Vantec Ion2 Power Supply

Very quiet power supply – Joe

SUMMARY: Virtually silent in normal use.

The good guys at Vantec were nice enough to send their 350 watt Ion2 Power Supply to try out.

Key features include:

• Six hard drive, two floppy, one P4 and one accessory connector
• Two Serial ATA cables
• All cables pre-sleeved
• Quiet 120 mm fan
• EZ-Grip connectors

Looking down on the unit

shows the sleeving and 120mm cooling fan. The ATX connector is about 15″ long, the SATA connectors are 16″ and 22″ long, the P4 connector is 16 ½” long, and the hard drive connectors are spaced at 15″, 21″ and 27″ with the floppy at 33″. The back

is great – lots of open area for air to exit – this allows for good cooling performance and lower noise. The clips are Vantec’s EZ-grip:

These are great – it makes removing power plugs very easy, especially welcome in tight quarters. The label

indicates the power budget – this is not a power supply for an aggressive, loaded system.

A look inside (if you remove the cover, you void the warranty)

shows a fairly standard layout – no surprises here. The heatsinks are adequate for the job:

The 120 mm fan, as you might expect, takes up a lot of territory:

Overall, a nice unit.

I used the Ion2 to power a modest P4 system (P4 1500 and video card). I measured intake and exhaust temps at idle and under load (Prime95) and found the following:

The 12 volt line showed a small difference between load and idle – 12.02 at idle and 11.96 volts under load – the other rails showed no variation – 5.08 and 3.30 volts (per MBM). I am devising a more rigorous test using resistors and will report on those results shortly.

For a very quiet PC, the Vantec Ion2 is a power supply to consider – it’s very quiet under modest use conditions.

Thanks again to Vantec for sending this our way.

Email Joe