modify Zalman ZM300A-PFC (to be that bit more quiet)

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

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DarkLord
Posts: 66
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 2:59 am
Location: Hellenthal, NRW, Germany

modify Zalman ZM300A-PFC (to be that bit more quiet)

Post by DarkLord » Thu Oct 24, 2002 5:29 am

Hi there,

I own the Zalman ZM300A-PFC and in my eternal journey to silence my whole system I intend to buy a Verax P14 (CPU is an AthlonXP 1700+) to make that Arctic Cooling Pro shut up and I'm getting my 'Cuda V 80GB during the next days, to replace my WD 80 GB 7200. Sooo.... apart from the graphics card (8500LE which might get a zalman ZM-80, or a cheaper custom solution) the only thing holding me back from near-silence might be the zalman PSU....

So basically I wanted to modify the PSU one way or another. I guess just reducing the the current fans voltage might kill the PSU way quicker then intended to do, so... Has anyone any experience with modifying the Zalman ZM300... ?. Might a Verax fan be a good idea? I have seen the tomshardware review on those 21 PSUs and they seemed to like the Fortron/Verax sollution very much, so I thought a Verax Fan would do just fine within the Zalman PSU, because the Zalman has some rather large passive heatsinks, not found (to my knowledge) in common (sparkle/fortron) PSUs. So the Verax *should* do a decent job in keeping it cool. But will it be quieter than now as well? Or do you guys think I might be better of with a Papst 8412 N2GL ('12db') or something?
I recon some of you like panaflo Fans a lot, but most reviews i read prefered the papst fans over them and some stated that the Verax thingies might be the quietest. Anyways, Papst or Verax would be the easiest to buy for me, since I am in germany.

BTW. If everybody else thinks the Verax is a really bad idea, I'm very open minded for other more quiet solutions for my CPU (I am aware that the Verax has *just* enough cooling power, to deal with my current 1700+, so this is not an issue, just the noise...) :)

Any thoughts?
(sorry for the bad english and typos, hadn't much time)
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Ralf63
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm

Post by Ralf63 » Sun Oct 27, 2002 2:06 pm

Start out with this simple test:
Temporarily cover the PSU-fan outblow with your hand. Some noise created by air-turbulence gets muffled. Get yourself a nice fan dust-filter cover - take out the foam-rubber filter and tape it like a flapdoor over the PSU outblow.
You get a similar but weaker effect - good enough to keep it there.
Last edited by Ralf63 on Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ralf63
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm

Post by Ralf63 » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:10 pm

I came up with something better: I took a 60cl thin plastic bottle and cut it about 1/3 from the opening. Then I put this dome in place temporarily with a rubberband. The air now comes out through the tap. This muffles the turbulance quite noticeably.
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gman
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Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 6:52 pm
Location: san luis obispo, san francisco
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I modified my Zalman ZM300A-PFC

Post by gman » Wed Oct 30, 2002 12:13 am

Hey there. I modified my zalman ZM300A-PFC twice now. First i replaced the stock fan with a Panaflo .36Amp rated fan from newegg.com. This panaflo pushes Alot of air, but its a bit louder. I chose that one cause being my first time modifing i rather make sure that a lot of air was being pushed out, than not. That panaflo working inside the powersupply pushed a lot of air. I never felt so much cool air being pushed out of a power supply at full load. Anyways, it was a bit louder than the stock fan at load, so i replaced it with the panaflo .1amp one. It pushes about the same as the stock fan did, I think a little bit more at loads. It is a bit more quieter too. Not silent, but quieter. Hey for ur 8500 LE just add the zalman zm-17. I replaced the stock heatsink and fan with it on my 8500 retail. I run it at 275 core and 275 memory without any problems, and i don't have any fans facing it. I have just one outflowing fan in the back of the case near the cpu. Hope some of that helps. bye
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Ralf63
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm

Post by Ralf63 » Tue Nov 05, 2002 10:36 am

Check out these fan-mufflers: http://www.muffledcomputing.com/mufflers.html
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DarkLord
Posts: 66
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2002 2:59 am
Location: Hellenthal, NRW, Germany

Post by DarkLord » Sun Nov 10, 2002 11:10 am

Thanks for the replies 8)
I'll look into muffling the exhaust a bit, but the muffledcomputing stuff is not an option, because my pc has to be highly mobile and I don't live in the USA so they are not available for me anyways. But I wanted to stop the PSU from making noise in the beginning, not just muffle some noise away. So one more question:
@gman
You said you had your ZM-300A-PFC's fan already replaced by another one. Do you know if the Verax fans would create enough airflow for this particular PSU? IMy guess is it should, because the Verax fan is actually used within the special Fortran PSU, and my Zalman does have even larger passive heatsinks than the fortron....
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