So quiet you can’t hear it – Joe & Brett
SUMMARY: A VERY low noise power supply.
The nice folks at 
sent us a
Zalman Low Noise Power Supply, model #ZM400A-APF. Zalman has carved a nice niche in the marketplace with its emphasis on low-noise products, such as the Zalman CNPS7000-Cu heatsink.
Zalman claims that this power supply is virtually noiseless:
I can attest that under “normal” use, it’s about as quiet as you can get – I can’t get a reading with a Radio Shack sound meter (50 dBA lowest). In fact, when I first turned it on, I had to look at the fan to see if it was running. We’re going to test it under very high loads and will report our results for temperature, fan noise and DC output ripple shortly.
The power supply includes
- 7 four pin hard drive connectors
- 2 floppy drive connectors
- 1 AUX connector
- 1 P4 12v connector
- Motherboard connector
Contrary to some power supplies we’ve seen, this one has only ONE fan. I noticed that there is a fairly large opening for airflow:
Some power supplies unduly restrict airflow with anemic openings.
Speaking of openings, that was the next (void your warranty) step:
This power supply is pretty hefty – it weighs in at almost 5 pounds. After I saw the size of the heatsinks, I understood why it weighs so much.
Compared to some I have seen, these are quite large and should go a long way to keeping it cool under stress. The main difference I see is that the heatsinks have a large “cap” at the top – most others do not. This adds to the total cooling surface area, such that one low rpm fan should suffice.
The Zalman Low Noise Power Supply, model #ZM400A-APF, looks to be well designed for low noise. Brett is going to put it on the “PS Torture Rack” to see how it fairs under stress – stay tuned!
Thanks again to for sending this our way.
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