Making a Shuttle 250w SilentX PSU *silent*

Furton

Furton

Furton

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For around 2 years now I ran my SN41G2 with the standard 200W PSU with a modded 40mm silent fan (bought like this from MM), it went pop around a month ago and replaced it with the 250W SilentX PSU. However this seems to be anything but silent, seems a lot louder than my old PSU, even on Ultra Low settings in the BIOS.

Is it safe to mod this PSU with silent 40mm fans? Anyone done this and how hard is it to do?
 
I took the cover off my sn41g2 250watt silentx psu today..It's very easy..Just undo 4 screws then lift the side cover off..

BUT MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING INSIDE THE POWER SUPPLY.There can still be high volts even when unpluged and left off..


The first thing you should try is put some light oil (3in1 oil) in the 40mm fan bearings.To see if that will quiet them down.{normally works},(but do not use wd-40 or any other spray oil)

The other thing i seen some people do..Is use a 40mm to 60mm or 80mm adoptor on the rear of the power supply..
 
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There are kits available - look for mini-ITX type websites that allow you to run a fanless external power supply into the back of a shuttle. These are completely silent and are not hugely expensive.
 
I bought 2 SilenX 40x40x20mm fans (for the PSU), a 92mm SilenX fan (to replace the ICE fan) and a passive cooler to replace the Northbridge fan. The system is now completely silent - well the only thing I can hear is the Samsung 250gb harddisk which is pretty quiet!

Removing the PSU from the shuttle is easy as it is only screwed in from the back plate on the case. Opening the PSU just requires undoing a few screws. The only problem I had was that the fan headers in the PSU didn't have enough juice at startup to get the fans spinning so I drilled a small hole in the PSU case and fed the power to the fans from the spare headers on the mobo.

As it has been mentioned before be careful when touching anything inside the PSU, even when it is disconnected - I got a few shocks when my fingers slipped whilst trying to unplug the old fans.
 
Pj·uK said:
I bought 2 SilenX 40x40x20mm fans (for the PSU), a 92mm SilenX fan (to replace the ICE fan) and a passive cooler to replace the Northbridge fan. The system is now completely silent - well the only thing I can hear is the Samsung 250gb harddisk which is pretty quiet!

Removing the PSU from the shuttle is easy as it is only screwed in from the back plate on the case. Opening the PSU just requires undoing a few screws. The only problem I had was that the fan headers in the PSU didn't have enough juice at startup to get the fans spinning so I drilled a small hole in the PSU case and fed the power to the fans from the spare headers on the mobo.

As it has been mentioned before be careful when touching anything inside the PSU, even when it is disconnected - I got a few shocks when my fingers slipped whilst trying to unplug the old fans.
Click to expand...

Does the PSU accept the 3 pin connectors or does it require modding? Does the shuttle have enough on-board fan connectors to plug in the fans if they don't start?

What's the heat output on the PSU now, noticed any problems?
 
The PSU has two 2-pin headers, one for each fan. The silenX fans had the standard 3-pin header plugs which I changed to the 2-pin plugs using a pair of tweezers.

Since I unplugged the Northbridge fan I had 2 spare headers for each of the PSU fans - however as an alternative you could just plug the fans into one of the 12V lines using a 3-pin to molex adapter/spliter (which come as part of the fan package).

As for temperatures - It is difficult to say as there are no temp monitors in the PSU - It does churn out a gentle warm breeze - I'm guessing between 40-50degC. I've had my system on now permanantly for over 72 hours with no stability problems so I think all is well.
 
modded my 250watt psu years ago now, put 2 40mm adda fans in (bout 14db), they came with bare ends so i had to cut off the fan connectors fromt heold fans and solder them onto the new fans, worked a treat :) a lot quieter. dont think they pushed as much air as the original delta's but it still ran 100% stable a bit warmer

make sure you buy 12v fans and not 5v ones. i got 5v ones originally by accident, and after putting them in, they whined like an abslute biatch. probs came very close to exploding TBH!
 
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I've pretty much done exactly what Pj·uK has done with the SilentX fans.

My Northbridge is passive so I had 2 spare 3 pin motherboard headers to connect the 2 x 40mm fans to.

These SilenX fans are considerably quieter than the default delta fans that come with the Shuttle Silent X 250W PSU. The major difference is the lack of motor whine, which really got on my nerves with the Delta's.

With the 6800GT cooler running at 15% fan speed and a Nexus 80mm fan in the ICE heatsink, the Shuttle is very quiet. But I can still hear the PSU fans!

Its more the noise of the air and turbulance than anything else.

For some strange reason, I have one of the 40mm fans spinning at 3500RPM and the other at 4100RPM.

Got a spare 4 pin connector from the PSU so I'm going to make a 7v lead and connect the 40mm fans to it.

I also have a Papst fan arriving today ( Papst N/2GM, 26dBA, 2600RPM, 34CFM) that I'm going to install instead of the Nexus.

The Nexus is running at Full speed in the BIOS at 1700RPM and is virtually silent. But I want to clock my P4 a little bit and under extreme stress, the Nexus fan is struggling a bit.

My plan is to enable the Smart Fan setting in the BIOS with the Papst. Under 60oC CPU temp, the fan speed will automatically be on ultra low and spin at 1500RPM. This Papst fan should therefore be silent and give similar temps to the Nexus. Maybe worse by a degree or two.

But when it hits 60oC+ (gaming and video encoding), the fan speed should increase without bleeding my ears like the default Sunon fan.
 
I think the fans spin at different speeds due to the pressure drop at the back of the PSU.

I tried making a 7V mod for those SilenX 40mm fans and they still don't spin up :( I've now ended up connecting them both to the spare fan headers on the motherboard and use speedfan to control them (down to about 2000rpm).

Pj
 
I've also tried 7 volting the 40mm SilenX fans and they don't spin up either. I think they need 12v to spin up.

Got them connected to the motherboard headers at the moment and I'm a bit stuck. 7 volting them doesn't work and SpeedFan doesn't appear to be compatible with my Shuttle's motherboard.:(
 
you could try a fan switch.

Start them on 12v and then drop to 7v / 5v as its the start-up that requires 12v, not the running.

cmt
 
Well Speedfan installs ok and detects all of the temperature probes on the motherboard of my SB65G2 and displays the correct RPM of the connected fans.

Unfortunately, decreasing the fan speed percentage in the program has zero effect on the speed of the fans as they continue to spin at full speed.

There is Shuttles own utility, XPC Tool: http://global.shuttle.com/XPCTools/overview.asp

Thats states compatability with my Shuttle but again refuses to work.

I've emailed Shuttle regarding this problem and hope to hear from them soon.

Everything in this Shuttle is pretty quiet.

6800GT Cooler fan has been reduced to 15% (utterly silent), passive Northbridge and Nexus 80mm Fan for the ICE heatsink.

The motor noise of the 40mm SilenX fans are non existant (which is great) but they're spinning at 4000RPM, causing turbulance and the sound of air whooshing through.

If I can reduce them to 3000RPM or below I'd be a very happy man.

Another company are selling some Rasurbo 40mm fans (4300RPM) and I've emailed them asking if they can be started with 7v. Awaiting a reply.
 
I had a problem with speedfan - make sure you set the PWM option on the ISA chip as "software controlled" for fan header 01-03:

Readings > Configure > Advanced > IT8712F ISA Chip

The only other problem I had was that the speed of the PSU fans only changed when the speed was set between 1-5%.

Pj
 
Thanks for that!

Already tried that the other day but I never went that low to 1-5%, so I thought it didn't work. :o

Mine only change when the fan speed is 1%. Takes the RPM from 4000 to 3300-3500RPM.

Having problems keeping it there though.

I've set the minimum and maximum values to 1% in the Speed section for the particular fans and selected automatically variated.

As soon as I check Automatic Fan Speed in the main section, the fan speed shoots up to 100% and back to 4000RPM. Reduce it to 60 for example and it jumps back up to 100% rather than 1%.

So annoying! Almost achieving what I want but not quite.
 
i've just changed to the stock PSU whilst i get on with some other modding, and i can't believe how loud it is... and my system is IDLING :eek:

however i don't want to void the warrenty on my second shuttle, and it won't be too bad in the living room
 
1-5% worked well for me...have you tried the beta version of Speedfan, maybe that might help?!

As for the rest of my system the only thing that makes a noise now is the spinning of the HDDs - never realised how noisy they actually are :( I guess I'd need a bigger shuttle to dump them into HDD silencers or buy some 5400rpm drives
 
Tried the beta version but I just get the same problem.:(

Suppose it doesn't take much to open up Speedfan, type in 1 for Fan 2 and 3 and then minimise.

Would much rather it be done automatically but this is as good as its going to get for now.

Will probably email the Speedfan author and see what he has to say.
 
Heard from the store selling the 40mm Rasurbo fans and the assure me that they can start up with 7v.

RPM of these Rasurbo fans are 4300RPM so a 7v reduction would make them virtually silent. Cost just over £5 each so good value.

Mind you, I don't think My Shuttle will get anymore quieter unless I switch off every fan.

Those SilenX 40mm at around 3000RPM are pretty silent. I switched them off briefly and didn't notice a massive reduction in noise. At the standard 4000RPM they can be heard clearly. Just need Speedfan to somehow save the fan speed....

Silencing these Shuttles is a pretty hard task and its made more difficult becuase a lot of users have them positioned on the desk inches away from you.

If I shoved the Shuttle under my desk on the floor like my previous silent desktop, I probably won't even notice it as much.
 
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