300W: Seasonic or Zalman

slothdog · Post by **slothdog** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 12:43 pm

Small intro: I'm a music enthusiast who is extremely tired of being unable to hear actual music over the droning jet-engine that sits next to my desk at home. My budget for this is minimal, but I'm hoping to be able to work some silent fans and a new PSU into the Christmas budget.

With that said....

Between these two PSUs, which would be a better choice?

Seasonic Super Tornado 300
Zalman ZM300A-APF

The Seasonic seems to rate slightly higher on the Recommended PSUs list, but also seems to have a fair amount of complaints on this forum....

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 2:24 pm

Another choice for your consideration.

I have the poor man's version of the Seasonic - the Fortron FSP60PN (don't know where the hyphens are supposed to go, but essentially it's the non-PF version of Fortron with 120mm fan and honeycomb grill).

It's not as efficient, and so probably generates more heat. But I've no complains about it, and it goes for significantly less than the Seasonic.
I'm trying to silence my fan on my graphics card now *sigh* after having taken care of case fan, hard drive, power supply, CPU fan, hard drive again, in that order *sigh*

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 3:21 pm

zalman will be louder.

Seasonic Super Silencer 300 is another that won't speed up, slow down like the bad tornados do.

Fanless Silentmaxx 350 a fifth, more expensive option.

http://www.lillicomputers.net/dept.asp?dept_id=34

lillicomputers.net has a full selection of seasonic and a few other quiet PSUs.

fry's electronics may have better prices, but their selection is worse.

PeterDLai · Post by **PeterDLai** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:01 pm

I'm not even going to try and silence my current jet engi--computer. I'm going to go ahead and build myself a new silent one.

I'll miss this computer though, it runs well for a Pentium II 350. Sniff sniff.

PeterDLai · Post by **PeterDLai** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:02 pm

Oh and on-topic, get a Super Silencer 300/350 with that money.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:29 pm

PeterDLai wrote:I'm not even going to try and silence my current jet engi--computer. I'm going to go ahead and build myself a new silent one.

I'll miss this computer though, it runs well for a Pentium II 350. Sniff sniff.

do you know what happens to those old dells and hps that people practically give away? places clean them up and resell them to old people. Some go for like $400! Slow, worthless pieces of junk. It's kindof funny.

Talz · Post by **Talz** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:12 pm

Well advice here depends on what you plan to do. If you have a case with decent airflow the super silencer that was mentioned is a good choice. The super tornado will give better airflow though, which especially of benefit if overclocking, or trying to help a case with poor airflow. I would probably get the super tornado local though, so you can exchange it easily if you do run into a whine/squeal problem unit. I would recomend either of the Seasonics over the Zalman though. Not that it's junk, but I am pretty impressed with the Seasonic Supers from my own use and the reviews.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 12:32 am

Talz, did you mean you would NOT recommend the Zalman PSU?

The Seasonics are probably no worse than any other PSU in reguard to lemons. The difference is that hardened SPCR gurus will return a squealer and post a complaint whereas others will accept what they have and end the obsession.

hmsrolst · Post by **hmsrolst** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 6:34 pm

I've been through 2 squealers, but the current non-squealer is definitely quieter than the Zalman which I also have. Another possibility is the Nexus 3000 which I estimate is pretty close to the non-squealing Super Tornado.

Talz · Post by **Talz** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:33 pm

Trip wrote:Talz, did you mean you would NOT recommend the Zalman PSU?

The Seasonics are probably no worse than any other PSU in reguard to lemons. The difference is that hardened SPCR gurus will return a squealer and post a complaint whereas others will accept what they have and end the obsession.

I guess I was more tired than I realized, edited the end of my post to make sense. But no I wouldn't recomend the Zalman over a Seasonic Super. And it seems to me there was a definate problem with the early super tornadoes. Hopefully it's been addressed and problem units are rare as any other PSU though as Seasonic does at least appear to be reasonably responsive on correcting the issue.

e_dawg · Post by **e_dawg** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 1:11 am

I have the Zalman 400 W unit. Dead silent. Excellent build quality. Works well. I would recommend the Zalman 300 W. Seems to be a little less problems than the Seasonics.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Fri Nov 28, 2003 12:53 pm

the only problem with the super silencer is a strong fan. i thought mine was defective, but it's not. After I replace the fan, I'm going to have an inaudible PC.

energy · Post by **energy** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:49 am

e_dawg,

I've found the ZM400 is noticeably quieter than the ZM300.

Trip · Post by **Trip** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 11:07 am

Wumpus went with a Fortron read his last two posts. I believe the Zalman is a Fortron model, just from what I've read.

Mike C's modded PSU may interest you

e_dawg · Post by **e_dawg** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:09 am

energy wrote:e_dawg,

I've found the ZM400 is noticeably quieter than the ZM300.

I find it hard to believe that a 300 W PSU is quieter than a 400 W -- especially when from the same model line and silent design. Was the 300 W you had an older version, which was louder than the current generation of Zalman PSU's?

energy · Post by **energy** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:23 am

Hi e_dawg,

I'm a reseller for Zalman and various other quiet parts so I've tinkered about with almost all their current parts extensively. I am comparing their ZM300A-APF to the ZM400A-APF.

If you crack them open you will find they are of quite a different desgn -

a) The ZM400 has a higher quality fan by NMB, the ZM300 has a Protechnic fan, I'm not sure how the CFM and dB(A) figures compare but as they are never running full tilt its not so crucial
b) The ZM400 has significantly larger, more substantial heatsinks

I don't know if the desing of the fan controller is identical but the thermistor on each model is in a different place and efficiency may be quite different from the 300 to the 400.

The most logical explanation is that the ZM400 is being stressed less under a specific load or system than the ZM300 and so outputs less heat requiring less cooling.

Whereas I find the ZM400 quite a decent quiet PSU, the ZM300 in my system was too noisy for my liking so I modded it with a Panaflo L1A and it is virtually silent now. I haven't measured how many volts its getting but I would estimate 7-8v.

dan23 · Post by **dan23** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:03 am

energy how easy is to mod the ZM300?

e_dawg · Post by **e_dawg** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 12:06 pm

Interesting, energy. I guess I won't be buying Zalman 300 watters now. Amongst the PSU's I can get where I live, the Zalman 300 seemed like the best value -- combining the silence of the quietest PSU's with a good price. In fact, I was going to use this PSU in my next PC unless Seasonic improved their quality control.

-----------

When I looked at the back of my Zalman 400 PSU during the installation process, the high quality of the NMB fan was actually the first thing that caught my attention

energy · Post by **energy** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 1:01 pm

dan23: Its not particularly hard but as it doesn't use a socket for the fan you will have to do some soldering work. Other than that straight forward.

e_dawg, if you can get the FSP400-60PFN its the exact same PSU as the Zalman ZM400, with the same NMB fan (though they're known to use Nidec whose bearings aren't in the same league). The only difference is the fan controller and case colour.

The FSP is quite a bit cheaper over here and you can get the same effect as the Zalman by adding an inline resistor to the fan output (you will have to experiment to find the best value - a small trimmer would be ideal).

I don't think the Zalmans are great value for the £90 they sell for here (400W version), and am intending on tracking down some PFN versions to mod and sell (till now I have been selling 400-60BNP (PF)s which do not have a wire grille and have smaller heatsinks, otherwise identical to Zalmans.

I believe the 300W Zalmans are the FSP300-60PLN but I'm not 100% sure.

e_dawg · Post by **e_dawg** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 4:09 pm

Problem is that it is hard to source any FSP's in Canada, at least through my dealers. Zalman and Tt are the only widely available quiet PSU's. An online retail has recently started carrying Seasonic, but with some of the complaints about Seasonics lately, I'm not so sure about them now.