PSU Question regarding Shuttle...

GuruJockStrap

GuruJockStrap

GuruJockStrap

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Got a Shuttle SB65G2 arriving soon.

Ok, its not the latest and greatest but basically I'm downsizing my system. Don't play games on my PC (XBOX 360 for that now) so the plan is to reduce the size of the thing.

I'll be installing inside the SB65G2:

P4 3GHz Northwood
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3500EB
1 Maxtor MaxLine III 250GB SATA HD
DVD Burner
Floppy Drive
Sound Card
6800GT

Noticed the size of the PSU is 220W and was wondering if it'll be enough to power it all without any problems?
 
lol.. just got one of these myself.. didn't see it on a bargain site by any chance did you?

anyhow mine has...

3ghz northy
2 x 512mb ocuk value ram
2 x 120gb sata drive
dvdrw
ati 9250

so I guess the only major difference is the gfx card but I reckon it'll work fine. My psu is a little bit noisy though :( not great seeing as its just as a server.
 
Saw it for £100 :D

Thats interesting to know about the PSU.

I do like my silence and plan on replacing the 80mm with something quieter but a noisy PSU could proove to be a problem.

Suppose I'll see what its like and if its above my noise threshold I'll just purchase the 250W PC40 Silent X PSU.
 
Sounds like the same place as me.. good deal with the pn11 included.

I've already whipped out the 80mm fan and stuck a 120mm on the bag.. its very easy.

You reckon the silent x will be better? I thought they were all silent x psus?

I'm already considering chopping it in for an st62k (the zen model) because of the fanless external power brick but its silver and everything else I have is black so I would like to keep the sb65.

Maybe I'll have a whirl with the 250w..
 
The 220W is an Alchemy (sp?) PSU and is different to the 250W Silent X one.

From what I've read, the 250W PSU is noticably quiet with a rated 32dBA at full load.

Its £48 though! :eek:

So I'm going to see what the supplied PSU is like before deciding.
 
well this one whines.. much worse than the one I had in my sb61g2v4 although my noise tollerance has dropped significantly since then what with my journeys into watercooling :D

I have a feeling it could be poor airflow though as I have the 120mm hardly moving so the psu is having to do all its own sucking..
 
oohh..

naughty.. I've just notice the st61g4 I have built for my parents ready for transportation to the north for very little use in their house has a 250w silentx in there...

How about I swap psus and do a bit of a test for you?

They won't miss it I'm sure.. anyway, there wasn't a service charge for them avoiding the need to go and get ripped off on a compaq/hp etc.. its my right to have their psu!
 
do it.. buy the 250w.. I swapped them over last night and WOW.. what a difference. Can;t hear the shuttle over my normal pc now.

And for reference my normal pc has high end water cooling with 4 akasa amber 120mm fans almost turned off so its very very quiet.
 
Mat100, can you do me a massive favour?

Have a look at the rear fan on the 250w PSU and tell me what the manufacturer of the fan is.

Just built my Shuttle rig and I'm finding it a bit noisy, with this Silent X 250w PSU the probable culprit.

I've replaced the 80mm Sunon Fan with a Nexus one (1500RPM, 17dBA. These are virtually silent) and I've slowed down the fan speed of my 6800GT default cooler to 25%. Even at 25% is still a little too loud. I knew that already as it was running in my silent desktop rig for a day and it was clearly heard.

So I opened the Shuttle and stopped the VGA fan. To my horror I still heard an audiable noise. It was the Silent X 250W PSU!

Looked at the rear PSU fan and it was made by none other than Delta!! :eek:

Is it the same with yours?

The default 220W PSU that came with the unit has different fans but I swapped the PSU's straight away during the build, so I have no idea what it sounds like.

Also, are the PSU speeds controlled by the BIOS in anyway?

I've set my CPU fan to full (at full speed the Nexus fan is silent anyway) so I was wondering if this had an effect on the PSU fans?
 
the psu fans are automatically controlled (ie not in the bios) as there's no connection to the motherboard. If anything I would have said setting the cpu fan to full would help because it would promote positive airflow (drag more cool air into the case).

Yes, the fan on the back of mine is made by delta, here's a pic for you to see if its the same one..

DSC00769.jpg


Its been running 3 or 4 days solid now, almost 0% load because all it does is handle network traffic so its not really heated but that said the fan on the back is hardly moving so the psu is hardly in a cool area.

If you want to be sure (and this may well not be advisable but I've done it a few times and its how I determined the problem area with the last psu) get a cable tie or plastic pen (not a metal screwdriver for christs sake, I don't want death on my hands) and stop the rear delta fan whilst the machine is booted?

Final thing, make sure the wires at the front psu fan (you know there's 2 right?) aren't in the way of the fan, if one is fouling the fan it would make a high pitched whine too.
 
No way am I putting that default 80mm fan on high! My ears have just about recovered after I swapped them out. This Nexus fan is staying right where it is.

What I'm going to do is buy some quieter 40mm fans, open up the PSU and replace the Delta's with them.

A lot of people have done this succesfully and it made a massive difference.

I'll make sure not to get too quiet (slow spinning) fans otherwise the PSU will overheat. Get me mate to do the modification as he's an electrical engineer and good with things like this.

Don't game on the Shuttle box and really only use it for web, email, work etc, so the PSU doesn't get very stressed.
 
GuruJockStrap said:
What I'm going to do is buy some quieter 40mm fans, open up the PSU and replace the Delta's with them.

A lot of people have done this succesfully and it made a massive difference.
Click to expand...


Just done this myself on the 250w SilentX PSU from my SB75G2. Stuck a couple of Papst 40mm's in there.

Makes hell of a difference - and whilst i had it open i swapped the Northbridge heatsink and fan for a Zalman passive and stuck a 80mm Akasa Silent fan in the side pulling air through the grill (Running at 5v)

The noisiest thing in there now is he cooler on my 9800Pro AIW (which is up for sale when i get a nVidia 6200 Passive cooled card)


The whole process took no more than an hour - including n/bridge, and side fan.

cmt


T
 
Thats excellent to hear.:)

My fear was that those high RPM Deltas were inside that PSU for a reason and that swapping them for lower RPM fans would cause the PSU to overheat.

Once the fans are swapped it should slash the noise by half.

Fans are 2 x 40mm NMB-MAT fans that push 5CFM at 20dBA. Beauty of these is that the chipset is extremely low noise, so no whinning hopefully. Specs look a bit pap but unlike a lot of other manufacturers, its spot on.

Last noise source for me to eliminate would be the 6800GT cooler.

With the fan speed reduced to 25%, I still find it noisy and I can't go any lower.

Will probably end up looking for a quieter, alternative card of comparative performance.
 
hmm im thinking about modding my shuttle to increase the cooling for the hard-drives, since there stacked up not really getting any attention at the moment... i thought it would be the psu fan causing a lot of noise aswel in my system, i might just have a play about with it when i go back to uni, any ideas on cooling for the hard-disks?
6800gt performance, quiet, fit inside a shuttle? isnt that what dreams are made of?
 
peetee said:
6800gt performance, quiet, fit inside a shuttle? isnt that what dreams are made of?
Click to expand...

It will happen. Can't stand noise so will make damn sure of that.

Actually, the HD situation is a bit of a worry.

My Maxtor 250GB Maxline III is currently at 48oC!!! :eek:
 
i dont know what my WD sata2 250s are running at, but i know there supposed to be cool running drives, and i guess there not running @ full speed since my shuttles got no sata2 support.. But i cant see being stacked ontop of each other with no real air movement room between them, and a dvd-ram drive stuck right ontop of them being too healthy.
What are x800xt pe fans like noisewise? are they nightmares? im running a winfast fx5700 at the mo... its not too bad, noise wise at least... performance on the other hand..
 
My HD is sandwiched between the bottom of the drive bay cage and a floppy drive.

Hardly ever use the floppy drive so I might try and remove it and see what the temps are like then. But due to the lack of airflow in the case, I can't see a dramatic improvement occuring.

No idea what the ATI coolers are like. Last ATI card I had was a 9800 Pro over a year ago.

Once I've swapped the PSU fans over and I can't stand the noise of the 6800GT reference cooler at 25% fan speed, I'll probably look into getting an ATI X800GTO, Pro, or XL. Will need to hear some peoples opinions on noise levels though.
 
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