UPS modding for coil whine?

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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merlin
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UPS modding for coil whine?

Post by merlin » Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:54 pm

There's a lot of discussion of modding psus for various reasons and I've heard some talk of using possibly glues for fixing coil whine as well, but I'm guessing a ups would be a lot trickier.
I've got an APC SmartUps 1000 that works great except it has a lot of whine(quite a bit louder than my computer at this point) And they're not cheap to replace, so I think somehow reducing the whine would be my best option.
I was wondering if anyone had any experience or thoughts on trying to reduce whine on a ups?

Fire-Flare
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Re: UPS modding for coil whine?

Post by Fire-Flare » Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:14 pm

Perhaps you could encase the UPS in an enclosure surrounded by noise reducing materials?

merlin
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Re: UPS modding for coil whine?

Post by merlin » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:20 pm

Not really doable, first because I need to be able to get to it and see the status lights and info, second because a ton of cables stick out of it.

fumino
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Re: UPS modding for coil whine?

Post by fumino » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:52 pm

it looks like the pcb of your ups is fairly easy to access...

while i might lean towards warranty service, it doesnt seem like itd take too much work to get in there with a hot glue gun if thats the path you want to take.

jhhoffma
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Re: UPS modding for coil whine?

Post by jhhoffma » Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:44 am

I wouldn't mess with the internals of any UPS. They are so fickle to temperature and voltage protection (to protect your equipment) that you'd be more likely to cause more problems than fix the original.

Coil whine with some UPS's is unfortunately unavoidable, given the PFC level of certain components, the amount of mini-transformers loaded on them and the dirty power in some households.

In my experience, the bigger the battery (and the bigger the load), the more whine you get.

One thing you can try is moving components off the UPS to see if any of them are contributing to the problem and take them off the battery side (put them on surge-protect only, if available) or remove them from the UPS altogether.

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