I've had 2 PS's die on my 556 since I bought it in 06. The fist PS I got from HP parts for under $75. The secound last year I got on ebay for a pretty good price.

 Someone said they didn't let it cool off when they unpluged it & then it blew when plugged back in. I don't think waiting for it to cool down has much to do with it. Mine had plenty of time to cool down when it was pluged in & then blew. It was nice to have the backup ready & waiting.

 I need to get another PS for a backup. I just got a 565 a week or so ago. I plan on upgrading it to windows 7 & a bluray burner here real soon.

I picked up a Seasonic SS300-TFX bronze power supply from NewEgg and dropped it in the case.  It fits nicely in the space so I can close up the cover.  All the power leads are long enough to reach the various connectors.  I need to drill some holes in the back though so I can mount it securely.  I haven't yet hooked up the power to the front panel, but since I had a spare IR receiver, there's no rush to do so.  I decided it was better to go with a new power supply than pick up an old one from e-bay.

 Neil.

 This looks like a good alternative to HP's discontinued PS....although it appears a bit long. Were you able to drop it in and keep your Personal Media Drive bay in tact? My measurements show me that 6 inches is the max distance I have to work with before I butt up against the back connector on the PMD enclosure. NewEgg's measurements of this power supplysay it is almost an inch longer than that. Can you post a few pics of your power supply placed in the case? I'd like to use this power supply to bring back a z556 from the dead, but I want to be sure that there's a decent enough fit. Also I'd like to be surer with the fan top mounted, that there's enough clearance for the fan on the PS to work properly.

 

I have the same question, but I can live without the media drive more than the power supply.  My z545 only has 6 inches also, and the case will have to be modified to allow for the fan location.  Perhaps just open up the back panel a bit and let it stick out a bit?

However I do like the idea of the extra juice, it may help the system carry the extra memory better.  Besides I've already paid a lot to replace with the stock unit before and it blew within a year.

 I also plan on picking up this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812162006 so that I don't mess with the PS wiring when I splice in the front panel connector.

Here are a couple pictures of the Seasonic case in the HP540.  I had taken out the media drive bay a long time back so I don't know if the new supply will interfere with it.  As you can see from the pictures, there's at least an inch of clearance between the fan and the top of the case, so airflow doesn't seem to be a problem.  If it does, there's enough room to mount the PSU on its side so that there's a straight path from the inside of the case to the PSU fan.

 Neil.

 

 

 

Neil, Have you had a chance to hook this new power supply up to the front panel daughterboard? I was wondering how painful that process will be. My PS fried yesterday, plugged it int my UPS and it kept making the UPS wig out. Not sure if it was trying to pull too much power, or why the UPS was having a fit. Finally got that familiar smell of the magic blue smoke escaping from the Power supply, so... Cheapest price I have found is $115 plus $13 shipping on Ebay for the HP original replacement on Ebay. Steve

nlshipp

Here are a couple pictures of the Seasonic case in the HP540.  I had taken out the media drive bay a long time back so I don't know if the new supply will interfere with it.  As you can see from the pictures, there's at least an inch of clearance between the fan and the top of the case, so airflow doesn't seem to be a problem.  If it does, there's enough room to mount the PSU on its side so that there's a straight path from the inside of the case to the PSU fan.

 Neil.

 

That looks like a good fit. Here's another TFX power supply I found, that is only 5 & 3/4" deep, so it should fit without having to remove the personal media drive bay enclosure:

 

you can find it at www(dot)directron(dot)com/sl275tfx.html

 

 

I hooked up the new Seasonic 300tfx supply to the front panel daughterboard yesterday.  I took the old power supply apart and checked the wire colours with the 24pin connector and they matched.  Red to red, purple to purple, gray to gray, yellow to yellow and black to black.  I snipped the wires as close as possible to the original power supply circuit board to keep the longest amount of cable.

For the seasonic supply, it didn't look as if I was going to be able to get the connectors out of the motherboad connector and connect them there.  I took the supply apart and tried to see if I could find a good place to connect them rather than stripping the wire somewhere in the middle and using electrical tape.  For the black and yellow connectors there were unused holes on the circuit board which needed a little bit of cleanup to remove excess solder.  The black circuit pad had two unused holes so one black when into one, and the other two went in the other.  The yellow pad had one unused hole.  For the red wire pad, there were no unused holes, but there was enough room on the pad to drill an extra hole for the 5v wire with a small pin vice and PCB drill bit.  For the gray and purple, no extra holes.  I had to solder the wires directly to the back of the circuit board.  I zip-tied the bundle together and put everything back in the case.  It took a little over two hours with most of it thinking about the best way of doing things.

While I had the machine apart I machined a new hole in the video card bracket to fit an HDMI connector.  I had replaced the ATI X300 radeon last week with an Asus ATI HD EAH4350 silent fanless low profile card.  The original Z540 bracket connected fine with the DVI connector but covered the HDMI connector. 

 Here's a picture of the back of the board with the modifications highlighted in red rectangles.

 

Powered the MCE up, Win7 found new hardware and the front panel showed the welcome message.  The wireless RF keyboard now works along with the IR receiver.  The CF, xD and MMC memory drives show up as well now.  I also found that two of the screw holes on the back of the seasonic just lie within the diameter of the case's rear fan hole so putting in two screws now fastens the back of the supply to the case. 

 Neil

smalltownguy

That looks like a good fit. Here's another TFX power supply I found, that is only 5 & 3/4" deep, so it should fit without having to remove the personal media drive bay enclosure:

you can find it at www(dot)directron(dot)com/sl275tfx.html

Are the power supply cables long enough to reach the connectors on the HP MCE box?  The reason I went with the Seasonic was that the user comments on newegg described it as having long cables.

Neil.

I found using the atx extension cable I listed above worked very well - no mess and everything is completely reversible.  I cut off the 7 pin connector from the original power supply and spliced it into the extension cable (soldered).  I installed the extension between the motherboard and the power supply.  Everything started right up, including the keyboard and front display.  As pointed out above two screws in the back of the power supply wedge the ps in place nicely.  The power cables have plenty of length to do what you need.

Now the bad news; I upgraded the system to Windows 7, and the system keeps crashing (blue screen).  I tried different memory, video card, and hard drive.  Interesting enough the PC3200 memory my z545 is rated for (from HP site) wouldn't work at all.  I had to switch back to PC2700.

I got frustrated before the holidays and decided to shelve the project for a couple of weeks - will get back to it next week.  Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks very much for all of you contributing to this thread!  I had the same problem, saw how much the power supply was on ebay, and decided to just reuse a supply out of an old computer.  This power supply was 500W and didn't fit in case at all, so I am living with it sticking out the back.  I snipped off the custom connector, and spliced it into the main ATX cable to get the gray/purple lines.

It took me longer than expected because the system kept refusing to boot.  I found that the z556 will not boot if the CD-ROM is disconnected.  Also, I had to reseat my memory, I must have nudged it while working on it.

It's not pretty, but it works well now and I have my media center up and running again!  My cabinet has enough space to hide the external power supply behind the CPU, but I'll have to be careful not to stretch and damage the umbilical lines running into the computer.
 

 I picked up a Rosewill sl-300tfx at Newegg (24$), it looks like an almost exact fit into a Z 500 series. The daughterboard will need a modification as posted above. It looks like all other wiring will work perfectly.

 Goldfish, how has that Rosewill power supply worked out for you?

 

 I got my original one going again. It looked dead but started running again, I don't know how or why. I put the Rosewill aside for now. It looks like it will fit with no trouble, no drive bay alteration, and no wire extensions needed. The only power changes will be the daughter board for the audio, video etc

I actually have 3 of the z series machines running, so I'm just holding off now until 1 of them dies. Maybe never. 

The Rosewill's steel box looks very cheaply made, so If you are looking for a tank, they never built it at Rosewill. I hope the guts of it are built sturdier. What do you expect for that cheep?     ....................

 Thanks for the response. My PS quit working several weeks ago and I need to do something. I think I might give the Rosewill a shot, hard to resist that price compared to what others on this board are using.