[Tutorial] Dual 330W AC Adapter Mod

[Guest]

Special thanks to @StamatisX and @imsolidstate for great technical advice!

330W AC adapters were purchased new for $30 USD each on Amazon.

Required tools and components:

• 40A 200V bridge rectifier (Mouser - Part #: 821-GBPC4002)
  
• Electronics project box (Radio Shack - Model: 270-1809 | Catalog #: 270-1809)
  
• Female Spade Terminals (Radio Shack - Model: 76-FT12L | Catalog #: 55048637)
  
• Block Terminal (Radio Shack - Model: 274-680 | Catalog #: 274-680)
  
• Wire nuts or push connectors (I used what I already had on hand)
  
• Heat sink (an old CPU heat sink is what I used and it was perfect)
  
• Thermal paste (brand does not matter - I used what I had on hand)
  
• Wire grommets or electrical outlet box clamps (I used this type)
  
• Self-adhesive rubber bumpers (used as feet for project box)
  
• Miscellaneous screws (see photos - I used what I had on hand)
  
• Simple hand tools (screwdriver, wire cutter/stripper, etc.)
  
• Soldering iron and rosin core solder
  
• Drill and appropriate bits
  

Link: Downloadable PDF Instructions

Another 4.7GHz run without toggling CPU clock speeds during 3DMark11 tests...

[Guest]

Travel Friendly

[Brian 1980]

Very nicely done [MENTION=119]Mr. Fox[/MENTION] thanks for putting up that guide! Good thing is you got a third PSU for when you want to have a lighter load to take on the road.

[Optimistic Prime 21]

Very nice! I can't wait to see all the benching madness that is sure to follow.

[widezu69 252]

This dual PSU mod would be a great for the Alienware X51. I've always though about building one using a barebones case with a Maximus VI Impact, 4770k Cooled with a Noctua NH-L12 and a GTX 780 or Titan. As far as I know, the Titan can run on a 600w power supply without issue.

PS - [MENTION=119]Mr. Fox[/MENTION], you wouldn't happen to take commisions would you?

[Guest]

@widezu69 - I have been thinking the same thing about the X51. I bet it would be excellent for that machine to run a stronger GPU.

[uchy74 11]

Saisissez du texte, l'adresse d'un site Web ou importez un document à traduire.

Annuler

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Essayez avec cette orthographe : ou est connecté le cable bleu (commande) sur le jack de l'alimentation peut tu faire un petit schema electronique

Exemple d'utilisation de "" :

traduction automatique de Google

where is connected the blue cable (control) on the power jack?

Can you make a scheme of your electronic assembly ?, the two power supplies in parallel,

[uchy74 11]

where is connected the blue cable (control) on the power jack?

Can you make a scheme of your electronic assembly ?, the two power supplies in parallel ?

[Riri-Fifi 101]

Hello Mr Fox

Can you make a scheme of your electronic assembly ?because the photos are not entirely clear

[Guest]

Sorry, I tried to make it as clear as possible. I don't have a way of drawing a professional wiring schematic, but hopefully this will be helpful and clear up any confusion.

[Lee James Wood 42]

There MIGHT be an issue using this on the latest/ newest alienware refreshes from this year. If anyone has tried it, please tell us your experience (on this years models), please.

[Guest]

After finding it worked excellent with the M18xR2, it has not been cooperating with the Alienware 18. I am still investigating that and will share more when I have something more meaningful to share. Don't rush out and buy stuff to build this setup for a new Alienware 18 just yet. For now, I will just leave it at that because I don't want to speculate.

[Brian 1980]

Thread stickied!

[Clevorr 61]

Wow, nice one. That is pretty cool. Hmm, wonder what has changed on the new machines. :S

[Guest]

After finding it worked excellent with the M18xR2, it has not been cooperating with the Alienware 18. I am still investigating that and will share more when I have something more meaningful to share. Don't rush out and buy stuff to build this setup for a new Alienware 18 just yet. For now, I will just leave it at that because I don't want to speculate.

Thread stickied!

Wow, nice one. That is pretty cool. Hmm, wonder what has changed on the new machines. :S

I posted this in the benchmark thread, but it deserves mention here as well. See below...

I know many have been anxiously waiting for me to report on this.

There is nothing wrong with the dual AC adapter mod as it relates to the AW18. I did a lot more testing and it works for the AW18, but provides no benefit. By "working", I mean the AW18 works perfectly with it connected. It identifies it as a 330W AC adapter and functions flawlessly. By "no benefit", I mean that the AW18 turns off at the same point regardless of whether I have the single or the dual AC adapter connected. If I heavily overclock the CPU and GPU, and/or if I over-volt the 780Ms higher than 1.025V to try to get killer benchmark scores like the M18xR2 the AW18 turns itself off. This happens at the same load point without tripping the AC adapter circuit breakers on the dual AC adapter mod. It also shuts itself off without tripping the single AC adapter circuit breaker most of the time.

There must be some sort of power regulator or current protection added to the system that turns it off once a certain power demand threshold is reached. That, or the motherboard circuitry is not as robust as the M18xR1/R2 and it is unable to handle the same power demands. I have no idea which is true, but having the system power itself down is certainly going to be an impediment for number chasers trying to beat the M18xR2 with a new AW18.

This could be something specific to this AW18. I am hoping the usmc362 is able to use his dual AC adapter with the AW18 successfully, which will tell us whether or not it is a universal problem or something specific or wonky with this AW18.

@usmc362 - have you tried your dual AC adapter on the AW18 yet? Does your AW18 exhibit the same behavior as the one I am using?

[cherokee06n 10]

AMPS x Volts = WATTs. Very impressive Mr Fox. Where do I place my order? I had the same issue with my last laptop. It was the Asus G74SX. The 150 WATT power supply that came with it was so hot and limited the overclock of the 560m so I got a 180 WATT power supply and that helped. I never thought of this though. My new 18 makes the Asus seem like a plastic toy. Thanks for sharing.

[TBoneSan 112]

Has anyone got a x51 to try this mod with? I'd be really interested to see if it works too

[ckstafford 15]

I seriously considering doing this mod for my X51 ac adapter. I also was talking with a Dell tech over the phone and I was told that my X51 will run a GTX 680. I bought my X51 11/2012 over a year ago, how is that possible to run a 680 with PSU that's only 330w. The GTX 660 that's in my setup Nvidia recommendation watt power supply for the 660 is 450w. So does that mean that possibly the power brick and the power board in the X51 total to 450w.

[Guest]

The peak output of this AC adapter is much higher than 330W, but if sustained it will trip the internal breaker. There is a chance you might see a pretty nice improvement in performance and an ability to overclock/overvolt your current 660 by using this dual adapter mod, but I doubt the ability of one of these adapter to support a GTX 680M all that well. But, of course, the PCI-e slot supporting it and the system having the power it needs to operate correctly are two different things. It would be great to hear how this works for you. If anyone else has already done it for the x51, please post and let us know.

[artixalpha 11]

can this work with my aw 18. Has serious problems with 780m sli and 4930mx ( Throttling) I think I might give up and stick with my m15x

[artixalpha 11]

@mr.fox

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[Guest]

can this work with my aw 18. Has serious problems with 780m sli and 4930mx ( Throttling) I think I might give up and stick with my m15x

@artixalpha - Unfortunately, this mod provides no useful benefit to the new Alienware 18. For whatever reason, Alienware put some sort of a power handling limitation on the motherboard and the system turns itself off at around the same point the a single AC adapter maxes out. That's a real bummer because the new machine will never be able to run as fast as it has the potential to run. As such, it can only be regarded as an excellent gaming machine. Even if Alienware fixes everything that's wrong with this product (locked down BIOS and screwed up fan tables) it will be Haswell powered. If you want an extreme beast laptop, the only options left are an M18xR2 and Clevo P570WM, neither of which are powered by a Haswell CPU.

[godfafa 137]

@artixalpha - Unfortunately, this mod provides no useful benefit to the new Alienware 18. For whatever reason, Alienware put some sort of a power handling limitation on the motherboard and the system turns itself off at around the same point the a single AC adapter maxes out. That's a real bummer because the new machine will never be able to run as fast as it has the potential to run. As such, it can only be regarded as an excellent gaming machine. Even if Alienware fixes everything that's wrong with this product (locked down BIOS and screwed up fan tables) it will be Haswell powered. If you want an extreme beast laptop, the only options left are an M18xR2 and Clevo P570WM, neither of which are powered by a Haswell CPU.

Thank you, Mr Fox. You inspired me to try 330w adaptor to my m17x R4.

Recently I upgraded my CPU and GPU to 3900xm(QBC1) and 780m. Then I was benchmarking with 3dmark11.

Strange thing was that even though both graphics and physics score were higher than 10k, the combined score sucked like hell with 240w adaptor. The temps were less than 80C, both, so I thought this might be caused by power limit of 240w adaptor, and after reading this post of yours, I got one of 330w adaptor for my m17x R4

Then what happened? With same clock and power settings for CPU and GPU, the 3dmark total score went up from 9500 to 9900.

And also, I was able to overclock more for both CPU and GPU, and made my personal 3dmark11 record.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4

I really wanted to thank for your idea for i never thought 240w would be lacking power.

Lastly, have you tried 330w single adaptor to the new 17AW? Would it not use more than 240w as new 18AW does not use more than 330w as you mentioned?

[artixalpha 11]

@godfafa the aw18 thorttles with 780m sli and 4930mx with the 330w adaptor.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[Guest]

Thank you, Mr Fox. You inspired me to try 330w adaptor to my m17x R4.

Recently I upgraded my CPU and GPU to 3900xm(QBC1) and 780m. Then I was benchmarking with 3dmark11.

Strange thing was that even though both graphics and physics score were higher than 10k, the combined score sucked like hell with 240w adaptor. The temps were less than 80C, both, so I thought this might be caused by power limit of 240w adaptor, and after reading this post of yours, I got one of 330w adaptor for my m17x R4

Then what happened? With same clock and power settings for CPU and GPU, the 3dmark total score went up from 9500 to 9900.

And also, I was able to overclock more for both CPU and GPU, and made my personal 3dmark11 record.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4

I really wanted to thank for your idea for i never thought 240w would be lacking power.

Lastly, have you tried 330w single adaptor to the new 17AW? Would it not use more than 240w as new 18AW does not use more than 330w as you mentioned?

You're welcome. Glad to hear that it worked so well. That's awesome!

I no longer have an Alienware 17, but I am guessing the 330W AC adapter would do better than the stock 240W unit for that machine as well.

I am curious whether anyone has tested this dual AC adapter mod with the X51. I bet it would work great for that. I am thinking it might be especially with a high end GPU, unlocked BIOS and a K series CPU.

@godfafa the aw18 thorttles with 780m sli and 4930mx with the 330w adaptor.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

The Alienware 18 has a number of unresolved issues. The inability to use the dual 330W AC adapter is just one of many things holding it back from performance that matches the M18xR2. This is probably the least important functional deficit that it has at the moment. The locked-down BIOS and messed up fan tables, and the fact that it has a Haswell CPU are all more serious impediments to achieving an equal level of performance.

It does not throttle because of the single 330W AC adapter, but it does easily exhaust the capacity of the single 330W AC adapter and shuts itself off before it has a chance to tap into the capacity of the dual 330W AC adapter. There seems to be some sort of power handling limitation at the motherboard that makes the dual adapter mod of no benefit. It functions the same as one 330W AC adapter does, and the system shuts itself down at more or less the same point as when using a single 330W AC adapter. When overclocked to 4.5GHz the 4930MX can draw over 130W, whereas the 3920XM/3940XM rarely ever exceeds 108W at the same or a slightly higher overclock, and the 4930MX runs MUCH hotter than a Sandy or Ivy XM CPU does... we're talking insanely hot CPU... rather difficult to manage temps at clock speeds above 4.3GHz, even when cooling using refrigerated air.