Power Supply Silence

[Droban]

I replaced the fan in my power supply with a stealth fan with much trouble. Gave myself a good shock, thankfully from the power cable not the capactiors. Otherwise I don't think I would have been able to handle 400 watts. Plus I thought my motherboard was fried but after a lot of headache figured out it wasnt and everything is fine. Im about the same amount of noise from the power supply. Is there any way to make it quieter?

[Tismedt]

Not a lot you can do that will be quiter then a stealth fan. Be careful though. PSU generate a lot of heat so you need a good fan in there moving the air out. You could buy one of the newer models with a 120mm fan but even those make some noise. Also have you thought about sound dampeners. Lining your case with this stuff is supposed to help a bunch with the noise.

Glad to hear you didnt get hurt. The power from the wall socket can be deadly too.

[Droban]

Well I think the noise comes from limited airflow. There are only a few slots for air intake and then the back fan for output. There isnt nearly as much output as the fan is able to produce. I think I'll probably end up playing it safe and getting a fortron, but has anyone else had this problem?

[larrymoencurly]

I once drilled a few hundred 1/8" holes in the case of a cheap PSU that had only one fan and one row of 1" slots in front, and the air flow out the fan increased quite a bit. But that's not to say that more vent holes always help because www.silentpcreview.com shows that a PSU run without its cover can actually have hotter heatsinks.

Never have a PSU plugged in unless its cover is screwed in place. And never touch anything inside the PSU because you can't tell what's going to have high voltage on it, like at least one of the heatsinks.