Silenx vs. Modded Zalman

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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michaelr
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm

Silenx vs. Modded Zalman

Post by michaelr » Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:55 pm

My modded Zalman just recently died after about almost 2 years of service. I had to go back to my Whisper Enermaxx. What a joke. Whisper for about 2 minutes and then some...

Anyway, the mod to the Zalman was simple enough. I added the Zalman resistor in and the PSU was ever so quite after that and moving minimal air at the same time, of course.

After reading MikeC's article about the Silenx, I purchased the <14db 300W model. It's as quiet as the modded Zalman. However, I think at this point that the Silenx is suffering from the same problem. Put a quiet, ie. slow running, non-air moving fan into a PSU and yes, it's quiet. Sooner or later, either the PSU will die or the machine will fry unless there are other fans moving air and making noise.

The Zalman felt heavier, more quality (read: larger, much heavier heatsinks) than the Silenx.

In short, it's very difficult to make any modern high performance machine 'inaudible'. The 'honest' (and this is no reference to the stuff I have read AFTER I got the Silenx) PSU makers put in fans that WILL spin up if temps get too high. The Silenx violates this law by putting a fan in that simply won't spin up above a certain point. The result is not chaos tomorrow but it may break sooner than later.

So much like the fanless PSU that come with the * that they may require a fan at load, the Silenx should be marketed to say, well, it's silent and SAFE if your machine is sufficiently cooled otherwise.

You can't cheat heat.

- Michael

Alistair
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Location: Vancouver BC Canada

Post by Alistair » Fri Jun 13, 2003 11:21 pm

Really in short: niether Zalman nor Silenx actually manufacture power supplies. They are made by Fortron.

Don't rely on your PSU as your exhaust - use a case fan for this, your PSU will love you for it (its got enough heat to deal with).

a.

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