Power supply splitters....

[Waspy]

How do these play into the whole PSU quality picture? For example, I have a GeForce card with two +12V power supply connections, and it "claims" it needs un-split power supply connections. But finding a PSU that has 3 or more +12V rails is a real pain (even if there are a lot out there, most do not easily show how many +12V connections they have)!

And how true is that about the GPU actually requiring un-split +12V lines? And with HDDs, can you split on those like mad if you have a good enough PSU?

I currently have a crappy 500W PSU...generic brand, so I'm pretty sure it's causing my GPU unnessacary slowness and sometimes I have the good ol' jagged edged explosion deal, although that could also be heat.

I think a PSU is the next upgrade I definately need, but I want one with many +12V rails so I dedicated 2 to my GPU and maybe 2, one split for two or three HDDs and the other to a DVD/DVD-RW splilt.

Any recommendations? How big is splitting if you have a really good PSU but say it only has like 2 +12V rails?

 

[infornography42]

Splitting on Video cards and drives is best avoided. More than 2 connectors used per line out of the power supply can cause problems.

Now if your video card is not getting enough power then it wouldn't be causing slowness, it would be causing instability and graphical glitches.

Most 500+ watt power supplies CAN handle more splitting of their connections, but it is just safest to avoid it if possible.

I usually use 1 line from the PS for my CD drives and floppy, 1 for my hard drives, and 1 for my video card and fans/lights/unimportant things that need power.

This tends to work well. To be perfectly honest, most power supplies can handle it, but some do have issues so it is better safe than sorry.

Antec has some really sweet power supplies that are modular in design. They can handle, if I remember right, 6 lines and each of those is seperate. You can just plug in the ones you need, unplug the ones you don't need and keep case clutter down to a minimum.

 

[Waspy]

6 lines, that is huge! I see people on here talking about how they have 10HDDs hooked up and a good video card which requires at least 1 +12V rail and they are looking at PSU which have 2 +12V rails. It really seems like most PSUs are not equipped or barely equipped to even handle standard systems (2 +12V rails, that's 1 HDD and 1 DVD/CD/RW...what is that crap!??).

 

[wun911]

I have Leadtek 6800 ultra AGP needs 2x molex connections. The two individual unsplit power lines was recomened by Leadtek but I hear that you only need them unsplit if you intend to OC the GPU. I have a Tagan 550w PSU everythink works fine smells like OC to me.

 

[uhlhazard]

When you plug in power splitters in your powersupply, you create resistance on the connection. Every single time your power wires go from one connection to another, the resistance builds and strains the psu.

This is why modular psu units do miserably in real psu tests.

I personally have a system with a 9800 pro and a 74gb raptor sharing one line. I have no problems with this as most hard drives only need power when starting up initially where video cards need power during game sessions.

I use pc power and cooling turbo cool 470 units in my machine, my server, my girlfriends machine, and my brothers with absolutely no issues whatsoever. I did recently run a dual mp machine with a 300 watt "premier" psu from 1999, 9800 pro 4 512mb sticks of ecc memory and 7 ide hard drives.

I did this for fun to see how quickly I could kill this unit to no avail. I setup 4 splitters having 5 hard drives plugged into one +12 volt rail. The system definetly ran hot, but running prime 95 on both cores set to using the most power had no issues at all.

Basically, from a purist standpoint splitters are horrible but from personal experience I have never had problems with them besides the occasional one having a loose connection and falling off, ooh and the extra 10 feet of power wires you have to fight inside your computer.

I would probably prioritize the video card though.

 

[hacky_maximus]

I splitt them manually. My power supply, had just 4 molex conector and i need 6 of them, so I cut them down from an old PSU and soldered them at one of my molex cable. The PSU is working great, no need to worry about (it's an Trojan 450W). You don't have to buy special splitters as long as you cand do this manually and all you need are just some old molex conectors (with cables) and a good enough PSU. i would say kisalitw (keep it simple as long it works :lol

 

[Waspy]

Thanks I purchased a Cooler Master Real Power 450W PSU. This should do much better than my generic 500W PSU which seems to crap out when I connect more than 1 HDD at a time.

Got it reasonably cheap, and it should last me a while, or at least until I get more than 2 SATA drives which will be quite a ways down the road since I'm pretty much not spending any money on computer stuff after these last two purchases (PSU and WD Raptor).

 

[hacky_maximus]

Cooler Master Real Power 450W is a very good PSU! I had one of these

 

[Waspy]

Great, glad to hear it!

Why do you say "had?" Did your old one burn or up did you upgrade or something?