Is the noise from my True380S coming from the fan?

cyberknight · Post by **cyberknight** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 11:53 am

According to Everest and the BIOS, I have never seen my PSU fan spin over 1600RPM. It idles at around 1100-1200RPM.

But when things get to 1400RPM and above, I hear this constant squeaky noise. Is this coming from the PSU? Or is the fan I have in the PSU just crappy? My system is still pretty new, only 6 months old.

My Arctic Cooling Pro TC fan which spins much faster (1700RPM) is barely audible while my PSU seems to emit tonnes of noise.

also, any tutorials or anything for cracking open PSU's and replacing fans? I can find lots of words, but I can't find pictures... Also, will my FAN ONLY connectors still work if I do this?

hmm.. that's weird, I have Prime95 (max heat and power consumption) running in the background right now and I notice that when I hit the forward or back buttons the hissing/squeaking sound momentarily stops while the webpage is changing... kinda odd

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:53 pm

Congratulations! You've got coil whine, the scourge of all seekers of true silence.

Less dramatically ...

Noises that change based on specific changes in software tend to be caused by buzzing/whining coils that could be either in the power supply or on the motherboard itself. Since your problem only appears under load, it's a good bet that it's somewhere in the PSU.

The bad news is that coil whine is very difficult to diagnose and/or fix. Some people have damped said coils with things like hot glue and others. Do a search for coil whine and see what you find.

That said, the TP380S has a rather poor reputation on these forums, not because of coil whine but because its fan spins too fast. Your problem may be a combination of these two factors.

There's plenty to be found on modding power supplies. I believe there's a sticky on the topic, although I can't remember offhand whether its illustrated. I do remember seeing photos of it somewhere, so if the sticky doesn't help check our article listing under the PSU section.

Generally, though, the consensus is that the problem with your power supply is the fan controller, not the fan itself. It has a tendancy to speed up under *any* circumstances. The only solutions are to run the fan from a different source of power, or replace the PSU altogether.

The fan only connector also draws its voltage off the stock controller, so the stock fan in the Sonata tends to contribute to the overall noise.

cyberknight · Post by **cyberknight** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:15 pm

Well, as mentioned, my fan doesn't spin that fast anyways (unless if the RPM monitor is reporting incorrectly). I'm sure replacing the fan would help, but I guess that coil is still gonna bug me...

Oh well... another reason to get that Seasonic PSU...

cyberknight · Post by **cyberknight** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:27 am

okay, I've been doing some reading on fan swapping. I took apart my PSU in my Pentium 3 system for kicks. I find that its design is slightly different as it doesn't use a 2 pin connector to connect the fan. It just uses solder on the board thing.

But doing a fan swap is just as simple as unhooking the 2-pin and replacing it appropriately right?

If I do switch the fan, does the PSU/RPM monitor connection become useless?

Does the TruePower automatically 5V my fan regardless?

I'm wanting to use my Arctic Cooling Pro TC fan as the replacement, does using a thermally controlled fan in conjunction with the variable voltage TruePower feature cause problems?

Will a 35mm thick fan fit in the True380S?

Sorry for sounding like a noob

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 3:46 am

cyberknight wrote:But doing a fan swap is just as simple as unhooking the 2-pin and replacing it appropriately right?

Yes (if it's soldered then splice the wires, but same kind of thing)

cyberknight wrote:If I do switch the fan, does the PSU/RPM monitor connection become useless?

Yes, because the monitoring comes from the fan - unless you get a fan with the additional monitoring wire.

cyberknight wrote:Does the TruePower automatically 5V my fan regardless?

(You'd be lucky for it to 5V anything but the red wires, but) it will still regulate the voltage as before, this isn't contained in the fan.

cyberknight wrote:I'm wanting to use my Arctic Cooling Pro TC fan as the replacement, does using a thermally controlled fan in conjunction with the variable voltage TruePower feature cause problems?

Yes, it could cause problems unless you connect the fan directly to 12v. I would try to avoid thermally controlled fans in a PSU, anyway.

cyberknight wrote:Will a 35mm thick fan fit in the True380S?

I think this was asked in the past, try searching.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 12:44 pm

The TP380S is the one that comes with the Sonata, right?

The fan in that PSU has wires as shown in this picture:

The white two pin connector goes to the PCB. The black three pin connector goes to the mobo.

There is no room for a 35 mm fan inside the PSU. You can however mount the fan on the outside of the PSU. As shown in this picture (as soon as imagehack gets server img165.exs.cx running again):