Safe % of max draw?

Ok right now i've got the OCZ in my second rig 1000 watt elitestream etc. But today i figure i'd mess around and put a meter on it and i'm pulling about 900 watts give or take with my setup. Now you have to take into account that it's powering tons of things i'll list them....i think somethings off but humm i dunno.

Basically take all the stuff in my sig for the intel rig and add the following
2 Eheim HPPS high power 12v 1/2" pumps
1 Scythe Kama Panel
4 10" cold cathode lights
10 120mm Panaflow fans

fully stressed out system uses 912 watts.....i'm thinking it's way to close to my max of 1000w but what do you guys think?

Yes, that is a bit too close for comfort but you should be o.k. How are you measuring the power draw (what meter are you using)?

I'm using a P3 Killawatt meter that plugs in then you plug you system to it, it reads amps, volts, watts, kWh and so on. Guess i'll swap it out with my PC P&C T12W. Hey i can't complain the OCZ only cost me 50 bux

What is the %efficiency reported by the KAW?

jumps from 80 to 81.3%

That sounds about right. Here is a nice review of your unit.
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ4MywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

You seem to have a very power hungry cooling system, let us see some pics? Are you sure it is not hovering in the air with all those fans?

So you are measuring power from the wall into the PC? With 81.3% efficiency you computer is only drawing 741 watts from the actual unit. So you still have over 250 watts to go to hit the rated max power of your psu. Either way, I wouldn't worry so much about how close to the max you are coming. I would be more worried about monitoring the voltage drop of the rails and making sure that they aren't sagging too much. System instability would be one of the first signs of varying rail voltages.

Kasm said:

I would be more worried about monitoring the voltage drop of the rails and making sure that they aren't sagging too much. System instability would be one of the first signs of varying rail voltages.

Click to expand...

+1 What are your rails at at stock and load?