Silverstone st45sf

I'd like to mention here that I get chirping too on my st45sf. Would really like to find out the root of this problem.

It seems like the reviews that show it handling the load without issues are giving it friendlier non-computing DC loads. I could go out and construct some ridiculous circuit that will dissipate 400 watts and try to hook it up to the unit to try to figure out what's going on, but the fact of the matter is I'm trying to use it to power a computer, not some (ideal or not) DC load. I have mine connected to an ASRock H67M-ITX/HT with an i5 2500 and a GTX560Ti. When running prime95 and furmark simultaneously I get chirps. Chirping also happens much less loudly when doing things like running 3dmark11.

The noise itself doesnt bother me nearly as much as the potential evidence it presents that the unit will go poof. This is something nobody wants, I am sure: I doubt it would be able to hurt me physically by doing so (but quite the contrary with regard to my pocketbook). In any case the noise is hard to miss and at this point I am just hoping to find a way to pack even more power into the case because I know these 11 liters can handle more, its just a matter of finding a PSU that can supply more than 300 real watts in this form factor. Turns out this Silverstone 450w wasn't the ticket, but the computer as configured can handle a non crazy workload just fine.

I can run it again and observe, and also possibly take a video, though I do not have a good mic, only an iphone 4. I do have a kill-a-watt which I bought last week from Amazon, and it reported 315 or so watts when I last did this. I will observe the Power Factor rating as well the next time I run it. I will also test it without the kill-a-watt in series, in case that is a factor in generating the noise.

Has anybody tried a 300+ watt build using the original 300 watt PSU that came with the regular version of these enclosures? I have no reason to expect them to perform better than the 450W version but I think it doesn't hurt to give it a try.

juden666, I find that in my build the cable lengths were just about perfect. I crammed a 3.5" disk, a corsair H80, an SSD, and the slim disk drive into the build. yes there was a little bit of modding needed to be done. I wouldn't add or subtract any length from any of the cables. There isn't even much pressure on the H80 liquid tubes. I'm real proud of this build but I hate that chirping.
 
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arcaneinsomniac said:
Has anybody tried a 300+ watt build using the original 300 watt PSU that came with the regular version of these enclosures? I have no reason to expect them to perform better than the 450W version but I think it doesn't hurt to give it a try.

j
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If you search around google, as the original thread on [H] was deleted, there are a few users (miahallen being the first one who posted about it I believe) who reported chirping and stuttering on the 450W PSU, but when the 300W PSU was swapped back in, no chirping or stuttering.

If you have a 300W PSU, try it and let us know.
 
arcaneinsomniac said:
When running prime95 and furmark simultaneously I get chirps.
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dont do that, youre not testing anything, just trying to blow up the PSU, NOTHING will use that kind of load. run them separately.

arcaneinsomniac said:
Chirping also happens much less loudly when doing things like running 3dmark11.
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because of the PSU faulty design.

arcaneinsomniac said:
Has anybody tried a 300+ watt build using the original 300 watt PSU that came with the regular version of these enclosures? I have no reason to expect them to perform better than the 450W version but I think it doesn't hurt to give it a try.
Click to expand...

as i know, it shut it down around 320w. i assembled my mini as it is on may 2010 and so far NEVER had any issue no matter what i did, not even noise. acording to the PSU calculator your build is about 20w less than mine, the minimum value result have a 10% overhead for safety, according to that, mine pass the 300w mark.
 
Well this is just annoying because I can no longer have any confidence in attempting to beef up the SG05/SG06 any more than the 560Ti. Yes the problem could have been worse, but it's really just terribly disappointing.

I guess nobody seems to know whether the chirping is a sign of distress or not.

Even if another manufacturer comes out with a superior SFX PSU design I'd be hard pressed to prefer that to the SG06/SG05 combo that comes painted black internally and with this PSU. It's extremely economical compared to getting a PSU separately and having an extra 300W unit left with no use for it. It's just a terrible shame that these units are prone to making this awful sound...
 
According to silverstone the problem is some kind of compatibility quirk. The unit I RMA'd chirped on the new Zotac z68, but not on a different z68. It also chirps on my Rampage II Gene. So far these are the only two that I know of, but I'm sure there are others.

Unfortunately the solution would seem to be to buy a mobo, and if it chirps, return the mobo and try a different brand/model. We really need more sfx psu options.
 
Hi everyone, I want to thank Patyrn and everyone here for patiently waiting for our test results. It took a while for us to locate the returned PSUs from the store that sold to Patyrn, test them in our US office, and then finally back here in Taiwan.

For those of you that are experiencing chirping noise from your ST45SF, please rest assure that this occurrence is not an indication of impending PSU failure. We have done tests with returned and new ST45SF units that chirp constantly for 24 hour straight with system running Prime95 & Furmark (this is the best combination to produce chirping from ST45SF). The following information will also show that noise generation is dependent on loading characteristics of the systems used.

To add to what was reported earlier, besides the Zotac Z68-ITX, we have confirmed that ASUS Rampage II Gene can also be used to generate chirping noise from ST45SF. After nearly a week of testing by the PSU engineers, they were finally able to isolate the cause and come up with counter measures. Below are snap shots from the test report:

st45sf_report110804a.jpg

These are loading produced by the test system (ASUS Rampage II Gene) running Prime95 and Furmark. ST45SF’s chirping noise occurs in conjunction with +12V’s loading change that appears to produce a large valley on the graph above.

st45sf_report110804b.jpg

Zooming in on the +12V loading graph, we can see this sudden change in loading condition more clearly. Systems that do not generate chirping noise from ST45SF have milder/slower loading change.

st45sf_report110804c.jpg

After more testing/trial and error, the engineers were able to pin point two places where replacing capacitors with different capacitance could change the noise frequency to level undetectable by human ears.

Unfortunately this type of replacement work is not suitable for users to perform by themselves. So if you are experiencing chirping noise with your ST45SF, we will offer to replace it with revised ST45SF that we will start producing as soon as we complete their production validation. It will likely take a couple of months for our branch offices to get them to be able to distribute to everyone that need one, so please bear with us. We will have an update on ST45SF product page and I will update everyone here again when the revised ST45SF is available.

Again, I want to remind everyone that the chirping issue only happens to systems that have loading change condition I described above (high +12V dynamic loading from certain motherboards) and some ST45SF may even experience lighter symptoms as result of production variance. So if you have never experienced chirping from your current ST45SF, you have a perfectly fine PSU and no need to swap to a revised unit.

For those of you curious, here is a recording we made of the chirping noise:
http://www.silverstone-usa.com/images/st45sf/ST45SF_Noise.WAV
 
Thank you, Mr Ou!

Will there be any way (like model number or revision), to differentiate the updated design? Or should we just rely on the RMA system to (IF there is chirping with a user's setup) aquire the updated unit?
 
Major Kudos to Tony and Silverstone! This is how a company should listen to its consumer base and respond. Also major Kudos to Patyrn and everyone else who helped getting Silverstone to see that there was a problem and it needed to be fixed. MAJOR KUDOS TO ALL! :)
 
Daemos said:
Does this address the 'stuttering' issue originally posted by miahallen (and others have also experienced this) that seemed to happen at the same time as the chirping?

Since the original post on this forum was deleted I'm linking to another forum:
http://www.overclock.net/small-form-factor-systems/889834-silverstone-st45sf-total-crap.html
Click to expand...

+1 .Not to worried about the noise more of the stuttering while in game.As i am thinkin of replacing my 465 with a 560ti or possible a 570
 
Nice! Hopefully the capacitor changes will smooth things out for people that said it caused them stability issues as well.

food-smiley-004.gif
 
Excellent news. I'm glad you managed to track it down. Will you post again here when the newly altered units are ready?
 
I've never had a problem with my ST45SF (Gigabyte H55N) but just wanted to add my cheers for Tony and Silverstone, well done keep it up :)

And BIG props to Patyrn for getting them recognize the problem to begin with!
 
If this does indeed fix the issue I will be purchasing one of the new supplies when they become available.
 
Tony Ou said:
So if you are experiencing chirping noise with your ST45SF, we will offer to replace it with revised ST45SF that we will start producing as soon as we complete their production validation. It will likely take a couple of months for our branch offices to get them to be able to distribute to everyone that need one, so please bear with us. We will have an update on ST45SF product page and I will update everyone here again when the revised ST45SF is available.

Again, I want to remind everyone that the chirping issue only happens to systems that have loading change condition I described above (high +12V dynamic loading from certain motherboards) and some ST45SF may even experience lighter symptoms as result of production variance. So if you have never experienced chirping from your current ST45SF, you have a perfectly fine PSU and no need to swap to a revised unit.
Click to expand...

Just a quick question Tony.

Would it not be best to offer to replace any ST45SF? I ask as although I don't get chirping on mine, if I was to upgrade my system in the future am I likely to be stuck with a chirping unit if I happened to go for a motherboard/CPU/graphics combination that triggers this?

I just wonder as I don't want to end up "missing the boat" and stuck with a noisy unit 6-9 months down the line.

Thanks.
 
Glad to finally see silverstone taking this issue seriously. Well once I can pull the PSU out of my dads rig I will send my chirper off to RMA and see if it will finally power my rig.
 
Patyrn said:
Excellent news. I'm glad you managed to track it down. Will you post again here when the newly altered units are ready?
Click to expand...

Yes

jeremyshaw said:
Thank you, Mr Ou!

Will there be any way (like model number or revision), to differentiate the updated design? Or should we just rely on the RMA system to (IF there is chirping with a user's setup) aquire the updated unit?
Click to expand...

Yes, the revised ST45SF will have clear marking to differentiate them. Probably something like "version 2.0" on the retail box.

Tute said:
Just a quick question Tony.

Would it not be best to offer to replace any ST45SF? I ask as although I don't get chirping on mine, if I was to upgrade my system in the future am I likely to be stuck with a chirping unit if I happened to go for a motherboard/CPU/graphics combination that triggers this?

I just wonder as I don't want to end up "missing the boat" and stuck with a noisy unit 6-9 months down the line.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Since we will be recognizing chirping as an issue eligible for warranty replacement, you should be okay within three years of owning the ST45SF.

joelC said:
+1 .Not to worried about the noise more of the stuttering while in game.As i am thinkin of replacing my 465 with a 560ti or possible a 570
Click to expand...

Daemos said:
Does this address the 'stuttering' issue originally posted by miahallen (and others have also experienced this) that seemed to happen at the same time as the chirping?

Since the original post on this forum was deleted I'm linking to another forum:
http://www.overclock.net/small-form-factor-systems/889834-silverstone-st45sf-total-crap.html
Click to expand...

We didn't notice stuttering issues when trying to induce chirping noise from our test systems, although admittedly it's difficult to notice stuttering in Furmark. Running normal games using the same test systems didn't produce chirping though.

My guess is that the stuttering issue miahallen experienced may have been the result of overloading the ST45SF since he was using a GTX 480, a card that is over-spec for the ST45SF according to our PSU product manager.
 
Luckily for me I haven't heard that noise yet, however I am using a 905e and am looking to switch to i5 2400 + H67. Good to see silverstone standing behind its products
 
Tony Ou said:
We didn't notice stuttering issues when trying to induce chirping noise from our test systems, although admittedly it's difficult to notice stuttering in Furmark. Running normal games using the same test systems didn't produce chirping though.

My guess is that the stuttering issue miahallen experienced may have been the result of overloading the ST45SF since he was using a GTX 480, a card that is over-spec for the ST45SF according to our PSU product manager.
Click to expand...

Forgive me for not having full faith in your testing methods. I do not mean it as an insult, it is not possible to test every combination of hardware out there, as well I believe the FSP group makes the power supply for you guys, so they should make sure their hardware shouldn't have issues. However, as miahallen was the first to notice any chirping issue and it's taken basically 9 months, which most of it was you guys claiming to have no issues during your testing, to replicate the issue that many people have been having, although under only certain conditions. The stuttering might also have a certain hardware configuration that brings it on.

miahallen also went through multiple st45sf's and swapped out the 480GTX for a HD5870 which still produced the chirping and stuttering issues...however, using the HD5870 and the 300W SSF powersupply had no issues. Other people have experienced the stuttering issues, and switching to the 300W power supply fixed the issue...so I don't think it's an overloading issue or else the issue would also happen with the 300W power supply.

I only want to make sure all the issues are resolved, because I might end up buying the odd combination of hardware that causes the problem.

miahallen said:
So I've been running with the 5870 in the box for quite some time now, and the stuttering is still present.....but as I've continued to monitor the power draw, I've realized that the original 300W PSU that came with the case, should be able to handle the current load. So, I swapped the 300W PSU back into the box a few days ago, and the stuttering is gone, the system runs perfectly! :doh:
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SodaCan said:
I own an ST45SF and noticed a chirping almost buzzing sound when playing any games. It was very slight, but was noticeable over my two Enermax magmas at full tilt. Every so often the screen would have what I would explain as a mini freeze when playing games. During that time the buzzing would stop but once the screen was back to normal the buzzing would start up again. The buzzing also coincided with some choppiness experienced in game. I was running everything in my sig-rig with the 6970 replaced with a 5770. Everything was stock. At first I thought it was my hard drive but after changing cases, and thus power supply, the chopping and buzzing has stopped.

I wasn't able to test how much the power supply was drawing and am unable to do so now that I no longer have my 5770 or another card to test the case with but I thought I would put my two cents in.
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I also experienced the stuttering with a 6870 and GTX 570 and GTX 580. Never saw it with my 4890 however. I will be RMA'ing my PSU as soon as I can and will be testing the new PSU thoroughly when I get one.
 
Daemos said:
miahallen also went through multiple st45sf's and swapped out the 480GTX for a HD5870 which still produced the chirping and stuttering issues...however, using the HD5870 and the 300W SSF powersupply had no issues. Other people have experienced the stuttering issues, and switching to the 300W power supply fixed the issue...so I don't think it's an overloading issue or else the issue would also happen with the 300W power supply.
.
Click to expand...

This is quite popular opinion many people are saying about this 300W unit and how good it is. In my case, the combination of Q6700 + 5850 + zotac GF9300-ITX+4GB+1TB Samsung 7200rpm HDD all at stock fried the motherboard after 15 of playing settlers 7. Don´t know about newer systems using sandy bridge architecture if they are better at load power consumption. And my 300W unit, it is chirping even at idle without discrete graphics card installed. And someone is running 5870 with it (and quad core processor?), hard to believe...
 
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crb said:
This is quite popular opinion many people are saying about this 300W unit and how good it is. In my case, the combination of Q6700 + 5850 + zotac GF9300-ITX+4GB+1TB Samsung 7200rpm HDD all at stock fried the motherboard after 15 of playing settlers 7. Don´t know about newer systems using sandy bridge architecture if they are better at load power consumption. And my 300W unit, it is chirping even at idle without discrete graphics card installed. And someone is running 5870 with it (and quad core processor?), hard to believe...
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Well there are multiple people who have done that, going from the 450W to the 300W solved chirping and stuttering issues.

It's possible you have a bad PSU or a damaged PSU, really the only way to find out is to replace it with another one and see if the same thing happens.

The only time I've heard of a PSU frying a mobo is when a huge surge went through the PSU and damaged it (although it still apparently worked) there were blown caps everywhere.
 
Daemos said:
Forgive me for not having full faith in your testing methods. I do not mean it as an insult, it is not possible to test every combination of hardware out there, as well I believe the FSP group makes the power supply for you guys, so they should make sure their hardware shouldn't have issues. However, as miahallen was the first to notice any chirping issue and it's taken basically 9 months, which most of it was you guys claiming to have no issues during your testing, to replicate the issue that many people have been having, although under only certain conditions. The stuttering might also have a certain hardware configuration that brings it on.

miahallen also went through multiple st45sf's and swapped out the 480GTX for a HD5870 which still produced the chirping and stuttering issues...however, using the HD5870 and the 300W SSF powersupply had no issues. Other people have experienced the stuttering issues, and switching to the 300W power supply fixed the issue...so I don't think it's an overloading issue or else the issue would also happen with the 300W power supply.

I only want to make sure all the issues are resolved, because I might end up buying the odd combination of hardware that causes the problem.
Click to expand...

FSP in general has delivered a very good PSU to us that had passed all standard testing in addition to our special requirements. You are right that we weren't able to test all the configurations available on the market, but we have tested quite a few. It was fun actually to push ST45SF's limit during its development using the likes of GTX 480 or dual GPU HD5970 (which both easily exceeded ST45SF's rated capacity). At the end of the day though, we did come up with a list of GPUs that it will support (http://www.silverstonetek.com/downloads/PSU/GPU-supportlist.pdf) so even using HD5870 is considered out of spec. and performance is not guaranteed.

All of our PSUs have overhead that will allow them to function above their rated spec. to some degrees. A 300W PSU may not exhibit the same symptoms as ST45SF when running over spec. In the case of ST45SF, the symptom may have been apparent stuttering while the 300W was probably running with greatly reduced efficiency or ripple that was out of spec., both of which are not easily detected by normal users. Either way, a more powerful PSU is recommended if you are looking to use cards like the GTX 480 and HD5870 that miahallen had used.
 
question for Tony Ou,

is Silverstone going to release refreshed SG05/SG06 with revised ST45SF and front USB 3.0 ports, in similar fashion to SG07 --> SG08?
 
crb said:
question for Tony Ou,

is Silverstone going to release refreshed SG05/SG06 with revised ST45SF and front USB 3.0 ports, in similar fashion to SG07 --> SG08?
Click to expand...

Since all ST45SF manufactured from now on will have the capacitor changes, you should start seeing them in SG05-450 and SG06-450 in a couple of months. There is currently no timeline set for USB 3.0 integration though.
 
Tony,

I purchased an SG05BB that came with the ST45SF. Since I do not have a retail box edition of the ST45SF, am I eligible for the exchange? If so, would I have to send the case and PSU or just the PSU and in what packaging?

I haven't had any issues with my PSU, but I imagine there may be others experiencing the chirp that did not buy the PSU separate from their case.
 
DrakonSan said:
Tony,

I purchased an SG05BB that came with the ST45SF. Since I do not have a retail box edition of the ST45SF, am I eligible for the exchange? If so, would I have to send the case and PSU or just the PSU and in what packaging?

I haven't had any issues with my PSU, but I imagine there may be others experiencing the chirp that did not buy the PSU separate from their case.
Click to expand...

Owners of SG05-450 and SG06-450 are eligible for exchange as well, but please keep in mind that the PSUs sold with cases have different warranty length from standalone retail PSUs.
You will not have to send both the case and the PSU back. For details on how to return, you may contact our RMA personnel directly.

Americas
[email protected]

Europe
[email protected]

Other regions
[email protected]
 
Patyrn said:
Any news on this? Are the new ones ready?
Click to expand...

He did say that it'll likely take a couple of months for it to reach their branch offices and then be able to get distributed to everyone else. It's only been a month or so.

--
Hmm wonder if I should RMA my brother's ST45SF. I gave him my old computer which had a ST45SF that was bought off Amazon. I ended up selling that ST45SF and switched cases to the SG05BB-450. I didn't have any problems with the first ST45SF but have had problems with computer freezing with the second ST45SF using the same parts. Though I can't say I've heard any chirping as I've never tested for it.
 
just did 3dmark 2006 @max settings with a GTX 580 and 2500K with this PSU, no problems and no strange beeps :)
 
MMm, I recieved mine this friday. Its version 1.1, so I dont know if its the new ones or what..

After working with speedfan Ive notice that the psu fan makes quite noise, so its not silent at all... Also if you close your ear you can hear "mini"chirpling noises. I dont know... probably I will return it and watch for more cases.
 
I gather we are still waiting for Silverstone's distribution to have the new units? I have two, one chirps (actually more of a click or pop and very quiet) under EVGA OC Scanner (560Ti SC) and the other doesn't. Both are in identical builds (i5-2500k + Gigabyte H67N ITX).
 
Hi guys, sorry to keep some of you waiting this long, but the ST45SF V 2.0 is now available for exchange. These were updated to eliminate the chirping noise some of you were hearing with certain motherboard combos. Below are photos on how you can identify the newer version:

ST45SFv2_1.jpg

ST45SFv2_2.jpg


If you are currently running fine on earlier versions of ST45SF, there is no need to exchange to V 2.0 as this is not considered to be a defect correction.

Again, you can contact the following places for information on how to exchange ST45SF to newer versions:

Americas
[email protected]

Europe
[email protected]

Other regions
[email protected]
 
Thanks for the update! I'll keep it in mind, in case mine starts chirping. Currently running it with a 2500K and GTX 460, all stock clocked.
 
Zap said:
Thanks for the update! I'll keep it in mind, in case mine starts chirping. Currently running it with a 2500K and GTX 460, all stock clocked.
Click to expand...

I have 2 PCs identically spec'd. 2500K and 560ti. One chirps, the other doesn't. I decided to lower both the CPU voltage and the GPU voltage and now have it to the point where it no longer chirps on Furmark + Prime95. For me, it wasn't worth the hassle of upgrading to the V2 since Silverstone won't do a credit swap so I would be without a PSU for a week or 2. If yours does start chirping, try lowering the voltages first to see if alleviates the problem.

BTW, the 560ti is incredible as it allows me to run at 0.95v and still OC to 915Mhz. What a great card!
 
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