The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA
--
Mint 20.04, kernel 5.4.0-42-generic, Cinnamon 4.6.7
running on an AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition processor with 8GB of DRAM.

On 29/04/2021 16:40, pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA


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

PS:

https://quietpc.co.uk/powersupplies

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

On 29/04/2021 16:40, pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very
noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend
more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet
quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA

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.

On 29/04/2021 16:40, pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA


Is that actually a standard size power supply?

And have you worked out what power you actually need?

pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA

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.

https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-prim...82E16817151235

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@58A, , +5VSB@3A

https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-prim...82E16817151233

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@37A, , +5VSB@3A

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.

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A
\--- 100W max ---/

That means, if the +5V rail goes to max, the
3.3V rail can't supply any current :-) In real
life, it is expected neither rail goes to max,
and the combined is around 50W or so. Some other
PSUs, the combined rating is 130W or so, and that's
the kind I buy. But then, I do want the fanless,
so I have to make sure that my low-rails don't
draw too much. Seasonic uses that 100W limit
on some of their fan-equipped PCs, so this is
"just a Seasonic thing". Because the designs
are double-forward conversion, the 3.3V/5V supply
is a separate card that runs off 12VDC from the
main converter.

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 :-)

https://seasonic.com/pub/media/wysiw...s/Titanium.png

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently. I want to
replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need
to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to
expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA

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.

https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-prim...82E16817151235

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@58A, , +5VSB@3A

https://www.newegg.com/seasonic-prim...82E16817151233

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@37A, , +5VSB@3A

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.

It's a bit more tricky than that. With my PVR which has
a digital TV capture card which can do 4 multichannel
streams, the PC would shut down when 4 were recording
at once, but not with 3. Fixed with a beefier power supply.

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.

+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A
\--- 100W max ---/

That means, if the +5V rail goes to max, the
3.3V rail can't supply any current :-) In real
life, it is expected neither rail goes to max,
and the combined is around 50W or so. Some other
PSUs, the combined rating is 130W or so, and that's
the kind I buy. But then, I do want the fanless,
so I have to make sure that my low-rails don't
draw too much. Seasonic uses that 100W limit
on some of their fan-equipped PCs, so this is
"just a Seasonic thing". Because the designs
are double-forward conversion, the 3.3V/5V supply
is a separate card that runs off 12VDC from the
main converter.

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 :-)

https://seasonic.com/pub/media/wysiw...s/Titanium.png

On Fri, 30 Apr 2021 07:19:22 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp addressing Rodent Speed:
"You really are a clueless pillock."
MID:

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

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"pinnerite" wrote in message
news:20210429164030.0c10c6a835a418bf46e8073e@gmail .com...
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more
than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how
many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

TIA
--
Mint 20.04, kernel 5.4.0-42-generic, Cinnamon 4.6.7
running on an AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition processor with 8GB of DRAM.

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

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"SH" wrote in message
...
And don't forget all the other fans like on the processor, graphics card,
case fans and possibly the Mobo may have some too.

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

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

--
*HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A CIVIL WAR?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 29/04/2021 16:40, pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?

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.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Thu, 29 Apr 2021 16:23:09 -0400, Paul
wrote:

snip

For example, my newest PC idles at 100W,

Ouch!

and when
both the GPU and the 156W CPU are engaged, it can
go up to 400W.

Nice room heater. ;-)

But, if I were engineering for a
light-dedicated application (like running TV tuners
but not transcoding), then 200W would cover it.

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. ;-)

https://ibb.co/qB893nT
(Not sure what the spikes are)?

https://ibb.co/VV8m3Vj
(I think the dropouts in the graph are because the ESP32 used to
monitor the temperature has marginal WiFi signal. I am probably going
to move the ESP32 nearer the AP and add two more sensors (to the same
ESP32) to monitor the fridge and main freezer).

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

On 30/04/2021 11:20, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
SH wrote:
And don't forget all the other fans like on the processor, graphics
card, case fans and possibly the Mobo may have some too.

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


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

On 30/04/2021 07:37, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:

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!

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.

--
Max Demian

On Thu, 29 Apr 2021 16:49:58 +0100, SH wrote:

On 29/04/2021 16:40, pinnerite wrote:
The power supply in my home build low profile HTPC has become very noisy.

It is a Zalman ZM500-GT 500W and very good until recently.

I want to replace it with a low noise job but do not want to spend more than I need to. Very few of those advertised on the Internet quote how many dbs to expect.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what might be a good choice?


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

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

Martin Brown wrote:


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.

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
120x120x35mm fan that runs at 12V @ 1000mA, and
it moves 110CFM and you cannot put up with that noise
for more than a few seconds. It would be considered
an "Ultra", but that isn't printed anywhere on the
labeling. And at 35mm deep, there is no way that
would fit inside any PSU.

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

On 01/05/2021 03:09, Paul wrote:
Martin Brown wrote:


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.

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
120x120x35mm fan that runs at 12V @ 1000mA, and
it moves 110CFM and you cannot put up with that noise
for more than a few seconds. It would be considered
an "Ultra", but that isn't printed anywhere on the
labeling. And at 35mm deep, there is no way that
would fit inside any PSU.

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).

Â* 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
3-in-1 oil, pause for a minute then rotate the fan by hand. If it turns
easily then power the fan and let it run for a while under power.

PA (aka Scrooge)

On 30/04/2021 14:17, Max Demian wrote:
On 30/04/2021 07:37, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:

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.
Â* It did respond to, believe it or not to a tiny drop of 3 in one oil!

The first PC "desktop" tower I bought (a Tiny) made an awful racket when
I turned it on. I was resigned to it ...

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"

--
Adrian C