I have the OCZ GXS 600. While it's less noisy than my obnoxious sparkle 500(which even inside a closet is audible across the room), it's much noisier than the Antec TP 2.0 550 I've been used to using for the last 18 months, even at idle.. it's only as quiet as the antec was at full load when I'm at the BIOS flash screen and the LED is barely on, and it's pretty cool since it's right next to the window in a caseless system(and it's freezing outside, and next to the window). The fan doesn't throttle up or down at all after it gets to full tilt, even when the system's at 1.6 GHz after speedstep.

I know that Antec/seasonic are in the minority of quiet PSUs, and that it's silly to expect most PSUs that are on the recommended list to be at that volume level... They're not quiet as in the reviewer that says "my system has four 2000 RPM 120mm fans, two 80mm fans, a watercooling pump at full tilt, and boy this PSU is quiet!", where I doubt you'd even hear the PSU over all the other crap in there, but I mean legitimately quiet where it's not an audible buzz over other quiet equipment.

I was thinking of selling it and getting a corsair 620, but this fan mod would mean no buying/selling and no spending money.. which would be much easier. I want my last computer related buy to be the new DFI RD600, and last sale to be the DDR800 RAM.

Well I doubt it would be hard but it would void your warrenty.

Doesn't posting in a forum entitled modifications imply void warranties are a nonissue?

I RMAd it once because the first was DOA. I don't RMA the same product twice, I throw out the second one if it breaks and buy a different model from a different company(lesson learned after four Rio Karma MP3 players), although I doubt this will go bad.

This is the last part of my system that makes a high pitched whine.. it is rather annoying, so I wouldn't mind voiding my warranty to get rid of it. My bed is next to the computer, so I sleep right next to the whiny noise, and it drives me nuts until I roll over and turn the PSU off in my sleep.. I've woken up to a powered off computer three days this week from me turning the PSU off in my sleep. I've done this with alarm clocks as well, before I consciously wake up I hit snooze.

Would putting it in a case reduce the noise? I don't have a case at the moment because I didn't feel like putting it all into one, and this allows me to keep the radiator fans pushed up against the screen window, which is rather fun in the winter, but if I could reduce the noise with a case, that would be pretty cool as well. Although, then, this'd introduce noise from the intake and exhaust fan in the case.. no win.

lol, well in that case go for it. Or like you said sell it and buy something that is quieter. You could probably get most of your money back on an OCZ 600gsx.

Doubtful, I got it right before the "let's take 10-20% off our products a week or two after thasp buys it" conspiracy that dell, OCZ, cowon/iaudio, Thiel, and g.skill all appear to be in on.

Should I expect to see a four pin molex connector, a 3 pin motherboard fan header connector, a 4 pin core 2 duo stock HSF connector, or some silly proprietary connector if I do decide to open the PSU?

I'm kind of curious what exactly "powerwhisper technology" is composed of. From what I've read on silentpcreview's forums, the only difference between the OCZ and the FSP is that the FSP has a LED fan with a different fan controller that keeps the fan much lower.

Now that I think of it there was somebody who popped both of them open to see what the difference was. I'm thinking it might have been Exroadie but I could be wrong. That person would probably be able to tell you what kind of connector it is.

Edit: tried searching for that post but couldn't find it.

I have confirmed it's a 2 pin. It's also in a spot that is, in no way, user reachable unless you have fingers the size of a soldering tip.

I took the fan grille off. The PSU is located next to the motherboard, which is elevated by its box, under tons of cables, so nothing can drop in there that'd break the fans without going through all the cables in the PCI slots.

The grille, similar to case fans, was causing a good amount of the noise. It's like an instrument, blowing air through a straw makes less noise than blowing the same amount of air through a clarinet. Hopefully this will do until I find a skeleton to help me remove the stock fan's connection to the PC board in the PSU.

Every now and then I clean out useless connectors in my old DFI DAGF box used for spare parts, that's overloaded at any given time.. I still have a 2 pin to three pin connector in there. But I have no 3 pin 120mm fans.. I have a four pin. So I would need to use 2 pin go 3 pin, 3 pin to 4 pin. This is way too cramped for that without some seriously hardcore routing, which is a weak point.

I checked the PSU with a multimeter inside after unplugging it during an orthos blend session. The most charge I got was 0.1v, which drained a few seconds after I kept the two multimeter probes there, and a 0.2v spike that dropped to 0.0 immediately. I've read several comments that you can keep the PSU on for six hours and have it retain its charge. I'm no genius, but my way of draining it seems to make more sense.. I'm not much worried about being shocked with 0.1 volts. even with 100 amps, that's not even 10 watts considering how long the 0.1v was sustained fo with the multimeter.

First off.. this level of insomnia is ridculous. I've been up since 9 AM, and I'm here at 7 in the morning, wide awake.

Second, it worked.

I couldn't connect the fan to the PSU's inside. This would require the 2 pin to 3 pin, then the 3 pin to 4 pin.. way too ******* messy.

so I am using a 4 pin to 3 pin to plug the PSU fan into a fan controller.

Now I control the PSU fan. Which is how it should be.

First I tried a Thermaltake fan. Startup voltage is 6v, goes to 2000 RPM. Too loud.. it had this high pitched whine quality that I despise.

Then I tried the Antec I have, max 1600 RPM, startup voltage, 5v. Since there's a smaller RPM range, and a larger voltage range, I have more to work with, so this is the fan I am using.

I'll keep it down when I go to sleep and turn it up when it's doing something, but there's no need for it to jump to the highest speed right as I boot into windows at stock speed.

I just replaced the 120mm fan in my ST60F, it was a 2 pin fan as well. I just cut the fan plug off an attached it to the new fan. I used a Thermaltake TT-1225 as a replacement and it's whisper quiet.

I wish OCZ used the same fan controller as the FSP. They use the same model fan, but the FSP uses a different fan controller.

I like how this works with my system under full load, for its price. I really do, but I hate how it has "powerwhisper" written on the front of it, when it's 45-50 dB at idle. It's like everyone wants to call their product quiet even if it isn't, because most people can't notice until they do a direct comparison(I never did).. putting the word technology in front of that implies there's at least, some sort of smart fan control that throttles it down when the PSU is next to a window intaking 30F air, but it barely does. I do appreciate that it takes the safe path, though, as I had to install an extra fan in my antec during the summer to maintain long term stability. I doubt the average user cares about PSU volume vs stability without mounting an extra fan.

I didn't want to cut anything.. that's a bit too modded for me.

Thasp, I wish I coulda seen this before you actually cut into your PSU... anyways, there are things called PSU mufflers, they are basically a noise trap for the whine. They just screw onto the back of the PSU and help cut down the high frequencies. Simple mental picture: a box with internal S-shaped tunnel, lined with acoustic foam. The discharge from the PSU goes through the box and the foam absorbs most of the peaky noise. Anyways, good luck with your new mod

P.S.- Here's a review of the muffler, dropped the sound output 11 dB!

That thing is ugly, while it seems to work, who would hang that on the back of their case?

Reel, it's just a way to avoid voiding a three-year warranty on his brand new PSU. If you're that gonzo about quiet, there are other ways to go about silence than voiding warranties, was my only point. Just another alternative, it would probably be awesome on an HTPC.

Sorry I haven't seem this until now, but I used to have a Sintek PSU that I swapped the fans out of. They had two pin connectors on them as well, so what I did for the 120mm was unplug it, cut the plug off the old fan, then solder on the new fan. For the second fan (80mm) I just unplugged it and ran the 3-pin connector out the hole with the rest of the wires. Worked very well for me.

Unfortunately everyone's idea of quiet is not the same. It's purely subjective and based on so many other variables. However, I think your solution of using quiet fans with a fan controller sounds like a solid one. The PSU muffler above might only work if you have it in a case to mount it on (IDK really - just guessing). And I don't think anyone answered your question about using a case to quiet it down. Yes, putting it in a case will help quiet the noise down, especially if you are anal about the noise and do some serious sound deadening on it. The case also helps with a bit of safety, as you don't have to worry as much about things falling onto/into it.

Well, I didn't change mine for sake of noise, but because the fan was starting to seize up, and I've had enough RMA troubles for this year I wasn't knocking your idea, but you gotta admit that thing is ugly.

Well, as I said, I'm not using the warranty again. It took two and a half weeks to get the new PSU, and if the second one dies, I'm buying a new one altogether. I don't RMA things twice. If I had to pay for shipping and wait two weeks, I'd rather just get a PCP&P silencer 610 that's already silent.

Getting that muffler would mean waiting until Tuesday for it to ship, Friday-next monday for it to actually get here, and paying for it. It's much better to get that nasty warranty out of the way early on so it doesn't cause troubles later, especially if it means I can sleep with the computer on now.

That reviewer said it took an "already almost silent" PSU and made it quieter. Before the muffler, it was 61 dB.

He calls a 61 dB PSU almost silent.. and I should find him credible?

Something like that muffler would effectively kill the cold air I have going around the PSU right now.

bump.

i mod my Gx700 to use RED led fan. its a pain to squeeze it in, but i did it. i unplugged the fan, bought a 2-pin header (any electronic store has these, but u can also cut the header from the original fan - u screwed up the warranty at this point anyway), soldering, and plug it back in wit a tweezer.

the red-led fan is MUCH noisier on full speed, but seems like the PSU automatically control the speed according to the temperature. it will rise up when its warming up (i can see the LED went brighter), and slowed down when it cools off... but even after 10hr prime, its probably running at 50% the speed, so i dont complain

very quiet.

and its red.

I have been wanting to do this for a long time, since the noise from my GameXstream has been literally driving me nuts. Its the only noisy component in my system inspite of the fact that I have 8 other 120mm fans in my system.

I picked up an antec pro 120mm fan yesterday on the way back home from work. According to the specs, this fan has an avg rpm of 2000 with 79.XX cfm and 29.x db noise rating compared to the protechnic electric fan that comes with the actual psu. The protechnic electric has an avg rpm of 2500 with 80.XX cfm and 38.x db noise rating at full load. So more or less the antec is in specs with the original psu fan, except for one thing - the noise factor.

I have used vantec tornadoes and deltas in my earlier builds but the dman ocz fan just whines at full load and there is no possible way to even turn down the fan speed as it is regulated by the psu.

Moreover, I even had my first GameXstream RMA'd to OCZ because of the fan noise since they thought it might be a faulty controller in the PSU. But its not, the fan that comes with the OCZ unit just plain sucks.

For people who are gonna hook up just a single video card (even top of the line), a couple of hard drives, one or two atapi devices and a few 120mm fans, maybe 3-4 usb devices, they are ot gonna notice anything different. But once you start putting load on the psu, you will notice the fan just getting whinier and whinier.

Anyway, opened up my psu and first thing I noticed is that there is not 2 pin plug, the fan is soldered directly to the pcb. OK, so I just chopped off the fan wires as close to the fan as possible. Rather than connecting the Antec directly to the PSU, I soldered a two pin male to the PSU wires and connected the Antec to it.


Tested the PSU out of the box and everything worked fine. Put the PSU back in the case and hooked up all components. Fired up the rig and the fan was spinning at full RPM but no dman noise.

The best part is that the fan comes with a rpm sensor and I have this hooked up to the mobo. MBM reports an avg rpm of around 2100 for the fan, which basically means that there is quite a bit lof load on the psu.

good job! well its unlikely theres a huge load on the PSU, but the temperature is high.... thats what, i believe, controls the fan speed...

Yes! Most defintely. The fan speed is regulated by temps in the PSU. But then, load and temps are directly related. The more the load, the higher the temps and vice-versa.