A different Enermax mod

Justin_R · Post by **Justin_R** » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

An unusual thing about the Enermax PSUs (especially amongst PSUs marketed as quiet) is that it has two fans. When looking to quiet my Enermax PSU, I figured (like Mike Chin did in his article) that removing one of the fans would be a quick way to make it quieter. Unlike Mike, though, I decided to remove the rear exhaust fan and leave the internal fan mounted on the PSU lid.
 
 This doesn't really have any noise advantage over Mike's mod except that the fan is not directly against the back side of the case, and so the sound is muffled by having to move through the PSU. I've seen a number of "SFX" form factor PSUs that use this kind of fan strategy (see <a href="http://www.enhanceusa.com/acdc_sfxsfx12v.htm" target="_blank">http://www.enhanceusa.com/acdc_sfxsfx12v.htm</a> for examples), so I suppose it's not completely unheard of.
 
 This approach may seem foolhardy, and probably would be if I was running a high-powered Athlon with lots of hard drives or something. But, instead, this PSU is in a Via C3 powered system that is more-or-less passively cooled (by the stock Via heatsink). I say more-or-less because the way the PSU is mounted in my minitower, the airflow from the internal PSU fan directly faces the heatsink (instead of flowing perpindicular to it, as in most tower cases). There's still some airflow coming out of the PSU-- it's not like running a one-fan PSU fanless. The air from the PSU gets warm, but not really any more so than before I removed the exhaust fan.
 
 I've left the system on for days at a time, and run the CPU at full load for an hour or so on different occasions, and the air coming out of the PSU has never felt dangerously warm. I haven't ever really torture-tested the machine (full CPU load, chugging hard drive, spinning DVD), because the system isn't used for really intensive tasks.
[addsig]

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Mon Aug 12, 2002 2:32 pm

Speaking of different Enermax mods, I mounted mine outside the case!
 
 I'm still not sure what to do with the fans... The 90mm fan now pulls air out from the top of the case and into the PSU. Nothing gets recycled out of the vent holes back into the case anymore. I could close off the 90mm fan and have the PSU cool only itself, but I do like it doubling as my blowhole. I wonder if the PSU's 80mm fan is completely unnecessary now...
 
 <IMG SRC="http://members.cox.net/clemente39/image ... ctrear.jpg">
 
 In case you are all wondering why my PSU is now on the outside, it is because I have a Lian Li PC-50 (smaller case where PSU mounts next to the CPU rather than above.) I wanted a larger heatsink and DUCT so the PSU had to go...
[addsig]