PC Power supply

look at QuietPC's website or get handy with a screwdriver and replace the fans yourself...... fans come in standard sizes.....

PS:

And don't forget all the other fans like on the processor, graphics card, case fans and possibly the Mobo may have some too.

Of you go for one of the more efficient ones they tend to only spin the fan at speed when pulling power close to spec's power budget.

I went for Gold and can hardly hear mine. I've now had mine 2 years and it's already obsolete. They're not cheap but since I run mine 24/7 can justify the cost.

Is that actually a standard size power supply?

And have you worked out what power you actually need?

Somebody makes a fanless 700W supply, but I somehow doubt you need all that power for an HTPC. I'm showing you the first one, to show how the science has advanced. At one time, the highest for this sort of design, was around 500W. But they're past that now, by a tiny bit.

Using a Kill-O-Watt meter, you can check your mains consumption on the HTPC, while it is performing a representative workload, and get some idea exactly what class of load this is. Maybe the thing is drawing 200W, and either supply would work.

For example, my newest PC idles at 100W, and when both the GPU and the 156W CPU are engaged, it can go up to 400W. But, if I were engineering for a light-dedicated application (like running TV tuners but not transcoding), then 200W would cover it. When my video card transcodes, it only draws 60W of the 180W max.

The PSUs above, like with normal PSUs, have a combined rating on the two low rails.

That means, if the +5V rail goes to max, the

Mains -+-- 12VDC --------- | | | 3.3V/5V ------- Double forward | ------- conversion | +--- 5VSB --------- Standby converter

The highest low-rail load I've had, was 5V @ 25A on an Athlon system plus an AGP video card. Back in the day, they made ATX PSUs with up to 5V @ 40A for that reason. But today, 3.3V and 5V consumption is not even close to that. A clamp-on DC ammeter allows hobbyist engineering of low-power PCs (allows exact measurement of loads per rail). The Kill-O-Watt method, is a "lazy guy approximate method", to establish a load class and give a very rough ballpark of how challenging the load is.

At 230V mains, the efficiency at 50% load on those is fantastic. Ballpark 95-96% (assumes most load is on +12V rail, less loading on 3.3V/5V). With double forward conversion, the PSU "looks better" if you only pull +12V from it :-)

I'm assuming you mean the fan?

I'd talk to Quiet PC myself, my one from them seems to be a very cool performer and the fan hardly needs to rotate at all. Strange as in my experience its the cpu fan which is noisy.

Maybe in your psu it is the fan you need. Brian

Yes my last pc had a fan on the graphics card that squeaked. Not very nice. Weirdly, if you laid the pc on its side it stopped. It did respond to, believe it or not to a tiny drop of 3 in one oil! Brian

Quite. A standard PS has likely the quietest one of the lot.

Any that say they are quiet will probably be fine.

Depending on just how noisy the bearings have become you might be able to ameliorate it with some silicone washers on the fixings. That is what I did to effectively silence my own PC which from new as built had a slightly annoying fan hum that made the case resonate. It is now effectively silent after adding four soft silicone washers.

If you are feeling brave you could probably replace the fan in the current unit even though officially there are no user serviceable parts in them. To bench test a PSU check for the instructions online.

I have had one PC PSU where the magic smoke followed by sparks came out whilst it was in use. I switched the PC off PDQ. Smoke smelt foul.

Ouch!

Nice room heater. ;-)

The (passive / silent) TVHeadend server I built draws around 12W idle and a bit more when running all (USB) 4 tuners?

I think the RPi2B OMV NAS with a 3TB USB drive is less than 8W. The Synology NAS was quite low as well.

My WHS with 4 laptop drives around 20W and my new Odroid Home Assistant server is supposed to be just over 2W. ;-)

I think this MacMini was about 18W and the ITX box I built to replace it about the same.

I've not used the Buffalo Terastation NAS's a mate gave me as even the empty chassis (4 x RAID slots) runs at about 36W, the same power consumption as the mini freezer we have just bought. ;-)

That is the free air temperature of the inside of the freezer taken using a One Wire digital temperature sensor - DS18B20.

Cheers, T i m

But may not fit in his low-profile setup. You need a dedicated PS for those systems.

The first PC "desktop" tower I bought (a Tiny) made an awful racket when I turned it on. I was resigned to it until I discovered that there was a stray cable fouling one of the fans.

When I want to upgrade my selfbuild PC I start with QuietPC. Don't necessarily buy from them though.

You will find a square fan inside. The fan will be of conventional design. The outer dimensions are industry standards, like 80mm, 120mm, 140mm. The thickness would be 15mm (slim), 25mm (normal), 35mm (deep). The added depth (the 35mm one) is only when huge CFM numbers are expected, like designing a vacuum cleaner or something.

Fan classes are low, medium, high, ultra. Low and medium are typically used for general computer tasks. Medium would be a choice for the rear cooling fan on a PC (roughly 35CFM say).

The connector within the PSU, for the fan, can be similar to a PC fan header. And you can disconnect the fan cable from the PSU PCB relatively easily, without touching any HV circuits in the PSU.

A replacement can be done, assuming you can match the fan with a suitable replacement. Even the current consumption value of the fan printed on its hub (150mA) may hint at what class it is. For example, I have a

On ATX PSUs, there is usually a sticker over one of the four screws in the lid, labeled "warranty void if removed". Usually when a fan needs replacement, you're outside the warranty, and removing the screws is then not such a big deal. On some PSUs, the warranty is worthless (such as when all company representatives leave the country, and the chances of making a warranty claim are slim).

Paul

If you need to replace the fan, the easiest replacement is a similar-sized case fan with its lead brought out through the exit for the other PSU cables. The plug the fan into one of the PSU's other cable's connector.

These fans are fairly easy to life-extend. If the fan lives in the vertical plane, then just unscrew it and remounted with a 90 degree twist.

Also, you can pull off the small label at the centre of the fan. Under the label there's a flush seal to be levered out. Then drop in some

PA (aka Scrooge)

That's funny.

A lot of customers were resigned to their purchase of a Tiny computer system for various reasons, their name popularly got the reverse acronym

"Tough, It's Now Yours"