Totally Silent PSU?

bigdunc

bigdunc

bigdunc

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Joined
30 May 2004
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669
Location
Uk
Hi

After a bit of help. Does any supplier of PSU's make one that is totally silent with no moving parts? power output and price is not a problem.

Cheers
 
Thanks for reply. Trying to build a New Pc that is as silent as possible. It is for a mate who has to wear state of the art hearing aids that make a normal pc sound like world war 2. Any help in terms of parts would be much appreciated. Price isn't a problem but doesn't want water cooled if possible.

Cheers
 
Well for CPU you could go fanless with a TRUE, then there are fanless graphics solutions, a case with 2 Noctua 120mm fans running low speed would be totally silent.

You can go pretty extreme with a fanless system but it can be expensive, hard drive coolers and such.

I don't have much knowledge of it myself.

edit - the Zalman still has a fan, sure I heard someone say they aren't that quiet.

A google search reveals a couple of 'fanless psu's' but they are only 350w, what is he hoping to use the system for?
 
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It will be an office based system so just general office applications and some internet and e-mail. There will be no gaming or overclocking. I will take a look at some of the zalman stuff.

Cheers.
 
The Zalman Heatpipe PSUs do have fans, but they're very quiet (IMO). I'm not sure what your mate would think of them though.

If one of the totally passive PSUs from Google won't cut it, you could try something like this. The fan only spins once it hits 60'C and then spins down again, so if you're using it for office stuff it might not be too bad. I'm not sure what NorthQ are like for quality though.
 
Power bricks
picoPSU
Silverstone SST-ST30NF
FSP ZEN 400
silentMaxx Fanless 400W
SilverStone Nightjar ST45NF
Yesico FL-480ATX (T) - Hybrid
antec Phantom 500 - Hybrid
Silentmaxx Watercooled 500W, 12/10mm PSU
Yesico FL-550ATX (T) - Hybrid
Koolance PSU-1300ATX-12N - Watercooled

Hybrid (inc fan or fan header but only on during thermal runaway)

the bequiet and Zalman have fans spinning all the time I think...(off to check)

Completely fanless - is a right pita - but a single fan system (usually the one in the PSU)
is much easier. That said if gaming is not required - either a atom based system or a pc built in a Mcubed or Zalman TNN case
(if you need more processing power) would be ideal.

see this thread here
 
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There are some, although OcUK doesn't seem to stock any at the moment - you'll have to shop around.

Just search "fanless PSU" should do the job.

With the graphics, go for onboard unless he wants to do some gaming, in which case an ATI HD4650 is probably a good bet for older games; just ring up and check you're getting a passive cooling one from wherever you buy from. It'll run Call of Duty 4, Counter Strike and similar era games no problem.

In terms of CPU it might be a good idea to go with a fairly new model. An underclocked/undervolted 45nm will run very cool indeed.

Keep the number of hard drives down to a minimum - it might even be worth getting a 5400RPM model to keep temperatures down, again if he's not gaming he probably won't notice other than in slightly longer load times.
 
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If it is only for office stuff, you could go Intal Atom based miniITX, and use a picoPSU (completely fanless). May be able to design it completely fan less, and then the only noise would be the HDD. Use an SSD instead and it should be absolutely silent.

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-GC230D. Just replace the onboard fan with a large slow case fan.
PSU - picoPSU 120W (google it)
HDD - OCZ Vertex 30Gb
RAM - Corsair 2x2GB (OcUK don't sell single 2Gb sticks)
 
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