Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!arritt
From: arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: small power supply ... does it matter?
Message-ID: <22280.25dd51ec@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 90 19:30:20 GMT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 27


I'm in the market for a 386sx, and our state contract says "thou
shalt buy Zenith and no other".  The Zenith 386sx has a 120 watt
power supply, which is small for this type of machine.  The Zenith sales
rep said they use some special chips which reduce the power
requirements.  The whole business seems weird -- the power supply
is a pretty small-dollar item in the context of the price of the
system, and the power usage of pc's is an insignificant contributor
to the electric bill of any governmental institution (i.e. Zenith's
primary market).  Just what are they trying to accomplish by designing
the system to use such a low-rating power supply?

Anyway, my main question to you fellow netters:  Is this something to
be concerned about?  For example, what happens if I add a tape backup, 
a transputer board, maybe a few more megabytes of memory, or other 
electrical load? 

Whatever advice, anecdotes, warnings, etc. you can offer would be
appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Ray Arritt                        | 
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy    |
Univ. of Kansas                   |
Lawrence, KS  66045               |
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu         |
arritt@ukanvax.bitnet             |