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Quiet PSU's

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Seal

Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2002
Location
London
Hi im due for a new psu as my old 300W psu is giving up, the caps are swelling and power connectors starting to look bit worse for wear. Its probably cos i 7V the fan inside if for silence. I wasnt expecting it to last this long but it did! (its a very old psu) Anyway, anyone got a good suggestion for a quiet/silent psu or one i could easily mod to make silent without blowing it up? Needs to be in the lower/mid price range too please. Needs to be around 400W or higher.

Setup:
XP2200
Abit KX7-333
Single Hard Drive
2 low speed fans on rheo's

thats pretty much all i have to power as i dont connect my cd drives as i never use them. so in theory im guessing i could get away with a 350W PSU but i want to leave room for expansion in the future.

Oh yeah my computer is watercooled too.

Thanks
Seal
 
Go Antec True Power 430... It was the quietest PSU rated against the other big boys with Enermax coming in at second... Let me see if I can dig up a review...
 
you could do what im gonna do if i ever get any money and take off the cover put a big hole in it and mount a 120mm fan on it then put the cover back on... that would be massive airflow but stll really quite... but for a PSU that is natraly wuite i dont know sorry lolz
 
Antec TruePower 430 here and no complaints. Runs my sig system plus 2 HDD's, DVD, CD-RW, and 4 USB devices. Never hear it above the Tornado. :D
 
noise

If you are a noise-nazi like me then you are gonna like this:
The Nexus NX-3000 300 W. Too bad its only 300W but, if u want quiet stuff u just cant go 500W...
more info is found here:
http://www.silentpc.nl/

I know u want a 400W+ power supply, but u should think about it. You dont need that much power for your rig. I remember running my old athlon (tbird), 2hds, 2cds, scsi fine with a 250W supply...
Nowadays all u need is 300 W and you will be fine. But thats just my opinion.
 
yes the Nexus is very quiet ( i heard they're coming out with a 400W version), the Zalman and Quietpc are also extremely quite. These are all quieter than anything else on the market.
 
Wow looks good these do, i think i'd be able to get away with a 300W just about as i dont plug any cd drives in or anything as i rarely use them, arent there any 350W silent psu's? maybe 400W silents?
 
I have a 300w QuietPC PSU and yes it is very quiet. I'm not sure if they make higher wattage PSU's though. I also have a True430 which is pretty damn quiet as well. I also like the 2 fan only molex connectors on it. They run my case fans nice and slow and thus quietly as well.
 
Anything, but the Vantec Stealth PSU. I just got a Vantec Stealth 520 and it is one of the loudest, if not THE loudest, PSU's I have ever owned, or worked with. Even at low speed, it is loud.

I have modded about 12 PSU's in the past. All of them were very quiet after the mod. You can mod just about any PSU. I prefer PSU's with a fan in the front and fan in the back. The PSU's with a fan on the bottom are the loudest, due to turbulence caused by the bottom fan being too close and at 90 degrees to the back fan. Avoid that if you can. Get a cheapy PSU, like a Power Magic 500 (about $30) and drop a couple low-speed fans in there, like Panaflo L1A's (highly recommended) or even NMB 18dBA fans. Take out the original fans, cut off their tails and splice their tails onto the tail of the new fan. That combo will be better than stock cooling and much, much, quieter.
 
The Quietest made? I am not sure, but I do know that the noise level has dropped dramatically since I switched over to an Antec Truepower. It has two fans, and is still quieter than any single fan PSU I’ve ever come across. Plus you are not sacrificing quality and watt output for noise reduction.
 
Whats every1s views on 7ving a psu fan? Ive done it in the past and it aint brill cooling but adequate. My 300W psu is however giving up now probably cos of this. One of the caps i can visibly see has swelled up.
 
I would never buy a "Stealth", "Quiet", "Silent" PSU. Just never would: no commercially sold PSU (with the exception of some of the fanless TK power/ Deltatronic/ etc) is quieter than a good quality, higher power (400watt+) unit with a panaflo/ papst even @ 12v. 7v is obviously quieter. If I were you, I would go for a Sparkle 400 watter and get a (single) panaflo L1A 80mm off ebay for (eek!) $8, and try it at both 7v & 12v. I find this solution (with my mucho power consuming system) works quite well.
 
I agree. A single Panaflo L1A is enough cooling for most PSU's. The only expception is big, 500+ watt PSU's, used for AMD duallies. For them, I use two Panaflo L1A's. One blowing in, one blowing out.
 
i have a question ive been meaning to ask for a while now. If i get a big 500W but only use low power stuff will it run cooler or the same temp? I want to get like a 450W, thinking bout the future but currently i only need around a 300W.
 
seal said:
i have a question ive been meaning to ask for a while now. If i get a big 500W but only use low power stuff will it run cooler or the same temp? I want to get like a 450W, thinking bout the future but currently i only need around a 300W.
Although higher power PSU's may have beefier heatsinks and higher rated components, most PSUs big or small have generally the same range of AC-DC conversion efficiency: 65-70+%. For every 100 watts you draw (typical avg system), you produce ~40 watts of heat regardless of PSU wattage rating. However, many PSU's hit their "sweet spot" of AC-DC efficiency when delivering 1/2 - 2/3 their rated power output.... It's a matter of a few %, but it makes a difference if you're trying to push the lower limits of cfm...
 
Yes, it will run cooler, in a lower power system.

Power Supplies only dissipate as many watts as they are using (not counting for efficiency,) so if you are running a single CPU system that only uses 200 watts, your 500 watt PSU is only giving you 200 watts and dissipating the heat it generates from delivering 200 watts.
 
Cool, lol no phun intended!

I may get a big phat supply with dual fans and 7v both of them, that should be ok shouldnt it? Im gonna be using probably little less that 300W. My current 300W is doing the job easily.
 
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