I'm using my OCZ StealthXStream in a HTPC I'm building for my brother, in a AeroCool VS4 case.

Unfortunately, this case has the PSU filter on the inside, making it uncleanable without removing the PSU, which is unacceptable, so I plan to use the PSU fan-up, so that it's drawing air from inside the case. I've ripped the fan filter out, so I could use it fan-down, but then it would suck in dust from the floor, which is unacceptable.

The problem is the fan appears to be faulty/dislocated and with the PSU fan-up, as soon as I turn it on it makes a loud, constant noise like it's catching on something, making it unusable in this orientation. I also tested it on it's side, and like that I only notice the noise when I power-down and the fan is stopping.

The PSU is only 1-year into it's 3-year warranty, so hopefully I can get it repaired/replaced but I wonder if they might just tell me that it's not designed to be used fan-up and therefore there's no fault? Fan down it doesn't make this noise, although it does seem noiser than it used to be, although I'm probably just spoilt since I got my Antec CP-850 It certainly seems noiser than the two 120mm case fans I've got installed.

It's faulty, so as you have two-years left on the warranty it would be sensible to return it to OCZ, see http://www.ocztechnology.com/support/warranty/. Any PSU should be capable of working either fan up or fan down, and I don't think OCZ is likely to reject a claim on that basis.

Thanks. I thought that PSU's should probably work fine either way up, but wanted to check whether there was any history of manufacturer's trying to use that as an excuse. I'll return it to OCZ then.

It might be worth adding that OCZ produced a version 2 of your PSU. One of the upgrades in the newer release was the replacement of the previous sleeve-bearing fan with a double ball-bearing model. It is just possible that one of the reasons for this was exactly the sort of issues that you have observed.

Thanks, that's very useful to know. Hopefully that means they'll just replace the fan with the newer one (or just send me a v2 PSU) and that will last a lot longer.

Well after paying £10 to send it back to the supplier, they tested it and couldn't find any noise, so I had to pay another £7 to get it back and it is indeed quiet now, so all I can think is that something was catching on the fan and got dislodged out of the way in transit to the supplier.

As it's going in a system I'm sending to my brother, who lives hundreds of miles away and isn't technical at all, I'm rather nervous of the fault coming back so I'll probably just fit it fan-side down, which should hopefully reduce the chance of problems, as perhaps with it fan-side up the fan drops a little and is therefore more likely to snag on something in future. I could open it up and change the fan and see if there's anything I can do to ensure nothing catches on it in future, but then I'd void the warranty, which still has about 18 months to run.

I'd like to fit an external 120mm magnetic fan filter, to keep dust out of the PSU and which would be easily removable for cleaning, but unfortunately the feet on the AeroCool VS4 are very much in the way of where the filter needs to go, so I'll have to see if I can remove the feet and fit some different ones that will allow room for a filter.

It's taken me a bit longer to finish my brother's PC than I anticipated, but it's just as well as when I switched the PSU on this morning the fan was making a horrendous noise. I managed to make a quick video on my phone but unfortunately it seems to have some sort of audio auto-gain on it, so you can only really hear the noise at the start of the video and at 00:14 just after I move the phone closer to the PSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kalm65Y2I38

I was going to make a better quality video with my webcam this afternoon, but it's not making the noise now!

I don't really fancy paying another £10 to send it back to Aria again, only for them not to be able to hear anything wrong and charge me another £7 to get it back and I can't send it to my brother when the fan is obviously not in a good state, so I guess I'll have to replace it myself, which isn't really a problem but I could do with some advice on what speed/CFM fan I need to use to ensure it won't overheat (obviously I want to keep it as quiet as possible as it's an HTPC).

Does this unit have a 140mm fan? If so I would say you're looking for a fan with a low starting voltage, 4-4.5V or less and probably somewhere around 1500 rpm in terms of speed. You could consider the NoiseBlocker BlackSilent Pro PK2 at 1200 rpm or the PK3 at 1700 rpm. Bearing in mind that it's an HTPC the PK2 might be the better choice in this instance. There are various UK sources for the PK2 and PK3 at around £12 for example http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-029-NB.

Yes, it's a 140mm fan, specs are http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-400w-s ... y-eol.html

Thanks, I'll have a look for the PK2. It's quite pricey but maybe it's worth it for the piece of mind of having a reliable fan

I've just got round to fitting the PK2 after the PSU fan started making strange noises again this morning. Of course, after powering down and setting up my webcam to record it, it didn't do it when I powered it up again but obviously it's on it's last legs so it seemed time.

I've posted a mini-review of my impressions of the PK2 viewtopic.php?f=9&t=64645

It's nice and quiet and seems to be working well enough (the PSU's not getting warm) but I think I need to adjust the plastic that's meant to block the AC input half of the fan, as there's a fair bit of air leaking from that edge and I would think it should be only coming out the other half. I didn't ever check the airflow with the old fan, but the plastic did bow up a bit on the edge between the screws when I was screwing it on, so I probably just need to loosen the screws a bit so it lays flatter.

Well I've just spent the last couple of months pulling my hair out as after moving the system from the bench into the case, it wouldn't work anymore. I'm on my third motherboard now and even with that, the CPU and PSU fan would come on for a couple of seconds and then stop.

Turns out the OCZ PSU is faulty as I tested with my Antec PSU and the CPU fan stays on with that, so it must have gone bad between moving the system from the bench into the case. I did test the OCZ PSU on another system a few weeks ago and that stayed on but perhaps that draws different loads from different lines that doesn't trigger the fault.

So I need to buy a new PSU, which is a pain in the a** after having spent £14 on a new fan for this one!

Can anyone recommend a fairly cheap, fairly quiet and most important, reliable, PSU? It doesn't need a lot of power as this system only uses on-board graphics, Athlon II X4 630, 8GB RAM, 2 HDDs, 2 ODDs, 1 PCI TV Tuner (Hauppauge Nova-T 500), no overclocking, although I want enough headroom to add a cheap, low-power graphics card (something like a 4670) in future maybe (unlikely but best to allow for it anyway).

EDIT: Just to clarify, when I say reliable I mean not only electrically but that it has a decent fan that's not going to fail in under a year, like the OCZ one did (Yate Loon D14SM-12). A couple of PSUs I've seen from a quick look that are in the sort of price range I want to aim for (<£40) are the Corsair CX430 http://www.cclonline.com/product/86909/ ... t/PSU0385/ and the Antec VP-350P 350W http://www.cclonline.com/product/80267/ ... t/PSU0333/ if anyone knows anything about them.

If you're looking at PSUs like the Corsair CX430 or the Antec VP-350P 350W for around £40 then it would make sense to consider the Seasonic G-360. My local hardware dealer lists this at £48 but currently has no stock. Overclockers UK list it at £47 but are only taking pre-orders. Given the quality of this unit, and the relatively small amount that your budget would need to be extended, it should be worth waiting until supplies arrive in the UK retail channels.

Ah, that does look like a nice unit, thanks for the tip. Ball-bearing fan (the CX430 uses a Sleeve Bearing), 5 Year warranty and better components than the CWT-built CX430 which uses Samxon caps.

Considering that my brother lives hundreds of miles away and isn't technical at all, I'm trying to build a system that won't have any problems for as long as possible, so it certainly seems worth paying a bit extra for a unit that will (hopefully) last at least 5 years.