Power supply questions.
 

The other day, I picked up a Dell poweredge 2500 server from my neighbor. When looking through this behemoth(90 lbs :gasp:) i found it has an interesting power scheme... It has what looks like a power supply/distribution board in the back/side. looks like it needs alot of power, 2 plugs are needed to plug the thing in! but then connected to that are 3 400watt power supplies. huh??

my question is for anybody who knows anything about servers. what converts the ac to dc? the part that gets plugged in to the wall? or the hotswappable power supplies? and is it worth making it into a power supply?
here are pics.

3 of these:
http://stores.velocitytechsolutions....777%20002a.jpg

that plug into one of these:
http://www.resaleremarketing.net/catalog/6C822.JPG

Most likely what you have there are redundant supplies, so if one fails, there are two others to take over withoout the server shutting down. All three may also be used to share the load, but I suspect it's more for redundancy.

Most likely, the part in the top pic is what actually converts the AC to DC, the item in the bottom pic is just a distribution module.

ah, ok. makes sense with it being a server and not a regular computer. Kinda sucks though, it would have been cool to have the bottom pic be a power supply, with nothing but a giant lightning bolt on it. thanks for the speedy reply

It's going to be the same as converting a regular power supply (since you have 3 of them) you should be able to adapt it to have a +5, +12,-12 and prpobably a 3.3V out. You just need to load the 5V with a 10K 5W resistor and I don't remember what the color is for the turn on (green?), then make your connections as a normal supply. I did this on a friends server but it had only 2 supplies.

Jeff

10K? Probably meant 10 ohm, :wink:

There are actually a few ways you can bolster/boost the 12v line depending on the design. There is a sticky on the General Electric subforum that goes over the conversion and the ways to possibly boost the output (have to read the whole thread).

Try here for an explanation CLICK!

Payback is a Mofo I guess.:lol:

Jeff