• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Quiet FlexATX PSU?

To my knowledge, such a thing doesn't exist. Not only does the 40mm fan have to spin very fast, the components inside the PSU are tightly packed, so there is quite a bit more noise generated by the air passing through the small clearances between components. Those PSUs are designed for servers in the end, where noise doesn't matter. Most people I heard from said that replacing the stock fan with the Noctua NF-A4x10 significantly reduced the noise levels, but that may not be enough for you.

What you can then do (if you have the space), is to mod the PSU to use an 80mm fan on the top, which means cutting a hole for the air in the top of the enclosure. You will probably have to use a low noise adapter, because the PSU won't adapt its fan curve, but then you can get quite a quiet and small PSU. Even without using a low noise adapter, I got my FSP300-60LG to be subjectively silent in idle. (As in, just the HDD spinning is louder and I have to hold my ear against the fan to hear it.)

If you are feeling adventurous, you can also experiment with controlling the fan with extra hardware or software, but that may lead to parts of the PSU overheating, so only do that if you really, really know what you're doing and take extensive safety precautions.
 
I've been playing with the idea of designing a swappable cover plate for the FSP 300W PSU that would basically be 15mm higher and have room for either one thin 80mm fan (i.e. Noise blocker). Do you think this would be a worthwhile pursuit iFreilicht?
 
i'm surprised no one made a fanless flexATX PSU yet, those PSU are about the size of big PSU brick, I seen some that are 200W and are about the size of FlexATX.
 
nekrosoft13 said:
i'm surprised no one made a fanless flexATX PSU yet, those PSU are about the size of big PSU brick, I seen some that are 200W and are about the size of FlexATX.
Click to expand...

Stumbled on theis on the Streacom site some weeks ago, a 240W fanless supply in what appears to be approximate flexATX form factor;

http://www.streacom.com/products/zf240-fanless-240w-zeroflex-psu/

It'll run you some though

http://www.quietpcusa.com/-Streacom-ST-ZF240-ZeroFlex-240W-Passive-PSU-P1093.aspx
 
That is a pretty cool PSU. Any idea if you could get a decent 6 pin or 2x 6 pin connector adapted from it?
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
They should make it wider to accommodate 120mm fan on the top instead of loud little fan on the rear. It'll be similar to a wide graphics card with blower design.
 
I've occasionally looked for one - I have an older microserver-style mATX case that houses a fileserver and the power supply in it is the loudest part by far. I haven't found anything that would make an appreciable difference in noise level, and I'm not sure it's worth the trouble to try and replace the fan since, as iFreilicht mentioned, any 40mm fan cooling a PSU is going to make a load of noise no matter what you try. :/
 
Bieberfever said:
I've been playing with the idea of designing a swappable cover plate for the FSP 300W PSU that would basically be 15mm higher and have room for either one thin 80mm fan (i.e. Noise blocker). Do you think this would be a worthwhile pursuit iFreilicht?
Click to expand...

Yeah I would love that! You may even be able to make it fit multiple 150mm long FlexATX PSUs, as most of them use a similar design for the main cover. It would probably fit into the inventory of a store like modDIY quite well.

Or, if we were going through all the hassle and legal requirements, it would actually bring me a step closer to making my 6L steam machine-esque case possible, but I'm dreaming there ;)

Stevo_ said:
Stumbled on theis on the Streacom site some weeks ago, a 240W fanless supply in what appears to be approximate flexATX form factor;

http://www.streacom.com/products/zf240-fanless-240w-zeroflex-psu/

It'll run you some though

http://www.quietpcusa.com/-Streacom-ST-ZF240-ZeroFlex-240W-Passive-PSU-P1093.aspx
Click to expand...

That's quite cool, but of course it only works with some streacom cases. Still, if you're going for a passive build, that's one easy way to get it small. I wonder if there is a way to actively cool this to get the 450W they claim it would have if it wasn't a passive unit.

seanclayton said:
They should make it wider to accommodate 120mm fan on the top instead of loud little fan on the rear. It'll be similar to a wide graphics card with blower design.
Click to expand...

Not gonna happen, but regular 1U PSUs are actually 100mm wide, so that's quite neat.
 
iFreilicht said:
That's quite cool, but of course it only works with some streacom cases. Still, if you're going for a passive build, that's one easy way to get it small. I wonder if there is a way to actively cool this to get the 450W they claim it would have if it wasn't a passive unit.
Click to expand...

I think that's only true for the purposes of mounting holes/L-bracket to their case heatsink. If you remove the L-bracket and put on some heatsinking or using flat heatpipes along those edges combined with decent case cooling could probably get the job done. The Streacoms are basically passive case cooling. None of this would be cheap of course. (There's a build here where someone used this stuff in a really small case)

http://www.thermotekusa.com/tm_phaseplane.php
 
Stevo_ said:
I think that's only true for the purposes of mounting holes/L-bracket to their case heatsink. If you remove the L-bracket and put on some heatsinking or using flat heatpipes along those edges combined with decent case cooling could probably get the job done. The Streacoms are basically passive case cooling. None of this would be cheap of course. (There's a build here where someone used this stuff in a really small case)

http://www.thermotekusa.com/tm_phaseplane.php
Click to expand...

I don't think it is possible to remove the L-bracket, I would imagine it is connected to all heatsinks and heat emitting parts inside the PSU.

But designing an active heatsink that screws on to this might be possible. But at that point it will lose its attractiveness for being small. There may be a way to leave it as flat, though.
 
deruberhanyok said:
any 40mm fan cooling a PSU is going to make a load of noise no matter what you try. :/
Click to expand...

40mm fans can be quiet if not spinning fast. I have the SeaSonic SS-250SU which is a 250W Bronze and an FSP300-60LG which is a 300W Gold. Both are reasonably quiet when the machine is not under gaming load and not with a power virus running. Is this quiet enough? Well, depends on the user. Speaking for myself, if I'm in a game, I could care less whether my computer makes fan noise as long as I don't hear it over my game and as long as it is reasonable when idling.

I also have an Antec ISK 300-150. The PSU is Flex ATX with two exceptions.
1) Where the 40mm fan would go, the casing gets larger and there is an 80mm fan.
2) The power cord goes to an outlet on the computer case itself, so the power cord does not plug directly into the PSU.

The PSU in this case is pretty darn quiet, and I've probably run it at pretty close to max output. My pointing it out is that perhaps a Flex ATX PSU can work for "quiet" with modding. For instance, remove the 40mm fan and have an externally mounted 80mm fan suck air through, with perhaps some ducting work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top