Silverstone SLi 650w Power Supply :: Guide

[The Mofo]

which DFI board ? NF4 with 3.3v or 5V jumper ?

Tried it on the NF4 with 5V jumper, works fine. As far as all 4 +12V rails being adjustable, its unknown at this time. Ill have more results tomorrow when i start playing with it.

[eva2000]

you sure the -12V is listed on http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-65zf.htm

i should have my psu tomorrow and see how it goes

[The Mofo]

I read a review on the web where they interviewed the guy from Silverstone. He stated that the -12V was never designed into the PSU because its not used in the industry no longer. Lemme see if i can dig it up.. Whoops, my bad, -5V line, sorry..



http://www.techimo.com/articles/i230.html

[Xassius]

if you adjust. ALL 4 rails go up and down.

And BTW, VR3 is the pot ALL by itself, not the tandem ones. Be careful though, only move the pot a LITTLE at a time.

Maybe it's not. My P5AD2-E read the 12v rail as 12.77v, yet with a DMM, it was only 12.22v

[The Mofo]

Hmm interesting. Ill take a stab at it in the morning.. So you never got word back from Silverstone as to what the tandem VR's are for? I really wish the 3.3V line was adjustable

[Xassius]

Hmm interesting. Ill take a stab at it in the morning.. So you never got word back from Silverstone as to what the tandem VR's are for? I really wish the 3.3V line was adjustable

No :< They never replied

[eva2000]

Talk about luck or not, today my 580W Topower 686P6 psu decided to die on me

1. Booted DFI NF4 SLI-D system (at stock speeds), went into bios to disable onboard audio and rebooted pc and it didn't boot up
2. So turned psu off from the switch, cleared cmos, and then turned psu switch on and my APC BackUPS RS 1500VA UPS started screaming with red flashing overload beep alarm.
3. At this point the system automatically shut down and won't boot up anymore. ting in my pants I calmly remove the 580W Topower 686P6 psu, plug in the Antec psu tester to test the psu. PSU won't start at all testing it standalone. Looks like RMA time for 580W Topower psu sigh.

Here's the lucky part, I have this 650W Silverstone psu which i bought and arrived yesterday and i was planning to use in this DFI NF4 SLI-D system.

1. So I unpack 650W Silverstone psu, connect it standalone to Antec psu tester, and flicked the psu on switch and yup starts up and runs fine.
2. Install 650W Silverstone psu onto my DFI NF4 SLI-D system and turns on and boots up fine! Now to testing this 650W Silverstone's psu rails.

System:

3500+ CAA2C 0507 GPMW @11x201HTT = 2211mhz at 1.48v stock vcore
DFI NF4 SLI-D 331-3 bios
2x 256MB XMS3500C2v1.1 BH-5 @2226 2.7v
2x 256MB eVGA 6800Ultra PCI-E SLI @ stock 425/1100 76.10 drivers
120GB WD 1200JB
Pioneer A05 Burner

MCW6002 + MCP650+MCP600 series + Thermochill 120.3 with 3x120x38mm Panaflo 103cfm fans
120x38mm Delta 190cfm 36W fan on Thermaltake fan speed controller on Medium speed (75%)

650W Silverstone Dual PCI-E SLI ST65ZF power supply

Antec PSU Tester
12v = 12v
5v = 5.12v
3v = 3.35v

Out of box
Rail = Bios idle / MM idle
12v = 11.70v / 11.86v
5v = 4.97v / 5.10v
3.3v = 3.25v / NA

Adjusted standalone pot on side of psu
Rail = Bios / MM idle / SG idle / Load SG / Load MM
12v = 12.02v / 12.22v / 11.83v / 11.77v / 12.16v
5v = 5.13v / 5.10v / 5.16v / 5.16v / 5.10v
3.3v 3.25v / NA / 3.21v / 3.21v / NA

MM = Multimeter
SG = Smartguardian windows monitoring app

Summary:
- Seems 3.3v rail is low
- 12v rail out of the box while in system was low too at 11.70 in windows or 11.86v on multimeter
- when i set 12V to 12.28v via MM reading I didn't have 120x38mm Delta 36W fan plugged in. Plug in 36W delta fan at 75% speed, 12v rail read 12.22v on multimeter!
- 5v rail steady so no probs there
- cable length is adequate
- cable config is 2 cables with 3x 4pin molex + 1x fdd connector, 2x PCI-E connectors, 1x 6pin connector, 1x 8pin connector + 8pin to 4pin converter, 2x cables with 2x SATA connectors each

More testing to come...

[The Mofo]

Same results as me. Eva, are you able to raise the 3.3V rail at all?

[eva2000]

Haven't looked into adjusting those 2 pots yet so not sure if 3.3v rail ca n be raised yet

[The Mofo]

O, im pulling the rig out and im going to adjust them and see what i get from it.

[eva2000]

Good luck mate, looking forward to your results

[The Mofo]

Like you, i got a huge diff in voltage from my MM, to BIOS to SG.. I raised my rails to 5.4, 12.5 however, the 3.3 wont budge, even after playing around with the tandem VRs.

until this gets resolved, i rate this PSU in the Sux0rs dept!

[The Mofo]

I just fired off an email to Silverstone. Let's see what they will do.

[J-Mag]

Why does it matter if you need the 3.3v higher?

3.2v or even 3.1v wont cause any problems... uNless you are doing some VDIMM mod or something...

[Xassius]

Seems like my sample was different. Stock - idle 12.0x volts (with DMM) and 11.87 load.

In my experimentation, the two other pots do NOTHING for the rails I think

On my old AA8 board, the voltage of the 3.3v corellated to my ram voltage

3.3v - 2.25v
3.4v - 2.30v
3.5v - 2.37v

[Fzero]

maybe hipro5 will find a easy mod to do to it to bring the 3.3v up

[eva2000]

Xassius what serial number first 4 digits your psu, there's 2 revs

0508 and before = rev1
0509 and after = rev2

mines 0509

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.ph...650#post513650

This has, in fact, turned out to be a very pertinent question! Here is the reply from Silverstone support:

I had checked the question specification.
I found we have two version of ST65ZF

the version 1 SPEC. ( suitable for Single CPU system with SLI )
+12V1(13A/18A) -> CPU1
+12V2 (18A) -> CPU2 & PCI-E
+12V3 (16A) -> Motherboard & S-ATA
+12V4 (8A/13A) -> HDD Driver

the version 2 SPEC. ( suitable for Dual CPU system with SLI or Single CPU system with SLI )
+12V1(13A/18A) -> CPU1
+12V2 (18A) -> CPU2 & S-ATA
+12V3 (16A) -> Motherboard & PCI-E
+12V4 (8A/13A) -> HDD Driver

You can differentiate by the label on the color box.(please check the attach picture)
You can see the picture S/N is 0505 00112 ( is mean 2005 fifth week )
Before 2005 eighth week (0508 xxxx) is version 1.
Afther 0509 xxxx is version 2.
I think your system is better to use version 2.

I am sorry to tell you the version 2. will be saled at the end of March.
thanks.

[Xassius]

Mine is 0511 00380

hmm. Two weeks newer than yours

3.3v mod should work with the 3.3v PSU "Sense" mod right?

[Xassius]

SS reply:

"Hi Carson, I am sorry for the late reply but I have been waiting also for
another reply from our engineer. I did however, gotten a reply for him in
regards to the internal Pots located on the heatsink and also another one
underneath it. The three on the heatsink are used to adjust the
over-current protection for 3.3V, 5V, and 12V. The one underneath the
heatsink adjusts the +12V rails. However I must emphasize that we highly
advise against adjusting any pots in the ST65ZF as they are calibrated to
meet the specification (including reliability and other safety regulation)
we outlined."

Seems like the tandem pots do nothing really - except for over-current protection (which is next to useless). AND the single pot NOT ONLY adjusts the 12v, but also the 5v (not as silverstone states). And these pots are NOT on a heatsink or internal. They are "external" and on a seperate pcb.

[eva2000]

hmmm maybe engineer got the model mixed up ?

[The Mofo]

Sounds like it.. Mines a 0311 serial as well.

[eva2000]

Hmmm not sure if it's psu or the newer drivers for SLI but i'm getting lock ups in windows with certain drivers for my 2x eVGA 6800U PCI-E SLI@stock 425/1100 with this psu plugged in. In non SLI mode it's fine though.

[The Mofo]

Weird. I dont have dual 6800's or Ultras to test the SLI lines. I only have dual 6600's. I did find the 2 dedicated PCI-E plugs and 1 non dedicated PCI-E plug odd though. 3 PCI plugs. Youre using the 2 marked as PCI-E no?

[eva2000]

yeah 2x 6pin PCI-E labeled connectors, the 3rd 6pin isnt for PCI-E bot for dual cpu server boards i.e. like Tyan s2895 dual opteron PCI-E SLI board

[Jupiler]

A new PSU section has been created under the General Hardware one (thx saaya), so I moving this topic to that section, so things stay nicely organized.