Low whine, high power PSU recommendations?

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

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Does the 750W Zalman whine?

Yes
1
100%
No
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 1

cfp
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Location: Oxford

Low whine, high power PSU recommendations?

Post by cfp » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:12 pm

Hi,

I bought a Zalman ZM1000-HP a bit a year and a half ago. The electrical whine was unbearable though so I followed the instructions of someone else on this forum to mod it with silicone sealant. This did work in stopping the whine, at least for a while, but it seems to have also damaged its reliability, and I'm now getting crashes under load which I suspect it might be causing (the electrical whine has also recently returned with a vengeance).

So I need a replacement... Part of me is tempted to stick with Zalman out of laziness as it would save me replacing cabling. Is the 750W less prone to whine? My system has a 4870x2 and 8 hard disks (Samsung HD642JJ) so peak power draw is potentially pretty high, but maybe I could get away with 750W? (or even 650W at a stretch?) The extreme power supply calculator seems to be recommending at least an 850W PSU once capacitor ageing is allowed for, not sure how reliable it is. (And yes, despite the 8 hard disks this is still a quiet enough system for PSU noise to be incredibly irritating.)

How does the whine of other brands compare? I've heard vague allusions to Seasonic M12D whine. Any experiences? Is the X-650 better?

Thanks in advance,

Tom

cfp
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Post by cfp » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:45 pm

Just noticed there's a new Zalman ZM770-XT and also a new Seasonic X-760. Guess they're both options too. Anyone tried the new Zalman?

quest_for_silence
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Re: Low whine, high power PSU recommendations?

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:07 pm

cfp wrote:I've heard vague allusions to Seasonic M12D whine. Any experiences? Is the X-650 better?

I have a M12D-850, up to now it does not whine: but, if I may tell, I also recommend "its" latest iteration, the XFX XPS850 Black Edition, it seems to me even more quieter (and I'm afraid that the M12D has been right now just discontinued).

Your vga has been accounted up to ~380W under heavy benchmarking, ~270W for typical high 3D load, take further ~80W for the drives and you can do your math by yourself.

Regards,
Luca

SebRad
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Post by SebRad » Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:22 am

Hi cfp, what CPU do you have and is it overclocked?
I don't think a VGA card can be more than 300w as that's all you can get with PCIe slot + PCIe 8pin + 6pin.
10w a piece for HDDs is ample for running however they can take 20w + on spin-up. Although this shouldn't be a problem as the GPU and CPU shouldn't be doing much at boot time so PSU power for that should be OK for spinning the drives up.
AFAIK the Zalman 850w and 1000w are very closely related, but the 750w is different in construction.
I have an Antec Signature 650w PSU that is powering a GTX260 + Q9400. My previous PSU whined very badly with this card where the Signature doesn’t at all, that I’ve noticed, and my PC is quiet. If 650w isn’t enough there is an 850w version but the new Seasonic X series is probably a good bet if you can find one for price you’re happy with.
Got my Signature on offer for £80.

Enermax also make some good PSUs but have been questions over the longevity of fan in the 82+ models. Think some of the newer models use better fan. ("batwing" one possibly)

Regards, Seb

cfp
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Post by cfp » Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:23 am

The CPUs an i7 920. Currently not overclocked but before my system started getting unstable I'd pushed it up a bit at least (without increasing its voltage). And I have a seperate RAID controller (Adaptec 5805) which pushes out quite a bit of heat, though its only getting power from the PCIe slot, so I suppose it can't be that hungry. A bit of PSU headroom for future CPU / GPU swaps would also be nice I guess.

It's such a pain there isn't a connector standard for modular power supplies. I don't particularly fancy having to reroute and resecure all my power cables, so maybe I should gamble on the Zalman ZM770-XT. But I know laziness is generally a bad reason to do something...

cfp
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Post by cfp » Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:59 am

Well laziness definitely doesn't pay. I bought the overpriced Zalman 770W one, and despite it having exactly the same modular connectors as the 1000W one, they have the pins in a different order, something I didn't discover until it failed to boot. God knows how much damage the reversed pins caused. So I may as well have bought a Seasonic anyway... Gah.

themaster1
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Post by themaster1 » Sun Sep 05, 2010 9:08 pm

I have a Zalman ZM600HP, it didn't "whine" at first and then over the time a lil buzz could be heard, kinda annoying. I checked, double checked and found the culprit: The fan.Lots of vibrations it would make! The son of b*** What did i do ? I have cut off the wires (yeah i know but there were attached, what could i do?), changed the fan with a quieter model, rerouted all that to my rheobus and now i'm satisfied.Also, i did put some self-made ruber grommets in-between the fan and the psu's case.
If i'm in a hot summer day like there was lately (36°C) i turn the fan to the max, otherwise or at night at minimum.Fan is undervolted also (9V)

ngplz
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In case anyone else is interested...

Post by ngplz » Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:58 pm

I just replaced my Enermax Infiniti 650W, which had terrible coil whine, with a Seasonic X-650.
The Seasonic X-650 does not have any whining or squealing at all! My ears are very sensitive to this.
It does have some other electrical noises, like a slight buzzing, but any fan or HDD will drown out the noise mostly.
Temps in my PC and room (yes, seriously) also went down after the switch.
Very happy with my purchase, albeit expensive.

itwassooted
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Post by itwassooted » Tue Oct 05, 2010 12:08 pm

Here's my rig,

i7-920
Asus P6T
5870 Vapor-X

I've went through 1x X-650 and 3x X-750W(1 directly shipped from Taiwan) and they ALL have the coil whine, I've also tested 1 of the PSUs at my friend's place, he also had the coil-whine though less severe, he had a different system. THe nature of the whine seems to change to more pronounced when running prime95.

The whine was pretty bad for me, I could hear it 2-3m away, and it just drove me nuts. I had previously came from a seasonic, and it didn't have the issue.

1 of the Seasonic X-x50 PSUs worked perfectly on my old shitty comp and also perfectly on my HTPC. Dead Silent.

I am currently using the M12D-850W on my main, also bought it cause it was recommended by SPCR :) There is no noticeable coil whine. BUT... at certain hours of the day, it does makes a deep coil whine noise. It usually lasts a few minutes, and then it's fine. Something I can live with.

Oh, also tried a corsair 750W during that time... fan ramps up too fast at lower draws... but it had 0 coil whine for the 1.5 days I tested it.

I'd say, try the x-650/750 first, but make sure you can return it if you have the problem... usually there's a restocking fee involved. but that's the price of silence I s'pose.

Dojo
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Re: Low whine, high power PSU recommendations?

Post by Dojo » Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:43 am

My Seasonic S12-430 has coil whine.
When I put Windows on performance power mode, the coil whine is continously. When I put it in balanced mode, the whine is only during load (even a millisecond of load like switching Firefox tabs produces a whine).

I get the feeling that Seasonic PSUs have a higher risk of giving coil whine than others, because I find more posts about it. But it could also be that most people have a Seasonic? and therefore there are more posts about it its possible problem.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Low whine, high power PSU recommendations?

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 24, 2010 11:12 pm

Dojo wrote:But it could also be that most people have a Seasonic?

I guess it's right: as silencers go for Seasonic and a few other brands (often Seasonic based), so here you'll find reports mostly on Seasonic and those few other brands.

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