Fanless PSU and stability testing

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:29 am

Hi All!

Does anyone who own any system but with a fanless PSU (Silverstone NightJar, Fortron Zen, Antec Phantom, or whatever else) succesfully performed Orthos (or Prime95, or similar stress test) for a long amount of time (I mean at least 8-10 hours)?

If in case, which temperature have You got from the PSU? Any issue to mention?

Luca

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:43 am

I've been using a Phantom 500 in a P180 case for a long time, cooled with a center-mounted Nexus fan at 500-600 RPM. The Phantom's fan never comes on; its heat sink is warm to the touch, and measures about 45C top center.

I can run Orthos or TAT or any other workload indefinitely.

If the Nexus fan is stopped (or not present), the Phantom fan will cycle about twice a minute under full load. But I don't recommend this configuration for two reasons: the Phantom fan is much louder than the Nexus, and the disks run much cooler with the center fan configuration.

BTW, I have no experience with this supply in a traditional top-mount case. I would expect the behavior to be radically different, since the CPU heat in most such cases flows through the power supply.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:52 pm

I've had a fortron Zen running in my system that only has 2 fans for a few months until a couple weeks ago. I used F@H while it was installed, and I also ran Orthos for a while. I have no way to measure the temperature if the power supply, but I never had stability issues.

quest_for_silence · Post by **quest_for_silence** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:16 pm

Thanks a lot to both for sharing.

@cmthomson
I've already seen your "three chambers system" (great job), so I know it's a rig of its own. Anyway, I hope that insome well cooled case (such as Antec Solo, or even more modest SLK3000 or NSK6000) it may perform reasonably well.

@ryboto
If I may ask: why did you swap the Zen for the PicoPSU? Maybe cooling issues or what other else reason?

Luca

fresh · Post by **fresh** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 5:11 pm

He decided, he didn't need power supply, that offers more than 120watts.

Zens are really great looking at performance/ price ratio, but I prefer PSUs that have FAN which is really quiet and at low consumptions inaudible, such as seasonic new series, or corsair. My opinion is that to have fan at 500rpms is better that no fan at all. It's still silent one meter away from the case and keeps temperatures down, so other components don't suffer.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:18 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:T
If I may ask: why did you swap the Zen for the PicoPSU? Maybe cooling issues or what other else reason?

Luca

well, mostly for the efficiency, I thought it would be better. Heat wasn't really an issue, the Zen didn't add much, maybe a 1-2C delta. The Pico is great for freeing up space, but the brick you use really dictates the overall efficiency, as it's what's taking the load. I also chose it for novelty, and for something to do. DIY projects are addicting.

Alas, I don't think I'll be using the Pico with my current hardware. Reasons behind that decision are aplenty, I made a post in the thread linked in my sig,.