Too Much Power Supply?

When building or buying a Custom PC, the power supply is a critical component that needs proper consideration, Too often people purchase a PC or build a PC with the thought of "I want to get the biggest power supply that I can buy..."  but that's a big component that can be over bought and money that could be put towards other components ends up generating power that never gets utilized.

What does the wattage actually mean on a Power Supply unit?  The wattage is the amount of power made available to the system.  However, there is an extra factor you must take into account, and that's the fact that what the power supply does is convert from AC to DC.  When this happens you have a loss of energy in the way of heat, and the process itself.  Most power supplies are at least 80%+ efficient (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum are just how much more than 80% it will be).  That means for a power supply that generates 500 watts for the system it powers it actually is using roughly 625 watts from the wall.  So keep that in mind when you are pricing the power supply.

What does the form factor mean when it comes to power supplies.  Simply put the form factor for the power supply must be compatible with not only the system case that you are putting all your components in, but the system board must also be compatible.  So if your Case is AT/ATX/MicroATX compatible, your power supply must match to fit the case, and match the system board so that the cable harness would have the appropriate connections.  That is important to remember as well.

So we now are sure that the system board, the system case, and the power supply will fit.  Now how do I know which wattage is right for the system being built.  Let's now look at how to calculate system needs.  It all boils down to a fully thinking out your system, what components you need.  Let's look at a bare bones PC next to a more advanced system.

Basic System

Componenet	Description	Wattage
CPU	Basic Dual Core	65
System Board	Basic Board	40
Video Card	Basic Add-on Card	35
Memory	Basic 4GB	5
Optical Drive	DVD-ROM	6
Hard Drive	5400RPM HDD	10
Fans	Basic Case Fan	4
	Total	165 Watts

Advanced System

Componenet	Description	Wattage
CPU	Advanced Hexcore	150
System Board	Advanced Feature Set	55
Video Card	Advanced Graphics (Dual Card)	350
Memory	Advanced 8GB	10
Optical Drive	Blu-Ray	12
Hard Drive	7400RPM HDD (Raid 1)	20
Fans	Basic Case Fan	4
	Total	600 Watts

So as you can see the more complicated the system the more power you need to make sure everything functions correctly.  So the basic setup will do fine with a 200 watt power supply, and the advance will need a 650-700 watt power supply.  These numbers are based at max power draw per component.  That is what you need to calculate at.  The most common mistake you find is people calculate on the idle voltage draw, As soon as your system is taxed, you will suffer from power issues.  If you plan to increase storage, plan accordingly for your end product not with what you currently have.
Now that you have an understanding of how to better choose the proper power supply, I hope this will help you with your next build, and also to not get sold something that is not what you need.

Documentation is Key

Documentation in today’s work environment is just as important, if not more than the actual work done.  Documentation not only explains to the customer what was completed but it also provides a historical look back at problems and possible solutions.  In this way your team is not continually reinventing the wheel and wasting that time.

The most important reason for documentation is to record steps taken to solve the issue that is being worked on.  This is the most important reason for documentation, should you need to revisit the customer should the issue not fully be resolved or, should a solution not provide the expected results, the documentation provides a change log to know what to change back to original state should you need to revert back to the original condition.

Another important reason to have good documentation is to have reference material for not only yourself but your team that you work with, also known as a Knowledge base.  By developing site specific documentation you can create a very robust knowledge base for not only yourself but the remaining members of your team, as well as team members to come after you.  This will drastically cut down on problem solve time, as well as provide a standard solution to ensure that further modifications to equipment at your site will be uniform and consistently implemented.  Not only the customer, but the support team will have a less stressful work day.

Another reason but just as important type of documentation is for security incidents that may involve violations of facility policy, local, state, or federal laws.  As a lone desktop tech, you will need to be very familiar with documentation for this, but as a desktop tech in a team, you normally also have a security group that should definitely be brought in to run point on any incidences that may have breached local, state or federal laws.  The key to this documentation is to preserve the equipment in question not changing, clearing, modifying anything to the system, but taking screenshots, data captures, and to track any and all steps done on the equipment while investigating the incident.  It is also very important to have a chain of custody when dealing with this type of documentation.  This tracks who has had their hands on the equipment should any question come up to the preservation of the evidence of the incident.

Documentation of what you do on a call is important and should not be overlooked.  A method I’ve developed over the years is to take notes for myself, and transcribe them at the end of the day into universally understandable documentation so that anyone in the group can understand, and repeat or undo the steps taken.  This will allow the tech on the next shift, to know what happened should they get called back to the same system, or should they need to replicate what you have done because another system is showing similar symptoms.

I hope this helps you understand why documentation is important in your daily life as a desktop technician.  It’s not just something to do because your manager or supervisor tells you to do so, it really is a tool that can make your overall career easier.  Not only is it an excellent tool and skill to have in your own ability set, but it also helps your whole team in the long term as well.

Powershell: The Desktop Support Tech's Scripting Language

In this modern business climate where IT departments can be seen slimming down, and the overall work needing to be done grows, an innovative tech needs to learn how to maximize their time and develop the skill sets to not only get the job done in less time, but to better yourselves and to stand out among your peers, as departments slim down. These are are some things to add to your tool set to help with not only help you by.

Powershell is one of the greatest things for technicians that Microsoft has incorporated into its environment they could have given us. With powershell you can effectively script every repetitive task you do. For those with little scripting experience this is perfect to step into. The language is easy to figure out, the online community is very strong, and powershell comes with an ISE that is rather fully featured. The greatest thing about powershell is that it is that it is backwards compatible and it is practically integrated in all Microsoft products. It allows you to do very complicated tasks on a desktop, then with the same script jump to a server, and then modify the Active Directory database, all in one fell swoop with one language and can easily be done with little scripting know-how.

With some scheduled tasking, some things to look at automating:

• User Creation / Termination
• Quickly and easily create users from a CSV or Database object
• Desktop / Server Configuration
• Again with a CSV file or database object, you can simply put a PC on the network and quickly configure the windows environment completely hands off
• Up-time Checks
• Quickly check against either a CSV or Active Directory OU and get reports back or issue commands to those machines if they fall outside of a set threshold.  Great for checking for those PCs that need a little “Reboot Maintenance.”
• Active Directory management
• When working on your configuration script for the desktop or user configuration you can also build in Active Directory management to the script, create, remove, move and edit Active directory Users and Objects to automatically set them in the right Organizational Units and Security Groups to get any Group Policies that may be needed, or to just keep your Active Directory Structure Organized.
• PC Information Collection
• In environments where you may not be directly involved with the PC creation and setup, however you may be tasked with managing those assests.  You can easily collect the wealth of information that the PC and build a database of each PC/Server in your environment.

Some of these are simple scripts, some can be quite complex with lots of controls and checks.  In the end though, some elbow grease on the front end, will pay off several times over when you don’t have to figure out where to fit those repetitive tasks in your ever growing task list.  Which will allow you to truly be in multiple places at once, and be the tech that stands out among their peers.