Seasonic S12 REV.A2 really QUIET as they say?

oguzokay · Post by **oguzokay** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:03 am

Good man. I have exactly the same goal. For true 0dB performance, have you considered any other fanless PSU's, ie Antec Phantom, Silverstone ST30NF, FSP Zen etc

Of course I did. I reed every single review, news availabe about fanless psu's on the market. I've figured out there's no way running a fanless PSU without sufficient airflow in your case. I've also personally experienced it with Magnum by removing its fan. It simply didn't work. The prerequisite of having sufficent air cooling inorder to run a fanless psu sounds totally ridiculous. There's no way you can provide sufficient air flow at death silence:( This is why I don't see a totally fanless psu as an option.

But incase you have every material heat source (CPU,GPU,NB,HDD) watercooled (passively), then a semi fanless design such as silentmaxx 450 watt (rated as 12db max) should work perfectly without need of any case fans. I use an Innovatek Konvect-O-Matic Ultra for passively cooling these components. If I had a fanless PSU, there would be no audiable noise@1m in my system.

I'm sure every silent pc enthusiast has heard about it. This design should work flawlessly aswell:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/images/pr/ad/co ... 4/15_b.gif
I'll be the first one to buy it when it becomes available

As for watercooling PSU's, Silentmaxx tried it but it had reliability problems and probably it is discontinued.(No information can be found at their website about the Prosilence Watercooled 450 Watt) I think they were simply cooked because waterblocks were attached only outside of the PSU. Another German brand, Nc-Silence tried watercooling a PSU too. Also Innovatek has modified an Engelking 300 Watt for watercooling but they have discontinued producing it aswell. They all had very similar designs. None of them had the waterblocks inside the PSU and this is the reason of their failure. Of cource it is a bit scary to have water inside a PSU, but this modified Enermax seems provide extremely efficient water cooling:

http://www.micromotive.nl/index.php?upn ... roduct=297
I wouldn't hesitate to buy one of these If they were a bit cheaper...

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:02 am

I've figured out there's no way running a fanless PSU without sufficient airflow in your case

Have you ever actually used one (a true fanless PSU, not a hybrid)?

What is the maximum and typical power draw of your system?

Of course you could make your own watercooled power supply by attaching a waterblock to the back of the Silverstone ST30NF, for example, which uses heatpipes to evacuate heat from the internal heatsinks of the PSU to the back plate; this would operate in an identical manner to that modified Enermax PSU, at roughly half the cost.

tay · Post by **tay** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 7:43 am

oguzokay wrote:I want dead silence man, not a quiet PSU. For instance, I got very irritated with a Panaflo L1A which is declared 21 db by its manufacturer.
18db@1200 rpm seems to be dead silence in theory at least.

Can you tell me what pump you use for dead silence? Or is the pump enclosed in a reservoir like the zalman reserator?

Back on topic, my s12-430 has definite bearing chatter. But it is lower than a 120mm and 80mm coolermaster sleeve bearing low flow fans at ~4-6v and not audible past a foot (over the other 2 fans) with the case closed.

psmalon · Post by **psmalon** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:02 am

No way a 120mm, 1200 RPM FAN (whatever brand) would be dead silent.
120mm fans are quite enough at around 1000RPM, real quite at 800 RPM.
I’ve been thinking about buying a quite PSU.
The silentmaxx semifanless has a 80mm fan that is supposed to be an emergency fan. The fan is placed on the front of the PSU and I don’t know if it pulls the air out of the PSU and in the system’s case or the contrary. But about the 80mm [ 12dB(A)] fan, let me tell you that I had a papst 80mm 1500 RPM fan that is stated as 12dB(A), and it wasn’t even near quite at any rpm .
I curently have a coolermaster centurion 5 case, and I’m using the PSU that came with it. It’s a 350W real power coolermaster. I swapped the stock fan with a coolermaster 80mm 1400 rpm, (which is stated as 13 db(A), sleeve bearing) and I run it at 1200rpm. Is very quiet but yet is the only 80mm of my system and it can heard over the others ( a 92mm ada fan at 1300 RPM, 2 nexus 120mm at 950 RPM).
So I’m thinking of buying a 120mm fan PSU like seasonic S-12 500W or Enermax liberty 500 W and swap the fan with a nexus.
I know for sure that a PSU with a 120mm fan in an range from 800-1050 RPM is very quite because I have been experimenting with a generic PSU. At 750-800 Rpm is very near at dead silent. But I don’t know what will be the long terms consequences on the PSU with such a low air flow.
My system temp (case temp) is 25°C (idle), 27°C (load) at 24°C room temp.
So I think running a PSU with a 120mm Fan at about 900 RPM should be OK.
I can't trust a fanless PSU yet, so the choice is between Enermax liberty or Seasonic S12.

oguzokay · Post by **oguzokay** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 8:00 pm

jaganath wrote:
Have you ever actually used one (a true fanless PSU, not a hybrid)?

What is the maximum and typical power draw of your system?

I've used a thermaltake fanless which was far away from being stable on 3.3, 5 and 12 volt rails even at idle state. It was extremely overheating. Extreior heatsink could be used to fry potatoes. I sold it with a big disappointment.

According to Magnum's rear LCD, my system draws 90-95 watts at idle and 170-176 watts under full load. It is a Pentium 640 with 2 GB's of DDR2 memory, X850XT video card An Asus P5WD2 MB, a Samsung 200gb HDD and an ASUS DVD RW

tay wrote:
Can you tell me what pump you use for dead silence? Or is the pump enclosed in a reservoir like the zalman reserator?[
I use an Innovatek HPPS+ @normal mode with Innovatek's own pump mounting feets which eliminates vibrations :
http://www.webshop-innovatek.de/0000009 ... cba04.html
It is not enclosed. You can count on this. It is literally silent @1m even at normal mode.

psmalon wrote:No way a 120mm, 1200 RPM FAN (whatever brand) would be dead silent.
120mm fans are quite enough at around 1000RPM, real quite at 800 RPM.
I’ve been thinking about buying a quite PSU.
The silentmaxx semifanless has a 80mm fan that is supposed to be an emergency fan. The fan is placed on the front of the PSU and I don’t know if it pulls the air out of the PSU and in the system’s case or the contrary. But about the 80mm [ 12dB(A)] fan, let me tell you that I had a papst 80mm 1500 RPM fan that is stated as 12dB(A), and it wasn’t even near quite at any rpm .

As far as I know, Silentmaxx sucks air from the system. I'm very suprised to hear that the pabst you owned was, by no means quiet. From my TT and MGE experiences, I've learnt not to trust manufacturer declarations but how could Germans be imprudent about their products. This is very confusing for me. I have never experienced such manipulation by any german brand so far... I attribute this to their extremely developed consumer and fair trade laws. BTW I've never used a pabst fan before. I agree it's virtually impossible to achive such low db ratings at 1500 and 1200 RPM. I was just relying on "made in Germany" tag...

psmalon · Post by **psmalon** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:16 am

The papst I own has a label with “assy. by PAPST in Hungury/4”.
Others members in this forum say that older 80mm PAPST fans made in Hungary have some clicking noise issues. I bought mine two years ago from an online store and it was a kind of disappointment. I used it in a PSU but I quickly changed it with a coolermaster, sleeve bearing, 1400 RPM at 12volt and the noise made from this fan is about 40% lesser at the same RPM.
I guess if anybody had bad experience with a product he keeps away from the brand. This is what I’m doing with the PAPST. But I do notice their products specs, and the 120mm 1200RPM (or 1100RPM) fan a few years ago was stated at 19dB(A), now they dropped it at 18dB(A). I also have noticed that all the Silentmaxx fans have the exact same specs of the papst fans. And I remember that the old models of the Silentmaxx PSU was using past fans. Then Silentmaxx started to make their “owns fans”.
I was using a Silentmaxx fan until a few weeks ago. It was a 80mm, 2100 RPM with a 19dB(A) noise. It is an average fan, no worst or no better than others fans.
So an other reason that keeps me from buying the Silentmaxx semifanless PSU is that 80mm, 12dB(A) fan. It’s specs are identical with the PAPST fan I own.
And anyway I think that the better solution for a quite PSU, is one with a 120mm quite fan, maybe a nexus. It’s cheaper and more reliable from all the fanless or semifanless PSUs.

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:58 am

So I’m thinking of buying a 120mm fan PSU like seasonic S-12 500W or Enermax liberty 500 W and swap the fan with a nexus.

Has anyone done this yet with the Liberty?
I'd really like the modular cables, and it seems like the Seasonic is slightly quieter than the Liberty only due to it's 120mm fan choice.

I doubt it's as simple as putting in a Nexus 120mm fan using a 3 pin connector in the PSU, but I'm not against soldering 3 points to use the Nexus fan. Even if the PSU temp control ramps a Nexus up to 12V, it would only be 1,000 rpm and near silent.

Anyone ?

.

psmalon · Post by **psmalon** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:56 am

I haven't done that, but there is no need to solder as there are some adapters 3-> 2 pin. I think that Enermax liberty is more suitable for fan swap than Seasonic S12 because of the heatsinks. Seasonic's heatsinks are covering like an umbrella almost all electronic components, so a low flow fan maybe can not cool them down. From the other hand I think Seasonic have a better construction quality as all the capacitors are made in Japan.

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Mon May 22, 2006 5:10 am

MiKeLezZ wrote:Thanks to you all guys.
Yesterday I ordered a S12 600W (122â‚¬).
My fingers are crossed!

Hi MiKeLezZ!

Whare have you found it at that price?

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Tue May 23, 2006 8:39 am

I'm also experiencing some buzzing with my A2 S12 600W in my system..

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Tue May 23, 2006 10:50 am

jermaink wrote:I'm also experiencing some buzzing with my A2 S12 600W in my system..

Is it very loudly?

Do you hear it when the case is closed and you are sitting in front of the PC too?
Or only when it's opened and you place ears near the psu?

Do you hear it at every load, or only if the computer is using a large amount of energy?

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Wed May 24, 2006 9:21 am

It isn't too loud, but it is audible. Fan noise is almost negligible.

Another thing, is that when I scroll my mouse on certain things (like some linked images), or scroll down some websites, I also get another buzzing noise. At the moment, I'm not sure if that's the graphics card or the PSU, but I think it's one of the two.

I have an Antec P180 with the case closed, and my ear's probably about 1m away from the PSU side of the case. The noise is also more noticible when I face a 45 degree angle.

I hear it at low energy loads, but I'm not sure if it increases at higher energy loads.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed May 24, 2006 10:12 am

when I scroll my mouse on certain things (like some linked images), or scroll down some websites, I also get another buzzing noise. At the moment, I'm not sure if that's the graphics card or the PSU, but I think it's one of the two.

In my experience the cause of that noise is usually the ferrite coils by the MOSFETs, although of course it could also be the PSU or GFX card. It's hard to determine which is causing it, because those 3 components tend to be very close together in the average case, and it's difficult if not impossible on some motherboards to operate without one of the 3 (ie a process of elimination).

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Fri May 26, 2006 5:59 am

jaganath wrote:
when I scroll my mouse on certain things (like some linked images), or scroll down some websites, I also get another buzzing noise. At the moment, I'm not sure if that's the graphics card or the PSU, but I think it's one of the two.
In my experience the cause of that noise is usually the ferrite coils by the MOSFETs, although of course it could also be the PSU or GFX card. It's hard to determine which is causing it, because those 3 components tend to be very close together in the average case, and it's difficult if not impossible on some motherboards to operate without one of the 3 (ie a process of elimination).

I've tried a similar thing with very old and very big speakers.
When they are turned on, they buzzes at every movement of the mouse.

Try to turn off speakers.

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Sat May 27, 2006 9:12 am

ferro986 wrote:Try to turn off speakers.

Makes no difference.

I tried unpluging it, but the problem persists.

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:41 am

jermaink wrote:
ferro986 wrote:Try to turn off speakers.
Makes no difference.

Sorry, I wanted to say "Unplug speakers from the power plug".

Mine make strange noise when they're turned off too

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:48 am

Let's come back to the topic:

Do someone have the revision 3 of Seasonic S12 and can say if the electrical noises were eliminated?

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:57 am

ferro986 wrote:Let's come back to the topic:

Do someone have the revision 3 of Seasonic S12 and can say if the electrical noises were eliminated?

UP!

ferro986 · Post by **ferro986** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 11:42 pm

I hope that new M12 will not have the same problems

Seasonic S12 REV.A2 really QUIET as they say?

Liberty fan swap in a Nexus?