do u cool ur PSU?

[faye]

Hi,

if ur power supply unit gets hot, but not too hot, do u still use a fan to cool it down?

my psu has 2 fans(build in)

 

[beatle]

Yes, always use a fan. There are fanless PSUs, but they have large heatsinks sticking out of the back of them to keep the unit cool. With the proper PSU, the fan noise shouldn't be obtrusive anyway.

 

[Gravity]

I have seen them modded to be fanless or subbing in Panaflo's to quiet them down but never heard of someone "opting" to not cool their psu. I got the antec sonata and I've yet to hear the PSU fan. On my other boxes I have a zalman 400 (virtually silent) and the infamous Seasonic 350, also inaudible.

All my psu's are a bit more expensive but I'd rather pay than hear them...the noise is so annoying!

 

[huesmann]

Does anyone make a watercooling system for PSUs?

 

[wkwong]

yea you should cool your psu. you can take it apart and change to fans for better airflow because the ones that come with them usually move pretty slow. use a nice fan so noise won't be a problem

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: huesmann
Does anyone make a watercooling system for PSUs?

Ouch, I wouldn't want to be around if there were a leak.

...but probably. People mod their PSUs with windows, so why not?

 

[huesmann]

Well, what's the point of having a silent cooling system for CPU and GPU if your PSU is making a racket?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: huesmann
Well, what's the point of having a silent cooling system for CPU and GPU if your PSU is making a racket?

I've never understood the point in perfectly silent systems anyway. I mean, who can sleep in dead silence?

 

[RS3RS]

First of all, don't just take the fan out of your PSU or anything. That's not good, and a PSU failing can take out other components with it, such as CPU, motherboard, video card, etc...

Watercooling a psu has been done at least twice that I know of. Both were members of HardOCP's hardforum (it's down right now, so I can't link to it). Not very easy to do, but yeah, it's been done.

I think just buying a passive PSU would be best if you need dead silence. I would, however recommend a Fortron 300w PSU with "noise killer". It's got a big, slow running, quiet 120mm fan. And don't let the fact that it's "only" 300 watts slow you down, not many single processor systems use that much power, and these things have been known to put out 380 watts with no problem (an overclocked PSU I guess).

As far as the point of silent systems goes, I guess it just depends on the person. I hate having a rig so loud I have to turn the TV up just to hear over it. I couldn't (before I silenced my rig) talk to other people in the room if they're on the other side without raising my voice a tad, which is annoying. Plus, this is a little more rare, but some people have specific needs. For example, we have a two room recording studio in our basement, and the audio encoding/recording computer has to be pretty silent.

Given it is in a control room, which is simi-sound proof, but it's nice to not have to worry about opening up the window and screwing up the track because of the noise of dozens of fan spinning away...

 

[Nohr]

I had a PSU overheat and fry because I didn't know that it's fan had died. The computer shut off suddenly and I had no clue why. Tried turning it on again and got a little fireworks show firing out the back of the PSU. I think it was worth it. 😛

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: huesmann
Does anyone make a watercooling system for PSUs?

i know for a fact some companies have passively cooled PSUs which i think is far better for a PSU

 

[faye]

hmm, i don't mean those high tech watercool kit for psu. I know if the watercool doesn't leak, then there will not be a problem. However there is a possible leaking and dipping water into the psu is very dangerous i know..

My psu is getting very hot along with a Prescott. May be i get a wrong cpu but anyways, i don't mind keeping it. I still think it is a very good precessor(i don't there must be something better out there)..
I am wondering if i should get a 120mm or 90mm fan blowing the body of the psu to get it cooler..

make everything cooler once the psu is cooler.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: RS3RS
I think just buying a passive PSU would be best if you need dead silence. I would, however recommend a Fortron 300w PSU with "noise killer". It's got a big, slow running, quiet 120mm fan. And don't let the fact that it's "only" 300 watts slow you down, not many single processor systems use that much power, and these things have been known to put out 380 watts with no problem (an overclocked PSU I guess).

There are also 350 and 400W versions of that PSU.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Can someone find me a link to them?

Allied 400Watts fan is screwed up so it is very very loud.

-Kevin

 

[MDE]

300W
350W
Lighted 350W
400W
Lighted 400W

I've got the plain 350W unit in my Dad's PC (XP 2200+ @ 2400+, 2 hard drives, Radeon 8500LE) and it's running without a hitch, and ran my system without a hitch (XP 2500+ @ 2.3GHz, FX5900 @ 475\950, 3 hard drives, 2 optical drives, 2 PCI cards). The fans are adjustable from hair dryer to dead silent.