BeQuiet! 1200W PSU aint quiet...

DeeJayCee

DeeJayCee

DeeJayCee

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Joined
7 Apr 2010
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306
Location
St Albans, UK
i have one of these and have been running it in.

it exhibited a very loud electrical buzz that was clearly audible over other noise in my living room even when a couple of metres away from the computer. however, that has now died down a bit but replaced with unnaceptable levels of noise from the fan.

the fan seems to spin up far too fast, even though my power meter shows the computer draws max 900w at load and about 300w at idle.

bequiet recommend making sure airflow is good to the fan (obviously), which isnt the case for my lian li case, where the psu is at the top. however, to test this, i took the side of my case of and built a temporary shroud around the psu fan to allow cold air in from a breez ecoming from my window, aswell as bypassing all the hot air from my computers components.

i ran it like this for a few days and stuill noisy as hell!!!

now, the spec is for "20dB to 30dB" running from 10% load to 100% load. these are obviously completely meaningless as they are not stated as sound power or pressure levels. one would assume they are sound presure levels at 1m distance. however, it could be these are sound presure levels at 1m once the psu is placed inside a case. who knows. being an acoustic consultant, the specs of pc parts really winds me up as they have no fkin clue how to quote the dB ratings!!! anyway..

i havet measured it yet, but i can quite confidently state that the noise levels at idle and load are considerably higher than this, maybe even by 10dB. and thats with the psu in my case, which is under my desk and listening to the sound at head height seated at my desk. in case noise levels are a LOT higher.

does anyone else have this? the review on ocuk website the person reckons nthey can barely hear this thing with their ear up to it!!!!

my pc is watercooled with huge radiators and very quiet fans and this psu is by FAR the loudest component. i bought this on the advice that it was very quiet.

so, do i send this thing back or not?

cheers
 
I would always take user reviews with a pinch of salt.

I wonder if the fan is constantly spinning at max revs. PSU makers like to fit high rpm fans just to cover all eventualities so this would be pretty loud I'd imagine.

It's so hard to estimate fan speed by looking at it and manufacturers rarely allow fan speed monitoring.

Is the air coming out of the PSU warm?
 
BeQuiet!'s stuff is really good quality, and is meant to be very quiet too. It might be worth contacting them and see what they say (they might tell you to RMA it?)
 
The air coming out the back is barely warm at all, additionally my power monitor barely goes above 900w with PC under load and that includes my fridge, tv and virgin box.

I have contacted BeQuiet about a week and a half ago and have received no reply.

Thanks for all the replies, RMA it is I think.
 
DeeJayCee said:
the specs of pc parts really winds me up as they have no fkin clue how to quote the dB ratings!!!
Click to expand...

I'm sure they know how to, it's possible that missing out half the spec comes under allowed advertising lies though. Mainly posting to add a complaint about airflow being rated as flow into no resistance, making this a second useless specification. 25 dB and 80 cfm, and £15, so it must be good...

900W is difficult to achieve quietly. Unsurprisingly. Your best bet probably lies with the Koolance watercooled models, though the £/warranty ratio puts me off them personally. Good luck with your current model.
 
Considering a fridge uses a 50-100 watts, a TV 100+ watts (more if you have a stonking 50" panel) and a Virgin box maybe 20 watts that still leaves 600w or so for your PC. So at 50% power it should be pretty silent I'd imagine. Air that's being vented should be warmer (slightly) than the air going in, maybe 6-8 degrees difference, otherwise the fan is going too fast.

PSUs are happy running warm. Does the PSU get warm to the touch when the PC is loaded for a while?
 
I have been away for a while so not had chance to action this.

Am grabbing a sound level meter from work and wi run some more meaningful tests tonight before I RMA it still nothing back from the manufacturers...
 
BeQuiet_PSU_Noise_Measurements.png



Single figure values:


Background Average 20dB LAeq (NR18)
Idle Average 31dB LAeq (NR25)
Load Average 41dB LAeq (NR38)

Taken at about 1m from the PC case, where my head would normally be in a small living room

Finally got round to taking some decent measurements!!!

the 50Hz is normal, so that can be ignored.

the 125Hz is a bit odd, I can only imagine that even with the power to the PC off, there is some sort of power going through. the mobo certainly has power, so maybe some form of electrical noise. not really bothered by that though.

the problem is the damn mid and high frequencies above 125HZ!!!!!

my fans are all fixed except in the PSU which is obviously temp controlled.

even at idle, the noise from the PSU is quite clearly the major noise source, subjectively. at load, there is no question about the noise from the PSU, something these measurements demonstrate (remembering that all other fans are fixed speed and very quiet)

for this test, I have air ducted in from outside my case directly into the PSU intake fan. the air going in is cold to the tough when putting my hand in the intake duct. the air coming out of the PSU is barely warm to touch. as a guide, the air coming out at load feels less warm than my media server!!! so I can only conclude that the PSU isnt getting pushed that hard.

this makes sense as the PC only draws about 800W from the wall with both GFX cards and CPU loaded up to 100% (using Kombuster multi-gpu extreme burn mode and prime95 multithreaded).

BeQuiet quote 20dB to 30dB at idle/load respectively.

I have sent them an email (again!) with the results of this testing, and have heard nothing.

I shall be ringing OcUK up about this, as hopefully they will get more luck with sorting the problem out (and hopefully a working replacement) than I have had to date....
 
It is also worth noting that I would consider it difficult to argue that this noise is NOT tonal. Being tonal in nature, this noise is instantly more annoying, as our brains pick up on this easier.

a "quiet" product should not be tonal in nature.

Definately seems like something is wrong here. I suspect a dodgy fan or bearing and I would also question whether the temp sensor is working correctly, as the fan seems to spiun up ridicusouly fast even when the air temp seems very low.
 
JonJ678 said:
900W is difficult to achieve quietly. Unsurprisingly. Your best bet probably lies with the Koolance watercooled models, though the £/warranty ratio puts me off them personally. Good luck with your current model.
Click to expand...

At £200 I expected it to at least be such that comparisons to a building's Air Handling Unit! Even at idle it is horribly annoying. Thanks for the good luck though, have finally decided to send it back after a good run in period not sorting it out
 
It's probably a dodgy fan bearing. I've screwed up a case fan just from knocking it off a table onto the floor. Something gets knocked out of alignment, and you end up hearing the noise of parts rubbing together, instead of just the wooshing sound of air being moved.
 
A dialogue is now open with BeQuiet's technical advisors, so I will keep you all updated. I think your right jimbob, it does sound faulty. Hopefully I can report back soon that this is infact a damn good PSU!
 
BeQuiet! have been useless. got one flimsy email from them. I responded to it, have chased for a repsonse but nothing.

Hopefully OCUK to the rescue :D
 
well, tried the overclock key on and off and messed about with my case thermals and nothing changes it. its still bloomin noisy!

RMA'ing it now.
 
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