Timeline for What happens when hardware tries to draw more power than power supply can provide?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 28, 2020 at 22:45 | comment | added | Navin | @mokubai Those "dedicated piece of silicon" SMPS controllers have a microcontroller inside running some firmware that's burned in. | |
| May 19, 2017 at 8:02 | audit | First posts | |||
| May 19, 2017 at 8:02 | |||||
| May 11, 2017 at 6:29 | audit | First posts | |||
| May 11, 2017 at 6:30 | |||||
| Apr 25, 2017 at 9:34 | comment | added | hyde | @whatsisname Perhaps you should provide some sources for PC PSUs, which use digital control? Because seriously, that half a kilowatt is a lot (read: needs expensive parts) to control digitally! | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 9:10 | comment | added | Toby | FYI some power systems for higher end servers do have intelligent PSUs (See ACPI, PMBus, etc), but this does not specifically allow them the increase their power output, only monitor their operation and disable/enable functions (control fan speed for eg). To be clear, these are pretty specialized devices and not something one would ever expect to see in a consumer machine. | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 6:13 | comment | added | Mokubai♦ | @whatsisname microcontrollers might be cheap, but in a highly competitive market every penny counts and if you don't have to use it you don't. Newer SMPS units might have fancy FET based overcurrent protection, but there is no way a microcontroller is necessary when a much simpler (cheaper) and more dedicated piece of silicon can be used. Using dedicated silicon is also cheaper than using a controller that needs someone to write software for it, and SMPS unit simply don't need an intelligent controller. | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 4:57 | comment | added | Vladimir Cravero | @whatsisname I am sorry, but what you say either isn't true or does not make sense. uC are cheap, but fast ADC and DACs are not. High efficiency is not achieved via digital control at all, power factor correction can be done with one capacitor. If you do not believe me, just open an ATX psu. And yeah, I just happen to work in the semiconductor industry, on... power chips. Please, do not spread inaccurate information. | |
| Apr 25, 2017 at 4:51 | comment | added | whatsisname | @VladimirCravero: unlikely. You can get microcontrollers for a few cents in quantity that run at dozens of MHz and are plenty fast to respond to stuff. Capabilities like high-efficiency and power factor correction will be a thousand times easier and cheaper with microcontrollers driving the supply. | |
| Apr 24, 2017 at 7:38 | comment | added | Vladimir Cravero | Actually, even a modern ATX psu has little to no digital parts inside, let alone a microprocessor. It would be of no use, so there's none. Fault conditions are so fast that they must be handled in the analog world. And the Apollo definitely had more computing power than your average PSU. | |
| Apr 22, 2017 at 13:15 | comment | added | user | The reason why USB is even able to negotiate power is that it is, at its core, a communications protocol, not a power delivery protocol. It works because additional power may or may not be available. A switch-mode or linear power supply will have some safe limit above which it cannot provide more power, and this amount of power corresponds to some particular current at a particular voltage. Your power company is more similar to the computer power supply than to USB; your appliances don't negotitate for additional power, but the power company detects the additional draw and compensates. | |
| Apr 22, 2017 at 2:10 | comment | added | Jörg W Mittag | "A system power supply has absolutely no intelligent electronics." – I don't think that's true. It wouldn't surprise me if a system power supply had more processing power than the Apollo 11 computer system(s). It does however have no way to communicate with the devices. | |
| Apr 21, 2017 at 21:30 | history | answered | Mokubai♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |