powering multiple motherboards with one supply?

[doubleanti]

Is it possible to power multiple motherboards with one supply? Are there y-adaptors? I suppose I would need a larger power supply, but I want to do a case-mod that allows me to stack motherboards, so that I can make my cluster, well, into a small cluster. I hope so. I don't know where I can find current values for an ATX-style motherboard, or if the currents should all be the same if you have different motherboards at all. Let me know if you have ideas. I saw someone stuff a PC into a Nintendo, and now I'm inspired.

[elmutt]

ur still around eh

[doubleanti]

yup... still around... still geekin' it up... =p

[zacs7]

Get some pliers and carry on in that fashion

[matsp]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that can be done. You obviously have to watch the power consumption, because even ONE motherboard is often capable of getting a power-supply pretty close to it's limits if it's not the top end of the range. If you have older style processors and memory, you may have better luck. If you try to do this on "top of the range" processors, it's probably less expensive (and a whole lot easier) to use a power-supply per motherboard.

I very much doubt that there are any Y-splits available on the market.

--
Mats

[brewbuck]

I don't know where I can find current values for an ATX-style motherboard, or if the currents should all be the same if you have different motherboards at all.

The currents are irrelevant. All that matters is that 1) The PSU supplies the right voltage for all the boards and 2) The total wattage of the PSU is larger than the combined wattage of all the boards.

If you take the total wattage and divide by the voltage, you get the total current, but that's not really the point. You need to supply the POWER. If the power is sufficient, the current will be sufficient.

With both boards hooked up, turn them on, and measure the DC voltage off the power supply. If it drops more than a few tenths of a volt below nominal, you are overloading the PSU.

Also, remember that components on the motherboard may suddenly decide to draw a lot of power momentarily. With only a single board, this is not a problem, but if you are already pushing the PSU to the max, this could overload it, with results varying from the PSU switching off in an overload fault, to burning out the PSU or motherboards.

[doubleanti]

I figured if you knew the peak current per pin on the motherboard power plug you could calculate the intake since you'd know the voltages too for the pin out. Just like for your IDE/SATA devices you can calculate the power consumption since it lists how much current each pin draws, and you know how much each pin provides as listed on the PSU. Thanks for the tips guys. I guess it's a matter of experiment now. Where can I get the female end of a PSU plug in case I need to make my own power splitters?