Hi there all.

I've been out of the upgrade loop for a while hence out of the SCPR loop too. Just did a big upgrade and bought myself a Seasonic 1050W GOLD. Overkill, I know, but I wanted to try to keep it as low a load as possible to keep the fanless mode on.

Silly question time: How do I monitor the PSU fan speed and temperatures ? There didn't appear to be any type of sensor or fan header on my Seasonic at all.

I have something left in my case that is ramping up RPM occasionally, albeit still very quiet but I've spent so much getting it quiet as possible that one extra step is worthwhile. The culprits from what I can tell are CPU fan (Cool IT water unit and 120mm fan/radiator) or my Seasonic going from fan-off to low-RPM mode. I need to figure out which is the cause but can't find a way to monitor the Seasonic's temps or RPM.

Cheers

1000

I think it would be easier if you connected the CPU fans to a constant source of power (eg. directly to the power supply, with a 12v-5v adapter, or to the motherboard and set it to a constant speed). So then if there's still a fan ramping up occasionally, you'll know that it's the PSU fan.

Can't you just look at the PSU fan?

Ok, sat up to all wierd hours of the night and narrowed it down to the PSU. It seems that the fan is kicking in even during internet browsing/desktop stuff. I don't mind if it kicks in when I am gaming, but having it fire up when on the desktop is a pain in the bum. I bought the seasonic on the assumption that it's load and temps would keep the fan OFF completely in Windows/desktop and maybe kick in a bit while gaming.

At the moment, I have a i7 2600k, GTX680, 16GB, 2xSSD drives, 2 noctua case fans (at 5v) being powered by the Seasonic. Is there anything I can do to lighten it's load, hence it's temps in windows ? I have a few ideas tossing around...

1. To be honest, I have a little more CPU and GPU power than I really need.. would there be a benefit in lowering the speeds of the CPU or GPU a little to lower the draw ?

2. I have an Antec P183 (with bottom PSU chamber) and my PSU fan is pointing towards the CPU/GPU/mainboard. Would I see a benefit in reversing the PSU so the fan is pointing downwards ? THe fan seems to be an exhaust rather than an intake.. is there much point trying this ?

3. WIth the Antec, while it's quiet I think things get a little toasty in there, especially with the reasonably high spec components. Would I see better cooling, therefore lower PSU temps if I bought an alternative case with a side intake to help cool the GPU/PSU ?

Despite being a bit frustrated that the seasonic isn't quite the "perfect answer" I was hoping for (I'm sure it's still better than the FSP and Gigabyte units I had before it though) I am having a lot of fun trying to silence this thing... forgot how much fun all this silent PC silliness was !!!

Cheers

1000

The psu should be mounted with the fan on the bottom of the p183.

Depending on if it's too late and if you've overclocked, you could have gotten the fanless X-460. I'm pretty sure it would comfortably handle your configuration, albeit with not too much room for upgrading.

Conservatively, you need 250W for the GPU, 100W for the CPU, leaving you with about 100W for everything else. That's plenty, and it's a Seasonic we're talking about.

Is that a fact ? WOW, I had no idea that this was the case... you think it will make a difference to the temps and therefore keep the fan from firing ?

1000

You should try and let us know if the fan stops acting up. After the switch, you will also notice the psu cables are in the right place, closer to the motherboard side...

Thanks dudes.. I'll report back in a few hours.

I guess it does make sense....the fan is an intake, therefore I am currently drawing air from the rest of the case where the GPU and CPU have dispersed heat. Warmer air in = higher temp = fan engages. Whereas drawing air from the bottom of the case/external should be considerably cooler.

Here's hoping.. from all reports the fan shouldn't spin on my rig until heavy load.

1000

Well, happy to say it's a lot quieter, but the fan still starts up from time to time in windows when it shouldn't. Tempted to stick a Noctura at low RPM in the botton bay to try to draw a little more cool air into the PSU.

A bit frustrating... the Seasonic cost me a small fortune...

1000

Use CPU-Z and GPU-Z to make sure the CPU and graphics card processors are dropping to idle clock speeds when you're just on Windows desktop.
CPU should idle at (IIRS) 1.6GHz and <1v. The GPU clocks should also drop way down, perhaps ~100MHz instead of close to 10000MHz. Unless you have dual screens in which case the GPU doesn't idle for some technical reason that I can't remember. This is common to AMD and Nvidia cards.

With my PC (similar power envelope of 2600k and GTX560Ti) I'd managed to get it so quiet yet there was something that kept spinning up. Sound like in the distance as was pretty faint, turned out was my WD Green storage drive spinning up when I or Windows wanted something off it after not accessing it for some time!

Regards, Seb

How would that work?
PSU intake is from outside the case (bottom) and exhaust is into outside the case (back) too, isn't it?

The PSU will draw air from the front of the p183, not from the bottom, as there are no holes there. A ~500 RPM fan in the middle of the lower chamber should help bring some fresh air from the front. Inspiration - viewtopic.php?f=14&t=64355

Edit: There are some holes on the back of the case, under the psu - http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/ima ... 7-back.jpg
It seems some air can get through there, but in this case, a semi passive psu, the holes don't help much. So the best option is to have some airflow from the front of the case.

Stupid question: Is the mode switch set to Hybrid or Normal?

In hybrid mode it shouldn't be cycling on for web browsing....and even if it is on, it should be pretty quiet...

Definitely on Hybrid... I double checked it. Going to monitor it tonight and if it keeps firing up I'll try an intake fan in the front of the case, otherwise, I guess it's still a great PSU.. just had higher expectations I guess.

I've double checked that all PMW settings are right, nothing is running overclocked etc etc. Something is just amiss with this unit I think.

1000

What about normal mode? Would you hear the slow-spinning fan?

What temps are you seeing for the case/CPU, and other stuff you CAN measure?

One last thing to check, and it's a long shot: The SPCR review unit's fan started spinning @ 200W....is it possible your PC's video card is in 3D/gaming mode even while you are just browsing? Try opening the Nvidia control panel and monitoring your gpu/memclock speeds when this happens. (of course, you'd probably hear the gfx card fan as well...)

I tried the fan on normal already, it's very quiet (not silent though obviously).

Also checked the GPU, it's clocking right down when not gaming.

I'm going to try putting a front fan in the bottom chamber to see if that keeps it cooler. If not, then I would have to assume that I have a dodgy temp sensor or similar, if so, I'll just live with it.. it's still quieter than 80% of PSUs out there. Will be a bit disappointed considering how much I paid for the PSU.

1000

Actually, one more silly question. The Seasonic supports up to three PCIE video cards... that is, 3 sets of 6 pin/8pin dual connectors.

It is easier on the PSU load to run 1x6 pin from one connector and 1x8pin from another, or should I just run the dual 6 and 8 pins from the single connector ?

1000

I'd RMA the PSU.

OK, I'm thinking about maybe trying the 460w Seasonic fanless instead.

My FULL rig is as follows:

Intel i7 2600k (at stock)
16GB Ram (4x4)
Gigabyte GTX 680 OC (runs a little higher clocks that the standard and takes 1x6 and 1x8 pin)
2xSSD drives
1x 1tb 7200rpm drive (to be replaced with a 5400rpm 2.5" 500GB seagate soon)
1 x Notcura fan (5v)
1 x Sharkloon silent eagle fan (7v)
1x AL CoolIT "all in one" CPU water cooler (soon to be replaced with a Noctua NHC-14 (which has 2x140mm fans)

Will my system be OK with a 460w ? I have used the calculator online for my system "AS IS" without some of the planned changes above... and according to that, my system at regular heavy load (80% CPU / 90% system load) is 398w. If I bump it up to 100% system load is says my max power draw is 427w.

If I make the changes above (essentially -1 water cooler, +2 140mm fans[Noctura cooler], -1 7200RPM +1 5400rpm) it bumps me up to 408w (80%) and 447w (100% load).

If I went 460w fanless, am I cutting things too fine here ? Will the fact that PSUs are only XX% efficient mean that I lose around 50w to the inefficiency, hence might be chosing a PSU that can't get the job done ?

If worse came to worse I could get rid of the 2 SSDs and the 1xHDD and replace them with a single SSD.. I could also use an external CD/DVD drive too right ?

1000

Here's Hexus.net's review of that card using an Intel mobo, an i5-2500K and 1 SSD. 220W AC while playing Arkham City, using a Corsair AX750 PSU. The PSU is ~ 90% efficient at this load, so the system draw is ~200W DC.

Looking at it from a TDP standpoint, 95W for your CPU, 195W for the GPU, figure 30W-ish for the mobo, another 10W for your drives, couple of watts for fans and misc crap ...350W max.

So, yeah the fanless 460W would work. You should get much better efficiency at idle than with the 1050W behemoth. I know you have this wacky hybrid fanned unit that never spins down, but you could also consider the Seasonic X560. In normal operation the fan shouldn't spin up. Or the Kingwin LZP-550. All three are nice.

You waste too much time and $ on the PSU. Here is what i think you could do:

- Get another 500-600W PSU, decent, not very expensive (or keep the 1050W)
- Locate a fan header on the motherboard that works 100% with speedfan
- Repace PSU fan with a noctua or something that doesn't buzz/rattle/whatever at 500-800 RPM
- Connect this new fan to the mobo header
- Configure speedfan and link this header to the cpu temp like this: Under 40C - 500 RPM, over 40C - 750-800 RPM, or you figure something out for your taste
- You could also use the fan that comes with the psu if it's not junk. Take it out and patch the wires to a standard 3 pin connector. It might not have the yellow wire, but you can just look at it/listen and aproximate what % in speedfan gives what speed/noise. No big deal if you can't have real rpm feedback.

That's all. Fanless is overrated. A 500 RPM fan is imposible to hear inside a psu, more so when you have other fans in the case and a spinning hard drive. And when you want to game with the GTX 680, one can't expect idle silence. The psu will never come close to the noise that monster makes...

Rest of your components isn't silent either, right? Wouldn't normal mode be fine then?

Agreed. You need to back off and take another tack.

I'll stop for the moment and take stock once I get the Noctua CPU cooler in. Once that's in the system should be near silent so I will be able to better guage how much the PSU ramping up truly bugs me.

1000