PSU voltage level and drive noise

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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Yomat
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:41 pm
Location: Sweden

PSU voltage level and drive noise

Post by Yomat » Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:07 pm

Greetings.

(For those who doesent browse alot of these forums: PSU means "Power Supply Unit".)

First post for me.. so this might have been up before. I didnt see anything similar when I browsed the history though.

Ok.. well this relates to what was said in another thread which started me thinking:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=4209

This was about a strange noise that was remedied by switching PSU. And.. when I read this I also recollect reading something in the Barracuda-specs about voltage variation and that it affects the noise level. One item is:
"Voltage tolerance (including noice): 5V +/- 5%, 12V +/- 10%".

Now. Could it be that some PSU gives too high voltage and this results in more noice from HD.. and why not other parts too like CDROMs and fans? I know that my voltage levels lies very high if I check BIOS and programs that can read sensors. But I always thought it was some feature of the MOBO and not something with the PSU.

And if this is the case. Would it affect the noise level in any degree? (In the above mentioned thread it obviously did for that particilar drive model so why not for other models?) How can one measure if the PSU gives too low voltage. (Is a voltmeter enough?) Can one remedy the PSU? Is this a viable reason to return a PSU? Should one get another brand of PSU?

Feel free to ponder on the subject. I dont specifically need expert advice. Ideas would be great. :)

Yomat
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:41 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Yomat » Thu May 01, 2003 8:05 am

Doh! My bad. Could some considerate moderator move this thread to the PSU section of the forum? Think it would be more correct.

Yomat
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:41 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Yomat » Thu May 01, 2003 9:26 am

Well.. the percentual difference is probably not important. Whats worse if there is a threshold breach which makes a component go off and make much more noise than normal. As with the Cuda in the thread I mentioned. Or fans that starts screaming ( like they do when they are dying :) .

Btw.. the Seagate spec probably refers to fluctuation noise in the current. Not the noise power. :P

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