Going to try battery power for my PC

[tboooe]

I am using an old HTPC running an Atom 525 processor as my music server. I've been using a Keces linear power supply for a while now on it and have been very happy with the results. Having read about the benefits of battery power I am going to try that next on my PC. My question is what power output I need. My PC power supply is rated at 19v @ 3.4A. One of the batteries is rated at 19v 3 amps and the other is rated as 19v 3.9A. Will the 3A battery work for my PC?

 

Here are the two batteries I am considering:

Amazon.com: Anker® Astro Pro2 20000mAh Multi-Voltage (5V 12V 16V 19V) External Battery Charger for iPad Air, Mini, iPhone 5S, 5C, 5, 4S, Samsung Galaxy S5, S4, S3, Note 3, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, Toshiba Netbooks, Notebooks and many other devices (Appl

 

Incredible 20,000mAh Battery Charger -Universal Portable Battery

[PewterTA]

I'm not saying to not try it, but when I ran my computer off battery, I found my sound flat and somewhat lifeless. It sounded good initially and I was excited with the sound, but after doing some critical listening I felt I was missing something. When I plugged my PC back into my regenerated power all the life came back and the dynamics returned to the sound. I was some what shocked and tried the battery again and got the same thing, just wasn't happy with the sound.

 

So for me, it saves me hassle in dealing with a battery and charging it. Now I did not use anything like Red Wine Audio or that like, so maybe those are different.

 

But for me I'm happy with keeping with my plugged in solution for my computer.

[tboooe]

Thank you PewterTA. I appreciate the response. For the money ($100) I am going to give it a try and see what happens. I just need to figure out if 3A is enough to power my PC which is rated at 3.4A.

[TechHiFi]

tboooe, What did try and how we'll did it work? I'm considering the same thing...

[JohnSwenson]

One thing you need to be careful of with these types of supplies is that they have switching DC-DC regulators on their output, and usually not very good ones at that since they are designed as battery chargers, the battery doesn't care if there is some high frequency noise on the output.

 

What you really want is a battery pack that when it is not charging just puts batteries directly on the output, no regulators. Yes the voltage can vary, but that is fine, DC-DC converters in the computer will take care of dealing with a wide range of input voltages.

 

For most such computers the input voltage does NOT have to be exactly 19V. Because the converters in the computer trade off voltage and current you can run at a lower voltage, but it will have a slightly higher current draw. It will probably work fine all the way down to 12V.

 

In summary I would stay away from those universal large batteries designed to charge mobile devices, they are probably one of the worst power sources for a device, and try a good old 12V battery and see if it works.

 

John S.

[BigEars]

I'd agree, I tried the battery recharger style batteries on my Beaglebone Black and yes it was better than a cheap wallwart supply but when I put a Keces DC-116 into the loop the Keces was way better.