Testing Devices for Load

Greetings! My first post here, and first of many probably since I'm going to be overclocking an Allendale processor, and tweaking memory.

I'm building a few new machines for Christmas, for my family, including new ones for myself and my son. They are going to be dual core (Allendale and Conroe) platforms (leap from P4 3GHz machines), and research and design is singing along nicely.

But one thing I thought about when I was trying to decide on devices, is what to put in, and what PSU to pick to drive them.

So I was wondering, since I have no intention of spending $1000 for a pro device, is there a simple circuit I can build that would go between the PSU and the device to be tested that I can use to test the power load that device is using, during idle, load, etc.? I suck at analog electronics but know a bit about digital, like microcontrollers, serial communications between devices, that sort of thing. I figure that if I can get an analog signal based on that load amount, I can measure that with one of my MCU projects and report that data USB to my bench Linux machine and keep a database of device load data. We have a lot of hardware in my house, with three kids and my needs, our LAN client population has ballooned to eight machines. I have a lot of spare hardware, or will have when I do this mass upgrade.

I know this is a bit off the wall. I hope I posted in the right forum.

Thanks!
Hop

It'd be easier just to post what components you had in mind. I don't think I've ever used a multimeter and went around testing points for voltage and amperage just to choose a psu. You can also buy a 20 dollar Kill a Watt and test the entire configuration's draw in watts at any given time.

Tyranos said:

It'd be easier just to post what components you had in mind. I don't think I've ever used a multimeter and went around testing points for voltage and amperage just to choose a psu. You can also buy a 20 dollar Kill a Watt and test the entire configuration's draw in watts at any given time.

Click to expand...

Agreed, except I've always wanted to know this information when it concerned a machine I plan to leave alone for awhile. It just became more important as I looked at all the upgrades I am doing. If I was rich, I would just throw 1000 watt PSU's at all the new boxes, but that means waste. And I don't want to put PSU's in a system that are 'just enough' either because I'd rather not stress them. Remember, on my P4 systems, 450 watts were enough. All this new hardware, especially the 8800gts video card I'm going to use has to have higher requirements. For example, I'm going to do 4 sata drives in a raid 0+1 setup on my main. If I knew what the peak requirement for each drive was, I'd have a better idea at what I need total.

It's overkill I guess, but I like knowing as much as I can going in.

Your idea would work for me though, since I can test the whole system, add a component, and test again, and note the difference. I'm sure there are baseline numbers out there for the different components, and I'll look those up this morning.

Hop

EDIT: I found that Kill a Watt at Home Depot, for $40, and $22 shipped on eBay. God I love internet commerce.