SilverStone ST30NF / Etasis EFN-300 - conservative ratings?

Al · Post by Al » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:17 am

In this post about these fanless PSUs, a Silverstone representative says:

SST Guy wrote:Both ourselves and Etasis made sure from the very beginning that our fanless power supply was as reliable as possible, that's why we gave it a very conservative rating of 250W/300W despite of the core being built from an industrial 560W unit: http://www.etasis.com.tw/dbase/upload/EPAP-560.pdf

260W seems to be a lot of headroom - does anyone know just how similar the circuitry is? Presumably the heatsinks in the fanless units are more effective than those in the original 560W unit - is it possible that with enough external airflow (eg with a decent fan in the PSU tunnel of a P180), these units might be operated outside their ratings? I suppose what I'm asking is, have Silverstone and Etasis been overconservative with their ratings?

Cheers,

Al

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:46 pm

I was wondering about this as well....

Al · Post by Al » Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:45 pm

In the SPCR Silverstone ST30NF review, MikeC wrote:It is likely that the core components could allow this PSU to be fairly rated at over 400W if it was fan-cooled. Despite the modest 250W output rating, this unit can easily handle much more than the power demand of the system used for the in-system test. With some additional airflow it can probably do more than 250W fairly easily.

I don't suppose it would be possible to persuade MikeC to get this unit back on the PSU tester and stretch it a bit further?

Al

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:19 pm

Btw Al, if you’re after the best UK price, see Scan. They quote ‘400w peak’ for the Silverstone.
Silverstone
Etasis

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:29 pm

This applies for all the fanless PSU's I've come across. My Antec Phantom 350 can easily supply 500W as well. All fanless PSUs seem to be very conservatively rated. Of course they need to be very high quality in the first place to be fanless, and not to mention the price.

SST Guy · Post by **SST Guy** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:04 pm

Our power supply with good airflow and additional heat dissipation (such as when used in the HFX case) can provide power greater than the rated 300W. However, we have a built-in safty that will protect (turn off) the PSU from going over approximately 450W.

So don't try to load the ST30NF to 560W!

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:08 pm

Very interesting.... thanks for the information.