Practical – 2

Aim – To study about voltage supplied to various components to computer

system.

PSU – PSU stands for Power Supply Unit. It is a unit which provide electric power to
various components of a system to enable them work properly. A power supply uint is a
device that supplies electrical energy to one or more electric loads. The term is most
commonly applied to devices that convert one form of electrical energy to another, though it
may also refer to devices that convert another form of energy (e.g., mechanical, chemical,
solar) to electrical energy. A regulated power supply is one that controls the output voltage or
current to a specific value; the controlled value is held nearly constant despite variations in
either load current or the voltage supplied by the power supply's energy source.

Every power supply must obtain the energy it supplies to its load, as well as any energy it
consumes while performing that task, from an energy source. Depending on its design, a
power supply may obtain energy from:

• Electrical energy transmission systems. Common examples of this include power

supplies that convert AC line voltage to DC voltage.
• Energy storage devices such as batteries and fuel cells.
• Electromechanical systems such as generators and alternators.
• Solar power.

A power supply may be implemented as a discrete, stand-alone device or as an integral

device that is hardwired to its load. In the latter case, for example, low voltage DC power
supplies are commonly integrated with their loads in devices such as computers and
household electronics.

Constraints that commonly affect power supplies include:

• The amount of voltage and current they can supply.

• How long they can supply energy without needing some kind of refueling or
recharging (applies to power supplies that employ portable energy sources).
• How stable their output voltage or current is under varying load conditions.
• Whether they provide continuous or pulsed energy

Power supplies for electronic devices can be broadly divided into linear and switching
power supplies. The linear supply is usually a relatively simple design, but it becomes
increasingly bulky and heavy for high-current equipment due to the need for large mains-
frequency transformers and heat-sinked electronic regulation circuitry. Linear voltage
regulators produce regulated output voltage by means of an active voltage divider that
consumes energy, thus making efficiency low. A switched-mode supply of the same rating as
a linear supply will be smaller, is usually more efficient, but will be more complex.

LMPS – LMPS satnds for Linear Mode Power Supply. The voltage produced by an
unregulated power supply will vary depending on the load and on variations in the AC supply
voltage. For critical electronics applications a linear regulator may be used to set the voltage
to a precise value, stabilized against fluctuations in input voltage and load. The regulator also
greatly reduces the ripple and noise in the output direct current. Linear regulators often
provide current limiting, protecting the power supply and attached circuit from overcurrent.

Adjustable linear power supplies are common laboratory and service shop test
equipment, allowing the output voltage to be adjusted over a range. For example, a bench
power supply used by circuit designers may be adjustable up to 30 volts and up to 5 amperes
output. Some can be driven by an external signal, for example, for applications requiring a
pulsed output.

SMPS - In computer SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply) is used to supply electric power to
various components of the computer system. A switched-mode power supply (SMPS) works
on a different principle. AC input, usually at mains voltage, is rectified without the use of a
mains transformer, to obtain a DC voltage. This voltage is then switched on and off at a high
speed by electronic switching circuitry, which may then pass through a high-frequency, hence
small, light, and cheap, transformer or inductor. The duty cycle of the output square wave
increases as power output requirements increase. Switched-mode power supplies are always
regulated. If the SMPS uses a properly-insulated high-frequency transformer, the output will
be electrically isolated from the mains, essential for safety.

Block Diagram of a typical SMPS

The input power slicing occurs at a very high speed (typically 10 kHz — 1 MHz).
High frequency and high voltages in this first stage permit much smaller transformers and
smoothing capacitors than in a power supply operating at mains frequency, as linear supplies
do. After the transformer secondary, the AC is again rectified to DC. To keep output voltage
constant, the power supply needs a sophisticated feedback controller to monitor current
drawn by the load.

SMPSs often include safety features such as current limiting or a crowbar circuit to
help protect the device and the user from harm.[2] In the event that an abnormal high-current
power draw is detected, the switched-mode supply can assume this is a direct short and will
shut itself down before damage is done. For decades PC power supplies have provided a
power good signal to the motherboard whose absence prevents operation when abnormal
supply voltages are present.

SMPSs have an absolute limit on their minimum current output.[3] They are only able
to output above a certain power level and cannot function below that point. In a no-load
condition the frequency of the power slicing circuit increases to great speed, causing the
isolated transformer to act as a Tesla coil, causing damage due to the resulting very high
voltage power spikes. Switched-mode supplies with protection circuits may briefly turn on
but then shut down when no load has been detected. A very small low-power dummy load
such as a ceramic power resistor or 10-watt light bulb can be attached to the supply to allow it
to run with no primary load attached.

Power factor has become a recent issue of concern for computer manufacturers.
Switched mode power supplies have traditionally been a source of power line harmonics and
have a very poor power factor. Many computer power supplies built in the last few years now
include power factor correction built right into the switched-mode supply, and may advertise
the fact that they offer 1.0 power factor.

By slicing up the sinusoidal AC wave into very small discrete pieces, a portion of
unused alternating current stays in the power line as very small spikes of power that cannot
be utilized by AC motors and results in waste heating of power line transformers. Hundreds
of switched mode power supplies in a building can result in poor power quality for other
customers surrounding that building, and high electric bills for the company if they are billed
according to their power factor in addition to the actual power used. Filtering capacitor banks
may be needed on the building power mains to suppress and absorb these negative power
factor effects.

Pictures of SMPS used in Personal Computer

SMPS used in PC
 SMPS showing connectors used to provide power to PC components

SMPS showing interal circuit system

Connectors of SMPS
A Personal Computer consist of various components such as motherborad, hard disk, CD
drive, FDD, etc which need electric power to work properly. SMPS is used in PC to provide
eletric power to these components. Each compnent is connected with SMPS througth a power
connector of a specific type such as HDD is connected with molex power connector.
Following are the various connectors used in PC to power various components of PC

• 20 pin Main Power (for MotherBoard)

• 4 pin Main Power Cable (for CPU)
• 4 pin AUX Power Cable
• 4 pin Peripheral Power Cable (Molex) (for IDE HDD,CDD,etc)
• SATA power Cable (for SATA devices)
• 4 pin FDD Power Cable (for FDD)

Power connectors of SMPS to connect PC components

AC Power connector of SMPS (external connector)

Volatge provided to various componets

Standard Output Voltages

PCs use several different voltages to power their various components. The core voltages have
mostly remained unchanged over the 20-year history of the PC, though a couple of the less-
used voltages have essentially been dropped, and an important new one has been added. The
power supply provides each of these voltages, in varying amounts depending on the model,
directly from its circuitry.

Most of the power provided by the power supply is in the form of positive voltages, but some
is in the form of negative voltages. Negative voltage is a slightly strange concept when used
in reference to a DC current. In a nutshell, it just means that the voltage potential is measured
from ground to the signal, instead of the signal to ground. It's essentially like turning a battery
upside-down: same voltage, the current just goes backwards. The diagram below shows this
better than I can explain it.

Scale illustration of the various voltages provided by a typical,

modern power supply. The color of each line corresponds to
the color normally given wires carrying that voltage in the
supply's motherboard connectors. The black zero voltage line
represents the system's ground, which is the reference point.

The amount of current provided at each voltage level is important because of its impact on
determining the supply's ability to provide sufficient power for your system. That larger issue
is discussed in a separate section. Here are the details on the various voltages provided by
today's power supplies:

• -12 V: This voltage is used on some types of serial port circuits, whose amplifier
circuits require both -12V and +12V. It is not needed on some newer systems, and
even on older ones not very much is used, because the serial ports require little power.
Most power supplies provide it for compatibility with older hardware, but usually
with a current limit of less than 1 A.
• -5 V: A now archaic voltage, -5 V was used on some of the earliest PCs for floppy
controllers and other circuits used by ISA bus cards. It is usually provided, in small
quantity (generally less than 1A), for compatibility with older hardware. Some form
factor power supplies such as the SFX no longer bother to supply it (systems using the
SFX power supply are intended not to have ISA bus slots).

• 0 V: Zero volts is the ground of the PC's electrical system, also sometimes called
common or (especially in the UK) earth. The ground signals provided by the power
supply are used to complete circuits with the other voltages. They provide a plane of
reference against which other voltages are measured.

• +3.3 V: The newest voltage level provided by modern power supplies, it was
introduced with the ATX form factor and is now found on the ATX/NLX, SFX and
WTX form factors. It is not found in Baby AT or older form factors. Originally, the
lowest regular voltage provided by the power supply was +5 V, which was used to
provide power to the CPU, memory, and everything else on the motherboard. Starting
with the second generation Pentium chips, Intel went to a reduced 3.3 V voltage, in
order to reduce power consumption as the chips got faster. This required motherboard
manufacturers to put voltage regulators on their boards to change the +5 V to +3.3 V.
The regulators produced a great deal of waste heat and having to do this reduction on
the motherboard was very inefficient, so now the power supply provides +3.3 V
directly. It is used to run most newer CPUs, as well as some types of system memory,
AGP video cards, and other circuits.

• +5 V: On older form factor systems (Baby AT and earlier) , this is the voltage used to
run the motherboard, the CPU (directly or indirectly) and the vast majority of other
components in the system. On newer systems, many of the components, especially the
CPU, have migrated to the lower +3.3 V described above, but the motherboard and
many of its components still use +5 V.

• +12 V: This voltage is used primarily to power disk drive motors. It is also used by
fans and other types of cooling devices. It is in most cases not used by the
motherboard in a modern PC but is passed on to the system bus slots for any cards
that might need it. Of course, drives are connected directly to the power supply
through their own connectors.