alright.... i got my zalman zm300a psu a month ago. it has been pretty quiet, but from couple days ago, it got noticeably louder.

i'm 99% sure that the source of noise is a faster blowing fan.

as a test, i had the computer shut down all night (it's pretty darn cold here in san diego) and turned it back on in the morning (still very cold), and the fan is still making that loud noise.... it looks like the fan is no longer load sensitive... it's just blowing at its maximum (or medium) speed all the time.

just for your info, i know the noise is from the psu fan because i don't have any other fans running and i had temporarily disconnected the hdd at the time.

is there any fix to this solution? or should i just do panaflo @ 5v?

IS it possible there is something new in your system that is drawing extra power from the PSU and thus making it run hotter / fan faster? Hardware? Software?

mike, that's a point i haven't thought of.

i did change one thing:

i don't know if you heard about my tragic incidence with exacto knife and 8500 128mb retail radeon v-card.... but that happened and i trashed it. now i'm using fanless radeon 9000 (non-pro) from saphire.

that's the only difference.

somehow i think 9000 should require less voltage since it's clocked lower and is slower v-card.

others are the same... i don't think software is the problem because fan just starts as loud when i start the computer.

when i go home today, i'll pull the v-card and check it out.

thanks mike!