Acceptable PSU Noise (and solutions)

ytene

ytene

ytene

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Last year I completed a build of my new gaming PC, which uses parts almost exclusively purchased from OcUK.

Some not-very-good photos and specification here:-
https://www.overclock.net/threads/o...icture-gallery.584302/page-5524#post-28637655

I've recently had a chance to put a bit of effort in to using the AquaComputer 6XT fan/pump controller to tune the machine for noise. Firstly, it's the most amazing piece of technology: if you're planning a water-cooled machine I can't recommend it highly enough.

Secondly, I've now managed to lower fan noise to the point where the loudest thing in my machine - by *far* is the 2000W Leadex SuperFlower PSU. Even with one GPU completely idle [non-SLI mode] and everything idling along at 0%, the machine is noisy... And that's with just the 4 fans on the CPU radiator spinning at ~250-350rpm [and they're Nuctua NFP-14 PWMs, which are rated at about 19dBA.

So first question would be - would you expect the PSU to be the noisiest thing in the case at idle? I have a TackLife sound level meter, so ran some tests... from a distance of 1 metre and 60cm off the floor, on a tripod, the sound steps up from an ambient of 30dBA to 38dBA when the machine starts up.

38 is pretty audible in a quiet room, although not so obvious when gaming.

Second question would be: how would you recommend I consider tackling this? The case I'm using (Thermaltake WP200) has space for 4 PSU's, although I'd only want to think about fitting 2. I could, for example, fit a pair of PSU's and then strap them, which I understand is possible [I've seen Singularity Computers do that on their YouTube channel].

Very keen to ask what approaches others have tried to secure a silent or super-quiet PSU. I can't fault this SuperFlower for quality of delivery, but it does blow a bit, so if I could sort that I'd be very happy...

Thanks in advance.
 
I love the way you've done the tubing on the front.

A 2kw PSU seems rather overkill - I ran SLI Titans on 850W - so I wonder if there's an issue with the PSU fan. Have you opened up the PSU to take a look? If you have a power measurement device, you might check how much power you actually require.
 
Quartz said:
I love the way you've done the tubing on the front.

A 2kw PSU seems rather overkill - I ran SLI Titans on 850W - so I wonder if there's an issue with the PSU fan. Have you opened up the PSU to take a look? If you have a power measurement device, you might check how much power you actually require.
Click to expand...

My previous machine turned into a bit of a FrankenPC, but was actually pretty amazing for all that:
Xigmatek Elysium Case
MSI Big Bang Power II Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4960X overclocked from 3.6 to 4.4GHz (6 Cores 12 Threads)
nVidia GTX1080, water-cooled
Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe
2 x DDC Pump/Res units
1 x CE360 Radiator in the roof for the GPU
1 x CE240 Radiator in the front for the CPU...

In that machine my PSU was a Zalman 1250W unit - I'm not sure of the exact model, but it was designed so that for loads below 45% - 500W - it would not actually spin up any fans... I spoke to the guy at OverClockers who took my order for all these bits and we discussed PSU options. There are 2 reasons I went with the 2KW option... One was that I hoped that by "going large" I could have the PSU running at relatively low power levels, which would allow it to run cool, which would allow the fans to either idle or stop. The other was that utlimately I knew that my pair of RTX2080Ti's would become obsolete and I wanted to be able to upgrade to either a pair of 3090's or perhaps the generation on beyond that. We knew that the 3090's would be beasts before they were even announced (375W TDP) so I tried to future-proof.

Having run several games-oriented machines where I've over-clocked elements, I've come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is over-engineer as much as possible. And when it comes to water cooling, I don't care what *anyone* says: there is no substitute for surface area. Having 5 radiators in this machine is bonkers. Complete, total and utter over-kill. But I think of it a bit like the difference between a Japanese Sports Car and a US Muscle Car... Both can produce say 750bhp... but the Japanese car does it with insane boost on a turbo bigger than the engine - and needs rpms so high the valves come out and dance on the bonnet... A big, lumbering V8 on the other hand generates the same amount of power but does it in a way that doesn't stress the internals.

It works... spectacularly well...

Just one more "to-do", really, which is see what I might be able to do in order to kill the last of the fan noise.
 
There's always Bequiet, they have a the Dark Power Pro 1500W but just when and where you can get it is anyone's guess at the moment. I am waiting on an Antec 1300W psu at present. and seriously nice build btw.
 
turbot1984 said:
No way! A 2000W psu wouldn't break sweat with anything. I have never heard my 1000w on full load with a 220W oc'd i9 + 320W 3080. Don't get it.
Click to expand...

I hope this doesn't come across as rude... but let me explain how I know that the residual noise is coming from my PSU.

1. Trust my ears. I have good access to the case, and with the PSU down in the plinth it doesn't take a rocket scientist to trace the noise there.
2. Eliminate the radiator fans. Yes, I've got 20 radiator fans in this machine... But take a look at this image:-

https://forum.aquacomputer.de/weitere-foren/english-forum/111055-seeking-general-tuning-advice/

index.php


I'm managing the pumps and radiators using an Aquero, so I went to the AquaComputer forums for advice on tuning the system. From the top, the 5 main rows of the display are:-
1. CPU Loop
2. GPU1 Radiator 1
3. GPU1 Radiator 2
4. GPU2 Radiator 1
5. GPU2 Radiator 2

If you scan right-to-left across each row, what you have are:
1. A circular temperature dial, with a colour-coded edge to show temperatures reported by sensors on the output port of each radiator...
2. An historic [time-based] chart of the readings from the same sensor...
3. Fan speed for the fans on each of the 5 radiators...
4. [Vertical Bar] Current Load being supplied to each block of Fans
5. Historic graphs showing either water temperatures or pump speeds... [I didn't have enough space to include the historic pump speed view for the CPU loop]
6. Current Pump speeds

Can you see, in the 3rd column, that I've got historic fan speed data?

One of the things I can do with the Aquero that drives this system is to run multiple profiles. I have a "heat purge" profile that basically spins all 20 fans up to maximum rpm to gently take the heat out of the system before I close it down after a solid session of gaming. Just before I switch off, I revert the system setup to "default fan programming" which basically uses the Aquero to control fan speeds based on the temperature sensors. So what you're looking at on that vertical stack of 5 historic fan speed graphs are the fans on each of the 5 radiators with time. See how they start off at 100%? They're actually topping out at just under their 1200rpm max speed, but note they're all consistent.

Then, about 2 minutes before I took the screen shot, you can see that the speed of all fans but the CPU fans drop to zero. I can put my ear right next to the case where the CPU radiator is sighted - see the pictures of the build in an earlier post. There is NO SOUND coming from the CPU radiator... All the noise is coming from the plinth... and the only thing I have down there that has a running fan in it is the PSU.

So I know, because I can monitor it in real time, because I can literally switch off all the fans on the GPU radiators, because I can spool the CPU Radiator fans right down until they're silent. [I'm using Noctua's NP-F14PWMs that are rated at 19.6dBA at full speed, and you're seeing them run at about 28% in this screen grab]. There's literally nothing left in the case to make any noise except the PSU.

Anyway, I hope that's enough evidence to convince you that, yes, it really is the PSU making the noise...
 
Quartz said:
I love the way you've done the tubing on the front.

A 2kw PSU seems rather overkill - I ran SLI Titans on 850W - so I wonder if there's an issue with the PSU fan. Have you opened up the PSU to take a look? If you have a power measurement device, you might check how much power you actually require.
Click to expand...

I haven't opened the PSU - I don't think I'm quite brave enough to do that... But I do have a power measurement adapter that I can plug the computer in to and attempt to get a readout of what it uses during gaming. I did it when I first started using it and I *think* it's cranking on about 800W... but don't quote me on that. It shouldn't be too hard for me to check, however. I'll see if I can take a photo and post the results.

Many thanks for saying nice things about the tubing. I had help from a mate with that. I bought us one of the professional OCool Eiskoffer kits [from Overclockers] and that proved to be quite invaluable. You might note that it looks as though the tubes are not 100% square - that's not an optical illusion, I dislodged them when I started to clean. But the top tip if you want to do something like this is either use something like the Eiskoffer kit, or make yourself a jig...

To make the GPU pipes:-

1. Put in the first very shallow bend at about 20 degrees, using a jig so that you can make 2 identical tubes...
2. Make the second bend using the same jig and with the inverted between the 2 tubes, so that you get a mirror pair...
3. Make a second jig that allows you to get a nice gentle bend radius in exactly the same place. You have to mirror the parts of the jig between the two tubes, but it's not hard as the OCool kit comes with this peg-board assembly that you can put all your bends and mandrels in to.
4. Once you've got the basics done [and if you're as crap at hardline bending as I am, it will take you several goes...] you end up with a pipe that has a 90-degree bend and an over-long piece of tubing past that. Offer it up to your GPU, with the GPU in the case and the lid of the case off, so that you can tilt the tube slightly until it passes over the central divide. Make a very rough hack and cut off the excess of the tube, knowing you've got maybe 5mm more pipe than you need.
5. Trim the tube, as carefully as you can, slicing off the narrowest amount you can achieve with your tube-cutter of choice.
6. Re-test your fit until everything is square.

By the time that I was cutting the tubing, I had the holes pre-drilled in the central divide and the bulkhead fittings in place. This made it possible to offer up the tube with accuracy.

I'll be honest... the hardline tubing was easily the hardest part of the entire build. I came dangerously close to losing 2 friends in the process. But it was worth it.

Oh boy, it was worth it.
 
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Hakanese said:
Can you make a recording of the fan noise? If it is bearing noise, then that can be very simple to fix.
Click to expand...
I can certainly try. I don’t have anything with a very good microphone though. Maybe I can get something half decent with my iPhone7 microphone. I’ll have a go and see what I can do.
 
OK, power draw update...
Loaded up Skyrim Legendary Edition [it's an SLI supported game] and went to the market area of Winterhold, where there are enough NPCs and activity to keep the worker threads busy.
Bear in mind that the machine is currently running in to a 5760x1200 desktop courtesy of 3 x Dell U2415W 1920x1200 monitors.

According to the digital meter into which I have the PC (alone) connected, it was drawing 2.586 Amps, which, if I'm getting a clean and accurate 240v AC, would work out at 620.64 Watts...

For this particular session of Skyrim, I also had CPUID HWMonitor running - and it reported that the maximum draw of the primary GPU was 235 Watts and the maximum from the secondary GPU was 203 Watts. If we assume that the machine hit these peaks simultaneously, then you're looking at 438 to the GPUs. The vast majority of the rest of the current draw, at least, is likely to go to the pumps and cooling fans.

I've also tried to get an audio recording, but I can't get anything remotely useful with my iPhone. I'll have to think of another way.
 
I had a similar issue a few months back after I did some fan tuning too. After setting up profiles so that (at idle) my CPU AIO pump runs at 25% speed, CPU fans at about 33%, and case fans are stopped entirely, the PSU fan became really noticeable as the loudest thing in the system.

That was with a Seasonic X-Series 1050W (the SS-1050XM). It has a hardware switch to toggle between the fan running constantly or only when required, but I found that even with the system at idle, in the hybrid mode the fan would spin up fairly often and make a noticeable sound.

I replaced it with a Corsair AX1000 and haven't heard that at all - at idle I can't hear it, and if it does spin up the fans when under load it must be quieter than my case fans.
 
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