Digital Trends

Hy-Tek Tek Panel 300

May 17th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Hy-Tek's Customizations

A system such as the Tek Panel 300 requires quite a few custom designs to make it all work, and this is where Hy-Tek really shines. We already mentioned the great job they did with the case, but there were other issues that the Hy-Tek engineers had to address.

Since the system is really two devices in one — a computer and a display — Hy-Tek had to come up with a way to power both together and turn them on and off with one switch. Their power supply design is actually two separate PSUs wired to work as one. As a Hy-Tek engineer explained to us, the system features a 300-watt 2u server power supply for the computer, and a second 1u power supply for the LCD panel.

These two separate power supplies are bridged together to act as one, so if the computer requires more than the 300 watts provided by the first PSU, it can instantly draw from the second unit, which still has more than enough juice to handle the display. This accomplishes a few things in the design of the Tek Panel: it helps with cooling by separating the two devices apart; it also allows them to locate the power where they want to, instead of having to fit a larger, say 450W 2u power supply somewhere in the unit; and presumably, it saves Hy-Tek some cost building the unit.

By bridging the two power supplies together, Hy-Tek has also enabled both devices to be powered on with one switch. This is a no-brainer in our opinion, as it would be really annoying to have to flip two switches to power up the computer and display separately — but we think Hy-Tek could have done a better job with the type of switch they selected. They use a toggle switch instead of a momentary pushbutton switch. What this means is that when you power the unit down, which is done through Windows, the switch is still in the ‘on' position. So the next time you want to turn the Tek Panel 300 on, you have to turn the switch to ‘off' and then back to ‘on'. This probably has something to do with the need or desire to turn the display panel off at the same time as the computer, but we hope Hy-Tek can figure out a better way of doing this in the future.