Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

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

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soldermizer
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Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by soldermizer » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:24 am

Make a Fanless PSU with (Almost) No Soldering, for Less than $12

By Soldermizer (July 17, 2011)

I found Silent PC Review (http://www.silentpcreview.com) while searching for fanless PSU reviews. I was looking for solutions that would help to quiet my modest desktop PC. It is my office/bedroom/music PC. The original unit produced too much fan noise. I formatted this post as a possible "article" but later discovered this huge "power supply" forum, and this seem the most appropriate place.

After reading some of the reviews and DIY articles, I concluded that (1) a truly fanless PSU was too expensive for my modest system and (2) that most of the DIY projects were too complex for my modest skills! This article, I hope, covers new ground in the sense of showing that sometimes a "low tech" solution will be adequate.

This is my desktop PC. It is certainly a modest system, and probably representative of many older PCs:

PowerSpec V102 (a clearance system at Micro Center in Dec. 2008; only the case remains; all other internals have been replaced due to failures -- believe it or not, not due to my incompetence, just bad luck!).
Motherboard: Biostar G31M+ (The cheapest that Comp USA had -- do you see a pattern developing?); I re-used 2 GB of RAM and the CPU from the previous motherboard (Intel Celeron D 2.8 GHz)
Hard Disk Drive = WD 320 GB (factory replaced the original 160GB that failed);
Boot drive = OCZ Vertex II 50 GB (that refuses to suspend or hibernate in my laptop, so here it is...);
Wireless network card;

The PSU I modded here is a Diablotek DA 250 watt PSU ($11.76 at Comp USA; not surprisingly also the cheapest unit.) Since the internals of each PSU will vary, the exact mod might be different. But I don't see why my simple method would not work with any PSU.

Let's face it, if you are like me, you scarcely have the mechanical aptitude to pick your own nose, much less perform sophisticated modifications such as found on these DIY sites. Lacking access to a machine shop, and being somewhat lazy also, I want a simpler method. Even if you are handy, sometimes an easy method is all you need.

Disclaimer: if you open the PSU case, you are exposed to potentially deadly voltages (and you void the warranty!) Please be careful. Also plaster of paris while technically not used in this mod, was something I used in my research, generates heat when curing and it is possible to get burns from it. A teenager once got third degree burns and had to have some fingers amputated from having her hand in wet plaster.

I did not want to do a complex modification, such as get a huge heatsink and mount the heat-producing components (e.g. MOSFET) on it. As you can partly see in the photo, my PSU has two heatsinks that are conveniently parallel and close to each other. Brief testing with the volt meter (VOM) showed that one of them was "live", having a few volts AC. So I could not use a metal heatsink. How, then, to conduct heat but not electricity? Prior experiments had shown that one thing that apparently did NOT work is using plaster (more on that later). So what you read here is attempt #2 and apparently successful! I thought that a small piece of rock, ceramic, or brick would conduct the heat away. True enough, but what to use? The most elegant solution would probably to have found a piece of glazed ceramic perhaps the size of a bar of soap. Perhaps a small brick or "paver" would work. I had some spare ceramic floor tiles, but they were far too big. While a larger mass would store more heat (a plus here), it would weigh more and the strength of the epoxy bond and also the weight supported by the hardware would be factors to consider.

Psycho-Ceramics, or A Crackpot approach to Heatsinks

While searching the kitchen, I found a ceramic tea cup that was already conveniently broken. I took a shard that was about the right size and saw that it would fit, joining the two heat sinks along and still leaving a contact area with the metal PSU case. I did chip the shard a bit smaller, to make sure it would fit inside the ATX case. Using regular Epoxy cement, the shard is cemented so the cylinder edge fully joins one entire side of each heat sink (not visible), as well as being joined to the rear of the PSU (visible).
image002.jpg
The PSU has a fan that (of course) you should remove (otherwise it won't be fanless!) but there is a problem: the PSU has a fail-safe for fan failure. I was able to "fool" this protective circuit by simply soldering 110 Ohm load across the fan's power line, giving a dummy load. The fan's load was 0.1 A @ 12 V, so 120 ohm would have been ideal. This as showing in the next photo (top right), was the only soldering needed for the whole project. Of course, it could be done more elegantly, perhaps leave the wires longer when you cut them, or put them on the circuit board. Lazy, as I said ...
image004.jpg
Once the Epoxy is dry, it is time to test the PSU. Put a test load (spare HDD) on one of the power connectors. Short the ATA pins 14&15 (I use paper clip); have VOM on a 5V or 12 V line, connect AC power, turn on the switch, and hope for the best!
Of course, this should give good voltages even with a normal PSU. The important question now is to see how much heat the PSU will generate, and will it conduct to the case? Lacking a thermometer except my fingers, I checked the shard and the outside case over a period of many minutes and it clearly was working.

The 2nd test is to install the PSU -- without its cover, for best airflow -- into the ATX case. I do not have the tools or patience to install the PSU the way others have that may well be better (e.g. heatsink up, or mounted on another surface, etc.) So I used the factory mounting position. Unfortunately, this is not optimal: As mounted, it is "upside down" and the heat sinks are directly below the PC board which of course heats up more than if it would be inverted. Still, the shard is going to conduct heat (enough of it?) to the PSU case, and via that, to the ATX case it is bolted to.

Now came the extended testing: I reconnected the power lines to the internal connectors. It is very important to monitor the temperatures, and the best tool I have is the hardware health read-outs in the BIOS. The first runs were done with the side panel off, which should provide extra cooling. The first boot up worked ok, but I was still getting a lot of noise. The immediate culprit is the 2nd case cooling fan. Disconnected at motherboard. Next test, the HDD is too noisy. So it gets unplugged (not needed, as the SSD is the boot drive). Now boot up. Amazingly quiet!

The only remaining fan is one I must leave in place: the CPU cooling fan. However, I tested even that assumption. My CPU has a maximum allowable temp of (about) 67°C. I disconnected the CPU fan and booted to the BIOS "hardware health" screen to monitor the temps. Of course, the temp in a matter of minutes climbs to the unsafe levels. I set the auto-temp shutdown to about 60°C for future insurance (which also works, perhaps worth testing it). For now, at least, I will have to keep this one fan. There are passive CPU cooling mods but they are too exotic for me, at least right now. I mean really, do you think I could afford a heat sink like this one, well it won't fit in my case judging from the photo:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article932-page2.html

Note that house temperatures during this testing were around 75°F, or about 25°C.

Initial testing: I left the side panel off. Unit was run all night, about ten hours, and never had a trouble. Temperatures did not climb above 41°C/41°C [CPU/SYSTEM]. No unhappy smells of burning plastic.

Further testing, with the side panel on, show that the temperatures stay well within the safe range. I have not seen a temperature above 50°C, and after many hours, it seems to be no higher than 45°C /45°C. With the PowerSpec case, there is a little duct on the side so the CPU fan draws in air. It is noticeably cooler there. As expected, the warmest part of the case is the top rear, directly above the PSU. Never was it too hot to touch. The many existing slots on the rear of the case (including the PSU fan opening) provide a "chimney" that naturally provides cooling air.

Speculation: as installed, the PSU's heat may lead to shortened life. Who cares? For $12, I'm willing to experiment.

Suspending the HDD: using ideas elsewhere from SPCR, I mounted ("precariously hung" would be more accurate) the HDD using rubber bands (4), paper clip (1) and pipe cleaners (2) to suspend the HDD so that it doesn't contact any surfaces of the ATX case.

Summary: the desktop PC was made substantially quieter by improvising a completely fanless PSU for under $12, the disconnection of the 2nd case fan, and suspending the HDD. Long term reliability is unknown. It is reasonable to assume the PSU's life is shortened because it runs hotter. While both the CPU and system clearly are warmer, the maximum observed temperatures are still well within the safe range (as far as I know).

Getting Plastered: Epic fail , or some methods that didn't work

Earlier I had tried literally "bricking a PSU." In my search for a heat but not electric conducting heat sink material, I had considered regular plaster of Paris. I took a working PSU, disconnected the fan, and filled the case with plaster. At this time, I did not know that the PSU have the fan failsafe. Also, when I powered up this PSU, it hissed and fizzled ... perhaps indicative of a short circuit. I have not tested this method further.

Test #2: the CPU gets plastered

I had a prehistoric (1998 vintage) Pentium-MMX PC for next test victim. Based on my above noted success, I desire to be rid of the CPU fan without having to resort to an enormous heatsink. Perhaps covering the CPU and its heatsink with a plaster mass would be an effective heatsink? Based on my single test, the answer is "no." The system booted but froze during the memory test. It would not boot at all following this. Case of failure is unknown, possibly due to electricity conducting where it shouldn't? Based on the PSU and this test, I pronounce plaster a failure, possibly because it's not an electrical insulator.
image006.jpg
Ideas for future testing:

To use ceramic, rock, or other non-electricity-conducting materials would seem to hold much promise as a heatsink strategy. An interesting (and easy) research or investigation would be such ideas as:

1. Research common plaster-like materials for their thermal and electrical conductivity.
2. If a material looks promising (another kind of plaster? Cement? Concrete?) set up simple experiments to see if it be a good electrical insulator.
3. Use throw-away PC hardware for actual tests, like I did.
4. Could an entire PC be encased (say) in ordinary concrete or cement and still operate? This would be an excellent heatsink (if it conducts enough that the CPU doesn't die) and would literally be an "embedded system". The only downsides I see is that servicing the unit would be impossible and lifting it would be nearly so.

About the author
"Soldermizer" is a 49-year-old male who has dabbled in electronics and computing since his pre-teens. Professionally he has worked in telecom, computer networking and support operations. He has long had a love of home audio systems and has applied his -- uh -- talents to fixing up old gear for his own enjoyment or to re-sell. He is the guy who can buy a working 1960s vintage Arvin tabletop tube radio (FM stereo!) at an estate sale for $10, clean it up, and turn around and sell it for $2.50 on Ebay. His interests are highly eclectic, which is not to say talented. In just the past few months, he has tried his hand at such diverse hobbies as making custom ear pads for his headphones, home soap making and the present topic, silencing his noisy PC.
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flyingsherpa
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by flyingsherpa » Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:47 am

As a mechanical engineer, I don't know where to start...

You clearly have a tinkerer's spirit, which I can usually admire. But your logic in this case is horribly flawed and potentially dangerous.

The reason your mod "worked" had nothing to do with the pieces of tea cup you glued onto the heatsinks. I invite you to look up the thermal conductivity of different materials (link). There's a reason heatsinks are made of aluminum and copper... they literally have hundreds of times the thermal conductivity of materials like bricks or tea cups, which are thermal INSULATORS. Tea cups allow you to hold near-boiling hot liquids in your hand. They do this by PREVENTING HEAT TRANSFER as much as possible, so the heat doesn't get to your hands. You wouldn't do that with an aluminum mug as you'd burn yourself almost instantly. So almost no heat is being transferred from your PSU heatsinks through the tea cup to the PSU case. If the case is getting warm, it has more to due with thermo-buoyant airflow within the case, radiation from the hot heatsinks, and conduction through the PCB that's screwed into the case. You could test this yourself by running your system both with and without the tea cups bonded in place. You would see no change.

But in both cases, you are cooking that PSU alive. If your load is small enough, it may last quite a while. If it's larger, it's going to fail much sooner (and can be creating dangerously high temps inside your PC). For a $12 part, you may not care. Though be aware that PSUs are infamous for taking other PC parts out with them when they die. Disabling the thermal safety shut-off is a horrible idea.

I really recommend you stop running the system this way, especially if you are not always around to monitor it...

kater
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by kater » Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:10 pm

Talk 'about ghetto!

No, really, fun to read, but once you actually see what's cooking here (duh) you may get slightly worried. As said above, pray don't leave the PC on while you're away. The PSU be damned, but, ya know, the house and all...

Also, I just remembered that as a small kid I would sometimes have a mandatory tea at the school cafeteria. And there would be these aluminum tea spoons to serve sugar. So light. And so damn hot!

cordis
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by cordis » Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:17 pm

Yeah, seems like this is a pretty complicated exercise, when the easy way to go would have been to solder a resistor in the fan line to slow it down, or just replace it with a quieter fan. Slightly more complicated than gluing a teacup to a heat sink, but a nice proven technique. The ceramic won't conduct heat well, I suppose it will come into thermal equilibrium with the heat sinks at some point, but since it doesn't conduct heat away very well I think the net effect will be to make the air flow to the current heat sink worse. There are some insulators that conduct heat well (like diamond) but I can't imagine that any would be cheaper than a better fan. But I hope it lasts for a while!

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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by frenchie » Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:01 pm

Thanks for sharing your expereriments. Big +1 for the ghetto mod and for the ultimate tinkering spirit !! For the results and conclusions however.... :roll: Just make sure you're carefull when you play with a live PSU...

soldermizer
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by soldermizer » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:00 pm

I am no engineer but I have an interest in the concept of thermal conductivity. I found this web site that offers stats for common materials:

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/therm ... d_429.html

Here are some materials pertinent to the mod shown:

Aluminum = 250;
Air = 0.024;
Porcelain = 1.5; (one of the best of similar materials: glass, rock, etc., very close in value);
Epoxy = 0.35;

Notable: water, the favorite of water coolers, is 0.5;

Of course, I have more questions than answers, but here are some for consideration:

Stock electronic components are often mounted in ceramic or epoxy shells. IF they did not conduct enough heat, they would die. Hmmm... perhaps despite having a low thermal conductivity, they still manage to move the heat to the heatsink?

Ultimately, nearly all consumer PCs are air cooled, despite air having very low thermal conductivity (yes I realize that this relies on moving air, which is not accounted here.)

I don't have the figures or theory to calculate a comparison, but intuition says that even epoxy/ceramic will conduct heat at least (0.35/0.024) ~= 15 times the heat transfer than into still air.

I will continue to tinker, hoping it doesn't catch on fire. Perhaps I can provide a reliability report in a year or whenever it dies.

flyingsherpa
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by flyingsherpa » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:20 am

soldermizer wrote:Stock electronic components are often mounted in ceramic or epoxy shells. IF they did not conduct enough heat, they would die. Hmmm... perhaps despite having a low thermal conductivity, they still manage to move the heat to the heatsink?
Ceramics used for electronic components are nothing like ceramics used in mugs. Look up "fine ceramics", you'll see that their thermal conductivities can vary greatly based on the need of the part... some have values as high as 150 or so.

And yes, even though air and water have relatively low thermal conductivity, the fact that they are fluids (that can FLOW) makes a HUGE difference in their cooling potential. In fact, as soon as you start heating air, it flows all by itself due to thermal buoyancy... this gives a small amount of "free" convective heat transfer. Which means that a chip that is just passively air cooled will probably run cooler than one with just a tea cup glued to it. Convection is really good at moving heat around.

Btw, I think it's great you're interested in learning about these things; I hope my earlier post didn't come off as too harsh. I'm just worried about any damage you might do with your current setup :shock:

soldermizer
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by soldermizer » Wed Jul 20, 2011 5:46 pm

No offense taken at all. I like this site and perhaps I can contribute something (other than giving engineers the creeps.) I have taken the advice about powering down my ...uh... experiment ... when I am not around. For everything else, there's a house full of smoke detectors and two fire extinguishers. I don't have home insurance (check those FL rates!) so would prefer to not burn it down.

If you think my electrical work is dodgy ...

BTW if you are a building code inspector or in a similar field and you are having a fit of constipation, just take a short vacation down to Mexico, check out electrical wiring and such in older buildings, and I guarantee it will be cured :)

soldermizer
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by soldermizer » Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:40 pm

Two month (approx.) follow-up. The "ghetto mod" or "West Virginia" mod (as I prefer to call it -- thus insulting two distinct members of the "underclass") has been working without any apparent problems for two months now. In the interests of long-term safety I almost always shut off the system (and the rocker switch at the PSU) when I am out of the house.

Also the case has one side panel kept off as the system will overheat otherwise. Score one for passive cooling. Probably the FCC is unhappy with me but no one has served a warrant yet :)

DanceMan
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by DanceMan » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:12 pm

Highly entertaining read. As noted, your engineering might be suspect, but you can write.

soldermizer
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by soldermizer » Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:19 pm

Follow-up: Today (03-27-2012) My Dubious PSU died. I had heard "hissing" the night before, again today, in retrospect, looks like one of the big electrolytic caps had been leaking and blew. It set my UPS into alarm and I turned off and unplugged everything in haste.

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, a fool returneth to his folly."

In my case, I went back to CompUSA and bought not one but two of the same model PSU (still cheap, < $12 each): Diablotek DA250. The design has changed slightly, but I know how to mod it so it was easy. First I tested the PSU (with fan!) and PC runs -- good sign. From the defunct PSU, I removed the "fan simulator" (Resistors) and Diablotek has thoughfully provided a modular connector on the new PSU, so I made a neat (for me) soldering and electrical taping of the new "Fan simulator." Also different, with the new PSU I have not expoxied any ceramic (or anything) on the heatsinks. Also, for maximum cooling I installed the PSU so the heat will go up (as it is prone to do!) but will not be baking the circuit board, indeed, nothing except the top of the case, this time around. No photos this time, but it powers up and no funny burning plastic smell ("yet") ... only time will tell.

Long live the $12 fanless PSU -- even if it only lived for 8 months!

I guess I am a confirmed fan remover. I recently tried this on an audio amp that came with (what else?) a noisy fan. Others have changed out to a quieter fan but I said screw that and did away with it entirely. At $270 or so, I am hoping to not have to replace the amp every 8 months, a bit more costly than a $12 PSU. The amp mod was even easier than the PSU -- no soldering required and completely reversible. I'm not sure, but at least in my installation, the power amp generates far less heat than does my PSU.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/class-d/ ... y-fan.html

lodestar
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by lodestar » Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:31 am

Cheap PSUs are OK until the day they die taking a motherboard and/or CPU with them. Then, not so cheap... But given that you are using an expendable motherboard/CPU it may not matter.

W3ird_N3rd
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Re: Fanless PSU with (almost) no soldering for < $12

Post by W3ird_N3rd » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:19 pm

soldermizer wrote:In my case, I went back to CompUSA and bought not one but two of the same model PSU (still cheap, < $12 each): Diablotek DA250.
You're really in this for the experiment.. Because for the money, after a number of PSUs you would have been cheaper off buying a passive PSU right away. ;)

Anyway, I once did something similar. I had a Pentium 133@100Mhz that I used as a router. Since roommates complained about the noise from the only fan that it had and considering the low load the machine put on the PSU (EGA videocard, no harddrive, rarely a CPU load) I decided to simply remove the fan and pray. Surprisingly, the machine ran without error for 2-3 years. After that I took it out of service because I had bought a new router.

A few years later, I tried powering it up again.. But while on the shelf, the PSU had died. Oh well, it had a good run.

As for your $12 PSU, it was bound to fail anyway. Even with the fan installed. You're lucky it didn't take the rest of your hardware with it into it's grave. My advice would still be to buy a slightly more expensive PSU (for the $36 you spent on three crappy PSUs you could have probably had something decent) that has a quiet fan. Real fanless PSUs are often not really worth the money anyway as they still require airflow in the form of a casefan. I would prefer a PSU with a fan and just have one less casefan.

DanceMan
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Re: Another semi-Fanless PSU story

Post by DanceMan » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:53 pm

I have an old XP1800 computer with a psu fan connected at 5V. It's used only occasionally, and for short periods of up to an hour. The psu fan sometimes starts, sometimes doesn't, and sometimes I remember to give the fan a spin to get it going. IIRC the psu is an FSP. No case fan on this thing, unless I put a front fan in it. Built it too long ago to remember and it's too quiet to tell.

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