?

Also how hard is it to connect the ATX supply to the G4 Motherboard? (the iMac required a lot of rewireing to work)

thanks for the help

[DrBoar]

Spinning up a HD can take about 20 W or so so just booting the 2 HDs will take close to half of your powersupply then there is the CPU and the other stuff on the motherboard and perhaps a graphical card or do you run headless?

80W sound on the very low end

[ebolla]

thanks... i'm seeing your point w/ the 80watts
my full specs for the machine would be
2 harddrives
cdrom(possibly reuse the imacs)
an old voodoo2 pci graphics card
mono speaker and microphone

the video card,speaker and mic can be cut out for now and i can add them when my budget permits a more powerfull powersupply.
one other big issue is that the machine will be on 24/7 so i have to consider my powerbill- that is why i originally went with the low 80watt supply

But what about the compatability of the ATX supply?
the plug on the powermac is the same as a ATX supply but is the voltage the same?

[ebolla]

okay- i did my research and i found this site
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/A...e_pg2.htm#next
which explains the powerbutton and ATX assemblies

the only catch is that gigabit boards and later require an extra 28Volts to power the ADC graphics interface. I dont know if that can be worked around with any 1U powersupply but to play it safe i will shop for a sawtooth board

[DrBoar]

The Wattage of the PS and the power consumption is not the same thing. A 160W lightbulb would consume twise the energy of a 80 W lightbulb. But a 200W powersupply will not draw much more than a 80 W PS perhaps even less.

Total power consumption= The sum of the power demands from the different "consumers" in the computer hardisk, motherboard optical drives etc _+_the losses in the powersupply when converting the 230/110 V AC to various DC supplies. So 200W supply can supply a peak power of 200W it does not mean that it draws that constantly from the net any more than a stereo 100W amp would take 200W constantly

The Sawtooth comes with a 200W PS. But if you already have the 80W PS from the iMac start with that why not try that out by adding one thing at the time.