Loud and smelly Antec Sonata PSU

markanini · Post by **markanini** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:03 am

I got the sonata and the psu is louder than I thought it would be.
I thought it would be barely audable, but its audable but atleast I can live with it.

Its also smelly. Smells like burnt electronics. But its new so maby it should smell this way.

Whats your experience?

IceFire · Post by **IceFire** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:18 am

I just the Sonata too. It is louder then I expected it to be. I don't know if I'm going to keep using the PS or switch it out w/ my Fortron or not. I might just switch out the fan. Smell is because it is new.

markanini · Post by **markanini** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:15 am

IceFire wrote:Smell is because it is new.

The smell is 50% stornger than any other new PSU I have smelled, so I am a little bit worried.

JimK · Post by **JimK** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:38 am

If it smells that much

I think it would be prudent to wait a couple of weeks to mod the fan. That way if it dies you can still return it

Oysterman · Post by **Oysterman** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:39 am

Yes, the smell is kind of funny, and strong. But mine works like a charm. The smell pretty much wore off after a week or so. I agree that it is noisier than I'd like it, at least when it has to deal with heat coming from the CPU...

starsky · Post by **starsky** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 8:33 pm

My Sonata PSU wasn't THAT loud when I first got it. It was inaudible when I frist turned my machine on....

It only got noisy when I increased my memory from 512mb to 1gb.

and it was electrical noise, and not Fan noise. Mine smelled, but not badly. My new silenx smelled worse for the first 2 days than my ol Sonata PSU did.

eri · Post by **eri** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 12:10 am

Speaking of electrical noise on the Sonata PSU, it is driving me nuts! Normally, the low humming sound from the fan is fine with me, but sometimes the PSU will produce a small but audible high pitch sound that's very unpleasant to listen. This interference noise I presume, is fed off to the speakers too.

I think there's some computer usage pattern that it will occur, but I cant say for sure. An obvious pattern I notice is that if I mouse scroll when the high pitch sound occurs, there will be a brief dip in the noise.

I saw some posts that it is related to the harddrive (I have a Bara V), but the noise occurs even when harddrive is idling.

If you guys can help I'd really appreciate it.

Oysterman · Post by **Oysterman** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 4:12 am

Eri, I'm experiencing the same thing from time to time. I have 2 x Barracuda IV, BTW. I thought it was the PSU fan spinning at higher RPM trying to cool off, but I'm very new at this silent business... I guess it wouldn't make any sense that way, seeing as this usually occurs AFTER a period of heavy load rather than DURING.
If it's electrical... maybe that Nexus I had in mind isn't such a bad idea after all...?

eri · Post by **eri** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:19 am

I wouldnt say it's the fan because the same noise is audible from speaker too. That made me think it's some sort of interference. Maybe it's the coil whine that people are talking about?