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Are Antec TruePower PSs really dead silent?

S

Special K

Diamond Member
I didn't see a dB rating listed on the spec sheets, but I read that they use 2 fans. Are they really that quiet, even with 2 fans? I want to replace my noisy Sparkle 350W but I want to be sure of what I'm getting first.
 
No. They can't be dead silent. I don't have the Trupower, but I do have the 400w Antec PS with one fan and it was sort of noisy IMO with the high speed Adda fan. I replaced it with a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 80 mm fan rated at 20 db and 27 cfm and it's still not dead silent.

for some reason, the Silencer is noisier inside the PS than in my case. I thought about using a Papst fan rated at 12 db and 20 cfm, but I don't know if that will be enough to cool the PS. The Silencer is fine for cooling btw.

Sal
 
the psu is not dead silent but is certainly very quiet. the specs on the fans are listed at the antec site under their smartfans section - the 80mm and 92mm fan. the dba will be 20-25, depending on the temp of the psu. and if you want to quiet the psu even more, you can take out the 92mm fan and it will run just as well. it'll be a little warmer, but you won't run into any problems.
 
I recently put that Papst fan in an old 235W PC Power and Cooling PSU and it's noticably quieter than either a Silencer or an L1A. It seems to provide adequate cooling to the PSU but clearly has less air flow. I think that if the rest of your case is well-cooled so that the air coming into the PSU from the case is not overly warm, the Papst will do fine.
 
It's very hard to make a psu dead silent. Not only because of fan noise, but because of air turbulance within the psu. If you really want a quiet PSU, get an antec or enermax and take out the 92mm fan replace the 80mm with a 7volted papst 12dba fan. This makes the psu almost inaudible while still providing adequate cooling.
 
Do you know how hot the PS has to get before the fans increase to the faster speed (as shown in the graph in that review you posted)? Under most conditions, would the PS fans run at the quiet setting?

EDIT: I also had a question about the thermal fan connectors. If I connect some case fans to them, will they run at the same "low" speed, regardless of the fan's normal speed? (and then speed up to their individual maximum speeds if the temperature gets high enough?
 
Originally posted by: SpecialK
Do you know how hot the PS has to get before the fans increase to the faster speed (as shown in the graph in that review you posted)? Under most conditions, would the PS fans run at the quiet setting?

EDIT: I also had a question about the thermal fan connectors. If I connect some case fans to them, will they run at the same "low" speed, regardless of the fan's normal speed? (and then speed up to their individual maximum speeds if the temperature gets high enough?
Click to expand...

From what I understand the variable speed fan controller just lowers the amount of power available to the fan, independent on what the fan's original speed is. So don't get some super slow fan and then run it on the special fan connector, or it might not run at all.
 
I have one of these. The fans did not speed up at all until somewhere past 50c. When it's below that, the thing is VERY quiet. I mean REALLY quiet. I have a Zalman copper flower cooler, and when it's 92mm fan is set to 2000k, I can't tell the difference. So I suppose that you can imagine the sound of a 92mm @ 2000k, and that should give you an idea. It's on the silent side of quite. The loudest thing in my case was the fan on my Radeon 8500. Rediculous. I unplugged it, and now my case noise is a non-issue. The sound of the air coming through the air conditioner vents is probably as loud.

BTW - I record with a decent condensor mic, and the computer is not loud enough to affect the mic 3 feet away (unless I was recording silence - which would be stupid - for me).

Hope that helps.
Jonathan
 
I have a TruePower 480 and it is almost inaudible. I just built a system with a TruePower 430 in it and it is just as quiet.

The only time I can hear my PSU fan(s) is if I'm doing something pretty hardcore. Once the system temps get into the low 40C range the PSU fan finally starts to become audible. It normally runs about 1570 RPM. Once things heat up enough is speeds up to the hight 1900 RPM range. This is what it takes to be heard over my retail P4 HSF and 4 Panaflo L1As.
 
The only time I can hear my PSU fan(s) is if I'm doing something pretty hardcore. Once the system temps get into the low 40C range the PSU fan finally starts to become audible. It normally runs about 1570 RPM. Once things heat up enough is speeds up to the hight 1900 RPM range. This is what it takes to be heard over my retail P4 HSF and 4 Panaflo L1As.
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on what your reference point is. 4 case fans and a retail hs/f is not exactly quiet. I'm running 2 PC Power and Cooling Silencers (1 intake, 1 exhaust) with 2 more Silencer's; one on my Alpha 8045 and the other in my Antec PS. I can hear the PS fan even with the Silencer in there, but it's probably because the rest of my system is pretty quiet.

Anyway..

I certainly wouldn't be able to hear many stock PS fans over a retail hs/f.

Sal
 
The fans did not speed up at all until somewhere past 50c. When it's below that, the thing is VERY quiet. I mean REALLY quiet.
Click to expand...

You are referring to the CPU temp, right?

The only time I can hear my PSU fan(s) is if I'm doing something pretty hardcore. Once the system temps get into the low 40C range the PSU fan finally starts to become audible.
Click to expand...

When you say system temps, what temp are you referring to? I have MBM5 monitoring 2 temps on my a7m266 - 1 is under the CPU and the other I assume is somewhere else on the board, usually runs about 27 C under full load, and doesnt seem to vary too much.
 
Originally posted by: RalfHutter
I have a TruePower 480 and it is almost inaudible. I just built a system with a TruePower 430 in it and it is just as quiet.

The only time I can hear my PSU fan(s) is if I'm doing something pretty hardcore. Once the system temps get into the low 40C range the PSU fan finally starts to become audible. It normally runs about 1570 RPM. Once things heat up enough is speeds up to the hight 1900 RPM range. This is what it takes to be heard over my retail P4 HSF and 4 Panaflo L1As.
Click to expand...

Do you have those L1As running on the special fan connectors? If so, do they even move when the PSU is in a low-noise mode?

Basically I can't decide what fans to get. 🙂 I dunno if I should get some L1As and have them hardly moving when the PSU is in low-noise mode, which would mean the case would probably run hotter. Or I could get some regular Sunon 2900 RPM fans, but I'm worried they'd be too loud (this is for a dorm room) even when running in the low-noise mode. Any opinions?
 
Originally posted by: SalvadorI guess it depends on what your reference point is. 4 case fans and a retail hs/f is not exactly quiet. I'm running 2 PC Power and Cooling Silencers (1 intake, 1 exhaust) with 2 more Silencer's; one on my Alpha 8045 and the other in my Antec PS. I can hear the PS fan even with the Silencer in there, but it's probably because the rest of my system is pretty quiet.

Anyway..

I certainly wouldn't be able to hear many stock PS fans over a retail hs/f.

Sal
Click to expand...


Salvador - Ever heard a retail Intel Pentium 4 HSF? They are very quiet. Quieter than the PAL8045/Panaflo L1A setup I had on my last 1.4 Tbird. I've had the silencers also, and they're not much quieter than the Panaflos and they move less air.

Suhkoi - Yes, I have 2 of the Panaflos on the temp controlled circut and they do move when things are cool, just not very fast.

 
Hmm, so do you think two L1As (one intake, one exhaust) on the temperature controlled connectors would be enough cooling for a P4 1.6A@2.4?

Maybe I'll just go with the L1As and if they don't work well enough I'll switch them out with the two regular Sunons that are in my C433.
 
Sukhoi: In regards to how the L1A's work on the FAN-only connectors, it'll depend on your case temps. Before this recent heatwave here in the bay area, my system temp always stayed in the high-20's/low-30's and the FAN-only connectors only put out about 5.5 volts. So, the L1A's would never run correctly. They'd start/stop/start/stop. But then again, I don't think the panaflo's were designed to run at less than 1000 RPM's, which I guess they'd be at if you only give them 5.5V of juice.

Anyways, my setup right now is 2 L1A's on regular 12V connections for intakes. Connected to the FAN-only connectors, I've got 3 stock antec 80mm fans, 2 for rear exhaust, and one for the side-intake on my 1080b. The loudest components in my system are the radeon 8500 fan (as someone mentioned, those things are pretty noisy). I've also got one of those 8MB buffer Western digital hard-drives that is pretty noisy, too. I usually keep it unplugged, since it's only for backup.

BTW, for a quick comparison, when I was using an Enermax 365 Whisper, my hard-drives all seemed fine. But, when I switched over to the 430 TruPower, I could hear a intermitent whining sound from one of my 'Cuda IV hard-drives. This sound was always masked out by the Enermax, but was audible over the TruPower. Time to go through hard-drive RMA fun... 🙂
 
TruePower trys to maintain temps between 30-40C on it's own temp sensor (inside the power supply). So the power supply's fans and any fans on the fan only connectors won't spin up until the sensor reads over 40C.

AntecCSR
 
Thanks for the info guys! I think I'll be skipping the L1As and probably just go with two cheeper regular Sunon fans. Or maybe I'll get one L1A for the exhaust and have it running all the time so I get some airflow, and then have the Sunons on intake and exhaust so I get a decent amount of air moving if it gets too hot with just the L1A exhausting.
 
this is a bit late, but i just replaced my powerman 250w w/panaflo L1A mod with the antec truepower 330w and I'm amazed how quiet it is.

I bought an enermax before because of all the comments on how quiet the whisper model was, but was enraged when it was very loud.

the antec is amazingly quiet in my already quiet system (3 panaflo L1As)
 
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