Whining Components cured with wax?

Live · Post by **Live** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 4:01 pm

I saw over at phoronix.com that they modded an old PSU and among other things silenced components by melting wax on them. Anyone else tried this?

Quote from the article:
Next problem we faced was the humming noise. The only possible cause for this noise would be an old worn out inductor. Therefore, we proceeded to flood both main inductors with candle wax. This un-scented wax had been ordered from a candle shop for just a few bucks and then melted with a stove. After doing so, the noise hadn't died out as we had expected. Later on we found a small inductor taped to a little transformer (for transfer of magnetic flux, but a very dodgy technique). We flooded this trivial inductor with wax and whalla! The noise was now gone.[/url]

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:02 pm

Hrm... What's the melting point of wax? I have a feeling that the components may get hot enough to start melting it...

And it's voila, dammit! Voila!

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:01 pm

I wonder if wax mixed with thermal paste and a bit of glue would work better?

Edit: kind of stupid, they put wax on the whinny components but put in a 100cfm fan, but they didn't remove the restrictive stamped grill.

tay · Post by **tay** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:47 pm

Please use electricians goop (the yellow crap you see inside PSUs) or better yet acid free RTV silicone (the GE silicone stuff has acetic acid iirc). I believe they sell silicone for electronic devices since the regular stuff might corrode the thin insulator on the coils.

Wax is scary. Glue and thermal paste sounds promising.

zoob · Post by **zoob** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:01 pm

Has anyone ever successfully silenced a whining coil with electricians goop or silicone? I've seen posts about people wanting to do it, but to my knowledge no one has reported back :\

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:59 pm

Well, theoretically you can do it, because the coil whine is nothing but micro oscilations of all those coils, securing them should remove the noise. The only problem I see is locating the one that actually whines.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:30 pm

zoob wrote:Has anyone ever successfully silenced a whining coil with electricians goop or silicone? I've seen posts about people wanting to do it, but to my knowledge no one has reported back :\

I think some people might have actually done so with earplugs, (foam ones IIRC). I'm thinking of trying it with a portion of a thermal pad, but I'd have to find a place that sells them.

Edit: I think it wouldn't be neccesary to entirely cover a coil in glue or whatever, only a few small blobs of it sticking the coils together should be needed.

ONEshot · Post by **ONEshot** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:42 pm

hahaha, he melted wax over his PSU to make it quiet...

Then stuck a 100 CFM 80mm in there. To improve airflow. But cutting stamped grills never came to his mind,

silencery · Post by **silencery** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:51 pm

some electric components come w/ a thick grease to cover the coils. I'm assuming its to serve the purpose described here.

Why do people constantly spell it whalla? What the heck is whalla?

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:12 pm

silencery wrote:some electric components come w/ a thick grease to cover the coils. I'm assuming its to serve the purpose described here.

I thought it's more for keeping water condensation off the coils?

silencery wrote:Why do people constantly spell it whalla? What the heck is whalla?

Phonics. The same reason they keep referring to the "3 Rs of education".

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:25 pm

Hmmm, I may have to try that with that hella whiney SMC 8505T Gigabit switch, if the RMA'd one has the whine as well.

-Ed

silencery · Post by **silencery** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:04 am

try what, the whalla? When you find out what it is, let me know...

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:07 am

Voila, not whalla.

There will be voila when it works.

-Ed

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:35 am

My spare antec smartpower has some cream colored goop on the coils, at least one capacitor and heatsink, and on some small component. I'm guessing that would be electric goop, anyone know where I could find some, or what the proper name for that stuff is?