Too much for the PSU?

ljop · 15 Jul 2017 at 03:24

So I recently put together a water cooled build with a thermaltake smart pro 650w psu, after around 15 mins of cpu and cpu high loads a loud fan type noise can be heard. Is this likely to be due to the psu being too weak or other thermal based problems, as hwmonitor suggests the fans are not changing during this.

Specs are:
[email protected] 1.2V
1080ti@ ~1.6ghz+
Msi Gaming pro carbon z270
8x 140mm rgb fans (riing 14) with 3 fan controllers (plug into the mobo fan headers)
2x ssd
1x m.2
1x blu ray drive
1x wlan card
3x USB powered devices
1x cpu block diode
Ek p280 kit

Thanks

EsaT · 15 Jul 2017 at 10:28

That Thermalstupid Pro has cheap capacitors in secondary so wouldn't exactly go for stressing it heavily.
Or it would be good thing for its fan to take lots of rpms to keep cheap capacitors cool...

Would be good to know if program you're using to overclock graphic card shows some consumption value, but factory overclcocked non-reference models are toward 300W consumption.

mistersprinkles · 25 Jul 2017 at 22:09

Don't use garbage powersupplies on your high end equipment. Never a good idea. Get a 750W high quality power supply. Check out the johnnyguru reviews. Never penny pinch on the PSU. It is the life-blood of your machine. Sure, put a piece of trash PSU in your Celeron/el-crappo motherboard 4GB RAM old 250GB hdd microsoft office machine. Go for it. But i7 and high end GPU? On a garbage PSU? That's not good.

ljop · 25 Jul 2017 at 23:28

Not that I have preferences when it comes to brand. Feel free to explain (maybe I am missing something), but phrases like "Thermalstupid Pro has cheap capacitors", "garbage powersupplies", "penny pinch", etc; seem unwarranted and somewhat childish. The Thermaltake Smart Pro RGB 850W reviewed by johnnyguru got a score of 8.7 which is far from bad. It is not like I picked up some no name PSU from eBay for £20....

pastymuncher · 26 Jul 2017 at 09:09

EsaT is from Finland and has a unique posting style which you will eventually get used to.

At the end of the day you spent a small fortune on building that pc and then opted for a £80 mediocre psu that is built by a budget OEM (Sirtec) and is only bronze rated. Just because the 850w version scored 8.7 doesn't mean that the 650w version would score the same because ratings and build quality can vary hugely within psu ranges and it's not uncommon to see higher rated units built on a completely different platform within the same range. What you should have done was spend a extra £10-20 (not a lot seeing how much your other components cost) and got a top quality gold rated psu such as EVGA's excellent G2 650w. Although your pc won't draw anywhere near 650w the psu fan will be working harder to cool the budget internals. It will also be affected by how easily the fan can draw air into the unit. What case do you have and is the psu orientated with the fan facing up or fan down drawing air through the bottom of the case? Are you sure it's not the gpu fans ramping up or is that watercooled as well?

VKleita · 26 Jul 2017 at 13:50

Thou some of the comments are a little on the aggressive side, I think its just the sheer frustration of so many people falling into the same trap of "The PSU isn't as important as a good GPU" when its MORE important.

Pasty comments are indeed correct Reading up on a new model and using it as a baseline for your model can be quite dangerous.

I'm afraid to say if your not happy with the PSU Fan noise, there is not much you can about it, other than replace it

EsaT · 26 Jul 2017 at 15:37

VKleita said:
I think its just the sheer frustration of so many people falling into the same trap of "The PSU isn't as important as a good GPU" when its MORE important.

With the prices people are willing to pay for that Nvidia sticker it's not anymore rare to see people looking at PSU costing at worst one tenth of graphics card...
Regardless that graphics card will be technically quite obsolete in 3-4 years while good PSU lasts twice the time.

VKleita · 26 Jul 2017 at 15:52

Oh I don't disagree EsaT, But it takes time to convince people

pastymuncher · 26 Jul 2017 at 19:27

Sadly it feels like banging my head against a tree and getting nowhere sometimes.

Some people still have the mindset that they have spent too much money on the core components and need to make savings somewhere, see a so called 600w psu for a stupidly low price and buy it without giving a thought to quality and what it can actually deliver. Not saying the OP has done this as I believe he just made a poor choice when it came to the psu yet he could have got something massively better for just a little more money. It just requires people to do some research before buying. Ignore the big label saying 600w/700w etc and have a look at what the psu can actually deliver on the 12v rails and check some reviews, preferably ones that have tested the psu with proper equipment taken it to bits to look at internal component quality. Jonnyguru is probably the best although Techpowerup and some others do a proper job of testing these days.

ljop · 26 Jul 2017 at 20:01

EsaT said:
With the prices people are willing to pay for that Nvidia sticker it's not anymore rare to see people looking at PSU costing at worst one tenth of graphics card...
Regardless that graphics card will be technically quite obsolete in 3-4 years while good PSU lasts twice the time.

I only paid £670 for my Ti (new + water cooled), so I am not fussed (plus I may move away from Pc gaming by that time).

ljop · 26 Jul 2017 at 20:10

pastymuncher said:
Sadly it feels like banging my head against a tree and getting nowhere sometimes.

Some people still have the mindset that they have spent too much money on the core components and need to make savings somewhere, see a so called 600w psu for a stupidly low price and buy it without giving a thought to quality and what it can actually deliver. Not saying the OP has done this as I believe he just made a poor choice when it came to the psu yet he could have got something massively better for just a little more money. It just requires people to do some research before buying. Ignore the big label saying 600w/700w etc and have a look at what the psu can actually deliver on the 12v rails and check some reviews, preferably ones that have tested the psu with proper equipment taken it to bits to look at internal component quality. Jonnyguru is probably the best although Techpowerup and some others do a proper job of testing these days.

Think I spent £80, and I was mainly influenced by the 7-year warranty.

To answer your previous questions, the PSU is fan side up (I have 4 140mm exhaust fans), and the GPU is Watercooled. I am interested in the power usage of the GPU as it turns out that while gaming it reaches 2.05Ghz without any changes to the stock voltage (Well the power limit is set at 100%).

ljop · 26 Jul 2017 at 21:16

Further more, I have changed the cable layout (I had made the mistake of using a split 8pin, now using 2x separate 8 pins) and the increase in volume reduced.

pastymuncher · 27 Jul 2017 at 08:41

Fan side up means that it is sucking warm air from inside the case through it. If your case has a vent underneath the psu position turn it around so that it's fan facing down. This should make it a bit quieter and it will get cooler air going through it. If the case is sitting on carpet you may need to stick something under it so that the pile doesn't block the psu intake vent.

ljop · 28 Jul 2017 at 13:05

pastymuncher said:
Fan side up means that it is sucking warm air from inside the case through it. If your case has a vent underneath the psu position turn it around so that it's fan facing down. This should make it a bit quieter and it will get cooler air going through it. If the case is sitting on carpet you may need to stick something under it so that the pile doesn't block the psu intake vent.

Turned it over now, may have made a small difference. The PC is on my desk, not the floor. Although to be fair to the PSU, the noise may be pretty modest and it is just my ears + brain being fussy.

pastymuncher · 28 Jul 2017 at 20:46

Does your case have rubber feet? If it doesn't you could try putting a bit of rubber or stiff foam under each of the feet to get rid of any potential resonance from the case. It may or may not make a bit of difference but is worth trying if you have some rubber or something that you can use.

ljop · 6 Aug 2017 at 12:39

pastymuncher said:
Does your case have rubber feet? If it doesn't you could try putting a bit of rubber or stiff foam under each of the feet to get rid of any potential resonance from the case. It may or may not make a bit of difference but is worth trying if you have some rubber or something that you can use.

The case has plastic feeling feet. I have however switched PSUs with someone (although it is another Thermaltake, albeit an 850W gold certified one), coil whine when GPU reaches 2Ghz disappeared, so has the excessive noise.