Pico PSU's Explained 

Unless I'm mistaken, the reason those don't get hot is that there's no 12 volt conversion. The only thing that PSU has to do is downconvert for the 3.3 and 5 volt ranges for the CMOS and USB/drive controller connections. That brick on the other hand I would expect to get quite warm. It really is your limiting factor unless you have a lot running off the 5 volt rail.

The reason (I think from observation) that these can be so cool is because the Bridge rectification and regulation probably only occurs in the brick. I assume the Pico PSU is really just a plug adapter with some filter caps and a 5v regulator for SSDs and other peripherals

Great little PSUs. I've been running my weather system PC and my Linux box for years off of the 80 watt picos from a bank of solar batteries. 200 watts of PV and a bank of 4 Trojans runs these little mITX boards 24/7/365. 4GB memory, 120GB SSDs, onboard graphics,,,, going on 8 years now without fail. My picos work from 12-36 volts, running from 24 volts. When you're all solar, a watt saved is a watt earned.

Not only informative, but smooth theme music too. Dude keep it up!!

Excellent video, Jay. Thanks for putting it up. I'm putting together a very small mini-itx build to run PFSense and your video helped me decide to use the Pico PSU.

Building computers for a decade. Still learning things all the time. Great videos.

I've been wanting to learn about Pico PSU's for a while now. This cleared things up for me! +1 sub

Thank you so much for providing information about the Pizo PSU! Even today, the information remains relevant and continues to be of great assistance!

YOU ARE A GEEEEENIUS Many thanks I've been looking for such a thing for a long time

Been working on my first small PC. Your videos keep coming up. Could be a strong niche for you. I'm subbing and liking your stuff.

this guy deserves more subs, Great job man

Another informative video! Keep doing what you do!

Awesome video! I'm new to the channel and just saw your small builds so this was a much needed video!

thanks for making this video!! Very helpful, nice intro to this PSU type

Great job explaining these PSUs!

Excellent explanation. I'm searching on how to use this to power a Lenovo 93p motherboard in my vehicle.

Thank you for this vid, it earned you a new subscriber. Keep up the great work!

Thanks. I've been looking at these online, but it makes more sense now that I could see the different angles of it. Btw, nice room.

This could be my next PC build. Looking forward to build a mini ITX pc case with a Pico psu. You can actually carry your PC in your backpack, plug in to any HDMI supported TV and your ready to game

Nice review. Getting ready to start a mini-itx build and wanted to use one of these for a Gigabyte Z390 I AORUS PRO WiFi. Have you ever had a motherboard where this wouldn't work because it wouldn't clear the RAM?

Oh yes you just anwered me all my questions especially about the 4pin to 8pin adapter coz i wanna build a very small itx apu powerhouse for the TV :D

I love what you did with the heatpipes at 2:12. Is there a video for that?

LOVING the home theater setup in this video... crazy man!!! lol

Great video man, very well explained.

Subbed. 2nd vid watched :D I like the format and mini PCs. Keep them coming :D

hey dude, cool video, I'm diggin' that tiny PSU, must try something simillar soon

how does this guy only have 1363 subs? he deserves many more

do I have to buy an adapter to plug the power supply into the pico psu

how were you able to connect a graphics card to it? an you use multiple pico psus together? 1 for gpu and 1 for other components?

Information is clear. Thanks man

what is the process current on the bus 3.3 V? Does the PicoPSU-90 highlight enough?

how do you buy the power connector as it does not seem to be included with any of these psu devices on amazon?

Woah, I can't believe I haven't heard about these before! I can't wait to use them in my next Mini ITX build.

that form factor is nice man

Nice video although technically the power brick is the actual psu and the pico psu distributes the power throughout the pc so it won't get very hot, the power brick will however.

Is it ok to use more than one adapter with the pico PSU? I’m connecting my PSU to my hp server breakout board but doing so means I need to use two adapters, is that ok?

Hello, I just got a pico 160 xt. How do you switch it on/off?

Is it possibile to use a 120w pico psu and a 150w bricket? In my country arent 120w brickets available. So do i destroy anything or should everything be fine with this combination?

Does the external power brick need to be 12V or can I use a old 19V laptop charger?

Amazing video man

What is that home theatre you have setup? Details please.

I want to know if I can conect pico psu directly to a 12volt battery. Not using a power Brick?

This pico can support mini itx and radeon HD7500 series?

What is the cable length of 4 pin power cable? from pico psu to dc jack?

i use one of these as a cover psu when ordering a psu for a server slide. i use these with athlon 5350. also use a 10amp 12volt brick. There only downfall is the chips make a little bit of heat but you can stick on a little tiny heatsink if you have the room on your mobo. (you can buy really small heatsinks from moddiy.com or just google for a raspberry pi heatsinks there really cheap and you get 3)

my pico psu has a circular end with a hole in the middle, whats that for?

Hey Jay, I've just stumbled across this vid so apologies for my lateness. I have a question and you may know the answer .. I've been given an ITX board with no power supply and I believe it falls into the industrial board category (for EPOS machines). However it takes laptop ram and a core i3/i5 so I was going to use it as a plex server / htpc machine ... I'm just lacking the psu which after my research leads me to one of the cool little psu's you featured here. However this board only uses a 12v psu with 4 pin just like the 160xt has (same as the 4 pin cpu one)... so if I was to order a pico 160xt or similiar (depending on the wattage) could I set it up as you've shown but bypass the 24 pin completely and just use the 4 pin (leaving the 24 pin tucked away in the case or dangling around lol). Theres not much info on my board but on some forums and reviews, they all seem to point to something like the 160xt so I just need a confirmation or a negative on me buying one .... I'd really appreciate your time and I'll sub to you for life .... I lied, I already subbed :)

what confuse me is the pico specs for input voltage is only 12v while laptop chargers tends to be 19v right?

my question is how did you put a gtx 960 in it? Is it safe?

can I use picoPSU-160-XT to turn mac mini m2 to have 12 v input?

hi can it run on 19v 9.5a adapter thanks

Hey, I have a Mini-ITX board with an AMD A8-5500 (65w TDP), one 8gb ddr3, 5400rpm laptop drive and onboard video. would the 90w pico psu be enough for all this? I already have it laying around.

The 12v in need How many Ampers? Thanks

Can the Pico be modded to go from a ATX 24 pin to like a 12pin for lets say a 1.1 original xbox ?

Subscribed. A lot of cool vids. Thanks. I thought about using the Pico 160, but as my project will have a battery in it, plus a few power hungry components, I picked up the M4-ATX PSU for the Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI board (A10-7870 APU), and the DCDC-USB-200 Buck-Boost board to power the two 8.9" displays that I salvaged from two dead Acer ZG5 netbooks. My choice may be a little over the top, but I'll never have to worry about voltage fluctuations damaging anything. Also, as the planned case will be made of polycarbonate (Treated to reduce static buildup), and leather, I'll need power for extra cooling. It's planned to look like a small treasure chest when done, and hopefully weigh less than my 122 year old Kimball piano (Yes, my project is meant to be portable).

hey thanks for the reply on the other video i am interested in the HD plex. I have a 80 watt Xeon CPU and a R9 nano GPU. The HD plex would be the right PSU right? I intend on using it with the NFC Systems S4 Mini. I am currently using a fully functional MINI itx PC, so i would just be changing the case and PSU. please lend me advice. thank you in advance. my current case is a silverstone FT03 mini & my PSU is a 450 silverstone gold efficiency fully modular PSU.

Thanks a lot. And, what is the case at 2:08

How to use this on a regular chassis like Cooler Master Elite 110? Normal ATX PSU has poor placement, and the long and thick cables clutter the inside of the case, making it very hot.

could it power a wireless card and a 1gbps Ethernet card

I'm going to build an ultra small system, with a 3770 and a 1050, I'm not completely sure if i will go over 200w, can anyone tell me if and how many more watts ill need?

thanks for the vid i have been thinking to build a tiny computer for work and some simple game in passive cooling

Anyone have experience with the Pico-box brand plugin boards? Like the z1 160w which is half the cost of the PicoPSU, but I'm sure for a reason. Are they less stable?

Excellent video an presentation. Thumbs up.

Can I power the CPU from a different psu ?

I don`t suppose that it`s witchcraft at all because the power brick is the actual PSU and that would have it`s own heatsinks and mini fan if it needed it whilst the `Pico PSU` board that you are holding is just the interface electronics ? sounds about right ?

I need help, can anyone tell me why the ac dc brick has a lower output than what the 160w pico psu needs. Update, I know now but what do I do if I don’t want to spend $50 on one when I need two, any cheaper options?

what case did u use to build the first set up you show?

Can support pico sata to argb ?

wait, you're telling me the power supply is external!!! BRILLIANT i need one

Okay, this makes so much more sense, I was thinking that it was a psu in a tiny thing like that and all I could think was "that is sus and will probably start a fire"

Hi! Is the picopsu-160-xt efficient enough? I mean, I'm thinking of building a mini-itx pc and the power required should be 156w, do you think I can use the 160 power supply or should I get something more powerful?

cool video man!!one question what kind of adapter i need if i want to connect another SSD Drive?

Jay, I have an Dell optiplex780 sff with a core 2 duo , I'm thinking I want to set it up as a personal server will this work for me ? My amazon membership is about to be up soon so it's kind of a time sensitive issue , much Thanks in advance appreciate you and your videos.

nice video man. does it have a 80 plus rating? what is the efficency like if i wanted to us it for a nas that needs to run 24/7 365? low power cpu (like 20 watts) and a couple harddrives. this would be pretty cool for a really small nas box

Can you make a review of the hdplex 250?

Can it run a A10-7850k and an aftermarket cooler + 1 fan?

The Witchcraft: Normal PSU's components are used toward stepping down the 120v/240v lines, changing the voltage from AC to DC and cleaning up the noise coming in from your house. Doing this takes a lot of special components and this is largely keeping the lower voltage components safe from surges, under-voltage and really bad Sine-wave output. The last thing you ever want is your 12, 5, 3.3, 1.5 volt rails from jumping up by 3-20 volts. Especially the 1.5v rail as that's usually used for your CPU. A PicoPSU doesn't need to worry about cleaning up noise as the input is already DC and mostly already stepped down and cleaned up. It does need to create the 12V, 5V 3.3v and 1.5v rails which doesn't take much from a 16-28v Volt input.

@tekEverything definitely im gonna use S4 case. but i guess i need at least 300w psu to power up everything. any recommendations ?

its cool to the touch because the cpu and gpu is powered straight from the 12 external supply. The only thing the pico supply does is step the voltage down to 5v and 3.3v for hard drives and whatnot.

Could you use this to power only a graphics card?

02:11 What case is that?

hello jay,i have curently a mini itx build ( with silverstone sugo sg13b, i3 4170, gtx 970, 1 x ssd samsung 850 evo 1 tb, 16 gb ram, SILVERSTONE ST45SF 450W SFX. ) and wont to change the power suply with a pico psu becouse my silverstone sfx make a lot of noise and it is a 450w power supply and my pc takes no mre than 210 watt in gaming with gtx 970 and 170w i gaming with gtx960, and i think with a gtx 950 it will be around 130w.what do you think ...what pico psu can i buy for this system ???thanks a lot !!!

Can we power mobo with 12volt battery using this?

so where is this HD plex overview. is it coming soon?

can i use 12v 60watt power brick? my pc overall watts is 180,,is it ok?

Thank you bro

can I connect graphic card with this??

the picopsu is cool because bulk of the regulation happens at the ac to 12vdc psu brick. the 12v lines is just a pass through. so whats left is the picopsu only regulates down to 5v line. you need a good quality powerbrick for these. dont cheap out on that!

Dammit, I really love the fanless/small form factor of the picoPSU, but HATE the fact that it needs a power brick. I'm building an ITX HTPC soon, and there are WAY too many power bricks for all my various devices in my home theater system. Is there something that isn't as small, but doesn't require a power brick and is still fanless/noiseless?

Do you think it could take ITX MB+I7 4790+Fans? I think they are ment to be for 200W constant load. Are you using some of those in similar builds?

yo.. so a small chip sitting on that 24pin.. has this been stress test like running game 8-12 hrs? its like a school project. but seriously this is awesome stuff.

G4400, gt 1030, 1x 4gb ddr4, 120gb ssd, can this psu handle it?

Thanks for this. It's not so difficult understanding it most of the power is going straight from the 12 V supply, right to the connector, the pico supply is only supplying 5V and 3.3 V, on a 150 W load, maybe 120 W goes straight through, and 30 W goes through the pico. If it's 85% efficient then it's dissipating 4.5 W of heat. I'm not taking away anything from Pico but it doesn't really do much!

Can this power a a i5 8400 and gtx 1050ti?

How to mod dell da2 brick so can with picopsu

hello, i purchase this pico psu with192watt power adapter, I'm using Streacom F7C Alpha case and this power adapter have a 4 pin mini dim male do you know where I can buy a 4 pin mini dim to. 5.5x2.5mm adapter ?? it's this possible? thanks in advance!!

good video idea

In fact it is a laptop power supply for micro atx and mini itx board

Could this power an i5 4690k and a GTX 1050Ti? My current rig is an i5 4690k, 8gb ram, and a GTX 970.I have a 500 watt PSU but I was thinking of getting a Pico PSU as an alternative to a high end SFX PSU which aren't small enough for truly portable builds. Many thanks in advance!

if i have 300w pico psu, how much wattage should the power brick have? how the "math" works?