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Off-board/External ATX Power Supplies?
atomicretro asks: "Basically I'm on a quest for a silent PC, so I am looking to take my ATX power supply unit, external. I was simply wondering if anyone else had tried this with any success, or any commercial companies sold them.
Silence is required as this PC is being used in my dorm room, and it's hard to sleep next to a whining PC. I've got the sound levels pretty much down to a minimum by adding various silent PC parts, but a separate power supply would be pretty cool. Any help or ideas accepted!" There was a similar question that was posted about
two years ago, and it would be interesting to note if anyone in the market was listening.
Just curious, how is making it external going to make the power supply's cooling fan any quieter? If anything it will be louder since it wont be inside the case, and now none of your power cables will reach the internal components... First post? :-P
...here's one.
83chrise.nuf
The case shields you from a lot of the noise. Notice how whenever you open a case it gets about 5x louder. If you're really into quietness, get a vantec stealth PSU or a PC Power & Cooling one. If you're really a quietness freak, you might be able to watercool the PSU and take out the fan. But that would be an insane waste of time and money, not to mention the risk.
Repeal the DMCA!
But... couldn't you just... like... take it out of the case? I know those sexy Antec 100 towers have removable PSUs. Couldn't you just pull it out? Or get lucky with a dremel? You'd just need longer powerleads, and a good ground source.
Would help if you had a reason for doing it, too, as 'silence' doesn't quite cut it. But ok, y'know, whatever steams your sausage.
Informatus Technologicus
The longer your run from your PC to your PC the greater the change you will spiky your PC &/or PS. The greater impedence between the two units allows any ESD (static) to bounce the ground lines and can kill your system. Also, there is a reason that the case of the PS is bolted against the case of the PC, a greatly reduced chance of ground differential. You're also more likely to see your keyboard lock-up.
I'd go with a Nexus Power supply... my next paycheck will go towards purchasing one from quietpc.com ... they're widely known as the quietest power supplies available.
That said, also look into the miniITX stuff pointed to in one of the earlier posts... I have a miniITX computer with external power supply, but you can't run a pentium or AMD on it, just doesn't provide enough power.
I never noticed the noisy fans on the noisy pc's when I was in college.
Oh, yeah maybe I do. I just don't remember it ever being a problem falling asleep. Sleep just sorta happens on command after thirty hours of mudding and/or codeing and/or codeing muds and/or mudling coeds.
The fan should be the least of your beauty nap worries.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
The Screensavers had a recent story on making a quieter machine.
If you can't fall asleep next to your computer, turn it off when you go to sleep! Saves some power and keeps you dreaming happily. Hell, you don't even have to power it down, just put it into stand by mode.
On the other hand, even when my PC fans were broken (and making a lot of noise) I had no problem falling asleep, even with four computers in the room. You must be a light sleeper.
if you need it quieter .. turn the damn thing off ... its not like you're using it .. you're just cranking up your tuition on wasted power cycles ...
I am pretty sensitive to to computer/fan noise. Not like ears bleeding sensitive, but it just gets on my nerves, and makes it hard for me to sleep when the computer is on (and my average uptime of about 18 hours because I have to turn off my machine every night is getting embarassing and means I can't do any fun things like run servers on my machine :)
I've been on a quest for a silent or "near silent" PC for a while now. I've done the usual tricks (replacing the fans with quieter ones, softer harddrive mounts, egg crates on the wall for sound deadening, etc.) To be honest, although it made a difference, it wasn't really enough to justify the expense. Sure it's quiter now, but the nature of the noise is still the same, and definitely still audible at all times.
One day I started thinking about it a little more, and realized that my laptop at work (an IBM T23) is faster than my home desktop computer and it's *extremely* quiet.
Two questions arise from this observation:
If the laptop manufacturers can pack all this power into a small package and make it quiet (and still cool sufficiently) then what the hell is wrong with the people that make desktop style machines?
Why would I ever buy a desktop machine again? I'll gladly pay a little more for a quiet machine (as I tried to do with my current machine) and since the desktop manufacturers don't seem to be taking note of this fact I'll just have to buy laptops from here on. With the added expense I get a few other nice benefits like the "go anywhere" flexibility and the battery power (poor man's UPS).
If you wanted to stick the ps in a closet, why not just buy a twenty foot KVM cable and the proper adaptors. Then you can put the PC in the closet. I have done that a time or two.
I found my inner child, then I got caught abusing it...
The one I have in my living room on a harwood floor is dead quiet.
I wrote up in my journal about where I got the parts and which ones I used.
It is not a fantastic machine, it is to be a node in a cluster - but you can't sleep while that machine is going, then you have a problem - not with your machine, but a larger sleep issue (I'm also curious what dorm/school you live in where the largest noise issue is your computer).
I have had problems with the case that I have used, but I have a new one on the way that will resolve those issues.
I haven't used any padding, carpeting, insulation, or even hard drive covers - and this thing is totally silent - and I have great hearing.
If it is running the dnet client for a bit, then I can make out the sound of a fan - but it is still faint.
My TiVo is by far the loudest thing in my living room now (although to be honest, right now my quiet machine is turned off until I get a new case for it and I have a noisy dual PIII running right now).
It is one thing to want to build something ultra quiet for the "just because" factor - but if you can't sleep through the noise of what I have, then I would imagine that it is an imaginary problem or something else beyond the computer at that point.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I can't imagine having lived in my dorm room, without the whirr of two full tower computers (one dual proc, one with no case), two laptops, a 486, and the air conditioning on 24/7.
...
Silence is required as this PC is being used in my dorm room, and it's hard to sleep next to a whining PC.
Ok, you know you're a nerd when you can't sleep because of your power supply fan, and you try to design a new external power supply instead of just turning the computer off at night. Haha, this poor guy is going to be a virgin for life.
Actually, the PC case acts as a giant speaker, amplifying the sound of the fans in the PSU (And any other case fans as well). A small, normally un-noticeable imbalance on one of the fan blades would make a little noise. Screw it in tightly to your PC and it starts to make your PC shake as well.
I think a smarter solution then an external PSU would be a Quiet PSU like the Vantec VAN-520a Stealth and mount it using rubber gaskets where the screws go. If you wanted to take it a step further you could build a rubber gasket around the entire PSU itself to reduce any vibrations even more.
My PC is very quiet because of this method. I have 4 case fans + 3 PSU fans and I can't hear any of them for the most part.
Check out this article over at TechTV from The Screen Savers on how to make a Quiet PC
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
If you fire up Knoppix on a modern lqptop - there is no noise from the laptop. No noise whatsoever. (Unless you have a crappy laptop that needs a fan to cool it's processor)
It really creapy. After 20 years os associating the din of drives, fans and the hum of monitors with computers - it was really creep to have a dead quiet computer for a change.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
www.silentpcreview.com
I've been obsessing over computer noise for a while... both so I can sleep with out turning my computers off... and because I use my computer for studio work (audio recording)
Currently I'm using zalmann flower heat sinks and zalman 70mm fans turned way down. As for power supplies... the Nexus is a good bet (around $75) or the zalman quiet power supply (around $40)
I wouldn't bother out-boarding your powersupply, a waste of money and effort... but just in case you still want to try SilentPCReview has a few power supplies that might work for that... to the tune of $200-$300 they also have some completely fanless power supplies.
~foooo PS. Mod me up... before you go go...
The forums at Silent PC Review would be a great place to pose this question. I go by seishino there, but anyone will be able to help.
External? The asus in front of me shipped with a 3 foot cable... that's definitely long enough to take outside of the case, but that wouldn't quiet the problem. There are some amazingly expensive fanless solutions available if you look (200$+), but for most people replacing the fan is good enough. There are also water-cooled psus, but they are also too expensive realistically for college use. Pick up a low-flo panaflos (L1A) from one of the places listed in the "hot deals" section (if you are near boston, I can get one to you), and put that in place of your fan. That is enough to cut sound down noticably.
The ______ Agenda
Just get a quiet PSU and be done with it. There are plenty on the market.
Or mod your existing power supply and but a variable speed fan inside. That's what I did, and I can't even hear my PSU.
I can't sleep without that white noise provided by the computer. When I was a kid, I couldn't fall asleep until our air conditioner kicked in.
I found this out the hard way. I wanted to 'remote' my ATX ps. so I bought an extension cable (atx to atx) and it almost worked - but the problem was that there wasn't enough wire 'capacity' to carry the current and not have a voltage drop screw up my voltage tolerances.
heck, even just adding 6 inches can mess it up and make your system unstable.
sorry, but that's reality. mobo's today need SUCH high current that you simply cannot just extend the wiring and have it work right. unless you use ungodly thick cable, that is.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I don't sleep nearly as well without the background humming of a PC or two, or a window fan, some kind of white noise.
Silence is required as this PC is being used in my dorm room,
You are living in a dorm room. I would think that the guys playing Xbox with the volume at max until 5am down the hall would keep you up more than some fan on your computer.
I ended up purchasing a fan that I could run at night just so I could drown out the noises down the hall. Now I can't sleep without it.
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
No, really. I sleep with my computers powered up and cased. It is possible to go to sleep to the tune of your computer case, it's a matter of acclimating yourself to the sound. I'd suggest giving it a weekend. Alternatively, move the computer away from your bedside and place the case under the desk.
This sig no verb.
I think it would make more sense to take the fan out and use ducting to put the fan in a quieter spot.
Replace the fan with a vertical pipe. The hot air will rise and convection cool the power supply.
Try to get the pipe outlet up above the living space, that will keep the heat away from you. I don't think you'll need that much height to get enough air flow, but I haven't tried it yet.
If you put the whole computer in a closet or ceiling you can easily run cables for keyboard, mouse, video and sound. Video is the only tricky one, the signal degrades quite quickly so you want to go as direct as possible.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
The external power supply is readily available on . . . laptops.
My laptop runs very quietly.
You didn't mention how powerful a PC you were trying to make. Mini-ITX (more here) exists for making a silent PC.
I'm assuming because you are running this at night it will be a server. If you're talking about a small load server you could even go with one of the Eden based EPIA boards. There isn't even a fan on the processor.
As for the power supply, the morex 55W at either of the aforementioned sites will power most EPIA systems. Rumour is there will be a more powerful Morex-like PSU coming out soon.
-> Fritz
Spooooon!!!!!
Here's a fanless ATX PSU from Germany. Probably very quiet. ;-)
I'll put in a plug for my favorite. I have two from PC Power & Cooling, an "ultra-quiet" AT/ATX one and one of their "turbo-cool" AT models. Both are still going after six years of constant use and even the 300W "turbo" one is quieter than most weaker power supplies. They aren't the cheapest you'll find but they sell a better quality product. I'm happy with it, anyway.
I going to let you in on a little secret my friend. Ear plugs. I know what your thinking, "Ear plugs? I want less noise." Well, my friend not only do ear plugs block entrance into the little holes on the side of your head by those neverdowells who wish to invade your sleepy peace, but they block sound also. I know, I know. It sounds to good to be true. But "Sound" is what we're talking about my friend. I can let you have a go with a pair of the finest plugs this side of the Mississippi.
Sounds like a good deal my friend!
So, now you're wondering how much is a wonderful, fantastical, new age device like this going to cost me. Well, have solice in knowing that although it may not be free, it is well worth the price! Now I can see that I have your attention sir.. and I want to keep it. So, I'll tell you what, since your such a nice fellow - studious fellow. I'll let you have your pick of my finest stock of plugs for only 59.95US a plug. It may sound high, but sound is what we're talking about...
Hell, I'm a sucker and a good guy to boot and I can tell you are too. I'll tell you what. I'm willing to give you the pair for the same price. It's a hell of a deal not only do you get the one I spoke of earlier for that low, low price, but you get enough of these wonderful plugs to satisfy your whole head.
So, do we have a deal?
Great! I'm glad to help a fellow person and happy plugging.
1. buy components which make less or no noise. the less noise you have to start with, the less you have to get rid off. eg. get a video card that doesn't require a fan rather than one that has one or choose a hard disk based on its quietness. seagate barracudas are a good choice.
2. replace noisy case fans with quiet ones. this makes a huge difference. the most popular quiet fans are Panaflo L1As. even quiet fans can be made even quieter by running them at lower voltages. do a search for "5 volt trick" or "7 volt trick".
3. use less fans. monitor your motherboard, processor, power supply and chip temperature. run a system intensive program like 3dmark. use the minimum no of fans that keeps the temperature within acceptable limits even at 100% CPU usage.
The number one concern when doing this is overheating. slower fans + less fans = less airflow so you gotta keep a close eye on that.
some other things i did which helped:
replaced the intel fan on my P4 with a quiet one. didn't get an expensive heatsink. just replaced the fan.
replaced the fan in the power supply with a quiet one. a quiet, slower fan = more heat. to reduce the chance of overheating, i removed the case on the power supply (not the computer case). DO NOT open the power supply and do any of this unless you are technically competent. you might get a nasty electrical shock! you've been warned.
as always, be sure to ground yourself and unplug everything before making any changes.
some sites which are useful:
Silent PC Review
Yahoo Groups- Silent PC
Back in my day we were given a 1mhz computer and we had to live with the noise, of course computers were 10 times louder in those days beacuse they had valves in
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Learn to sleep with music playing and you wont be such a pathetic whiny princess crybaby.
Try doing a google search for fanless power supplies. I instantly found some from silicon acoustics (i think), and having done this research before, I know that there's a company in germany that manufactures and sells fanless psus aswell. The hitch is that they cost around $200/200, which I consider to be *alot*. But money aside, that's your best bet.
Move sig!
... I have seen several cases with external power supplies in Akihabara in the last couple months. These are regular ATX cases, not the small ones made for the Epia boards.
...
(Maybe sold under the "Windy" brand???)
I have to cruise Akihabara in the morning looking for some "junk" so I could get the details
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
You'd probably need to move the hard drive outside the case too. And if you have a Geforce FX, that'd need to go too. Hell, let's move the whole PC outside the case!
Seriously though, couldn't you just buy some PS/2 or USB extention cables and put the computer in a closet or something? You could take it out when you wanted to use it during the day.
Also, you get computers like the older compaq deskpro range that, although the PSU was in the case, you REALLY have to strain to hear the fan. I believe the fan wasn't on the outside-facing wall of the case, it was on the inside and blew air across the PSU components. I used to use one of these for my webserver/firewall and I could sleep fine. I don't see why more computers don't use this design. Maybe you could find one and get the power supply from it.
See here.
Earplugs are cheaper and work for the other stuff in the dorms that are going to keep you awake. Including your alarm clock.
If you are still looking for a solution to moving your power supply out of the box or just to make it quiet. Remoting all the controls, with limits you can extend the mouse, monitor, keyboard and other cables. Some research would be needed if it's a very long distance. I have seen multiplexers that do ALL of these on one wire but do not know if they'd pass any gaming spec. Cooling: A bit of mistyping but good. http://www.geocities.com/teranova52/html/pc_coolin g_theory.html
I would use a non corrosive oil of some kind of silicon oil rather than water. One overclocker used compressed air but I don't know if it was quiet, it piped compressed air in and ran it back out somewhere away from the computer area.
Power supplies:
http://www.kepcopower.com/din.htm#acmulti
Look for a nice big one with lots of watts, these are not cheap. You would probably need a DC-DC system that would take the voltage, store and regulate it a bit as remotely running DC can leave the remote end starved for power. Look for an exact voltage to voltage DC-DC converter i.e. a 12vDC-12vDC converter. Or just build it, lots of Motorola regulators come with excellent spec sheets and example diagrams.
Cheaper power supplies (and some rediculously large ones, like 200 amp +12/24/etc DC ones):
It helps to have a maker and part number with MAI/Prime parts. These people can help with providing working large power supplies, surplus or pulls, they are in Indianapolis and I like them a lot, lots of neat toys.
http://www.websitea.com/mai/
Here's a cooling article about liquid cooling and noise: http://librenix.com/?inode=2105
Military style cooling:
MAI/prime above as a limited selection of heat exchangers that use liquid.
http://www.lytron.com/standard/index.htm
Lots of cooling in mil-systems use heat exchange systems to prevent contamination of the equipment. Standard cooling would remain in a your box. Put that in a bigger box and sound proof the hell out of it. I've done this with other equipment. You can build the box out of wood if you want and dress it up nicely. Make the box fairly large so that the sound proofing can fit. You can suspend the computer from a rack mounted with rubber straps (cut up some rubber tie downs). Line the case with most any convienient sound proofing material, padding from an old speaker or two can work or specialty products or insulation. Run your heat exchanger grill/fan inside and position so it's output will flow in the desired direction. This will be connected through the case using piping (flexible is ok if tough enough is external to the box). Then you connect this to the pump and other heat exchanger which are located somewhere. This can be very quiet, but quite expensive.
One last solution, not good for gaming is to use a front end that is quiet. The front end would be one of the smaller PC's preferably fan-less such as mentioned on /. (the via chips ala cirrus are I think extremely cool running). It would be just an X-terminal to the real horse power that's located elsewhere.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Remoting all the controls, with limits you can extend the mouse, monitor, keyboard and other cables. Some research would be needed if it's a very long distance.
I have seen multiplexers that do ALL of these on one wire but do not know if they'd pass any gaming spec.
Cooling: A bit of mistyping but good. http://www.geocities.com/teranova52/html/pc_coolin g_theory.html I
would use a non corrosive oil of some kind of silicon oil
rather than water.
One overclocker used compressed air but I don't know if it was quiet, it piped compressed air in and ran it back out somewhere away from the computer area.
Power supplies: http://www.kepcopower.com/din.htm#acmulti Look for a nice big one with lots of watts, these are not cheap.
You would probably need a DC-DC system that would take the voltage, store and regulate it a bit as remotely running DC can leave the remote end starved for power. Look for an exact voltage to voltage DC-DC converter i.e. a 12vDC-12vDC converter.
Or just build it, lots of Motorola regulators come with excellent spec sheets and example diagrams.
Cheaper power supplies (and some rediculously large ones, like 200 amp +12/24/etc DC ones):
It helps to have a maker and part number when calling MAI/Prime parts. These people can help with providing working large power supplies, surplus or pulls, they are in Indianapolis and I like them a lot, lots of neat toys.
http://www.websitea.com/mai/
Here's a cooling article about liquid cooling and noise: http://librenix.com/?inode=2105
Military style cooling: MAI/prime above as a limited selection of heat exchangers that use liquid. http://www.lytron.com/standard/index.htm
Lots of cooling in mil-systems use heat exchange systems to prevent contamination of the equipment.
Standard cooling would remain in a your box.
Put that in a bigger box and sound proof the hell out of it.
I've done this with other equipment.
You can build the box out of wood if you want and dress it up nicely.
Make the box fairly large so that the sound proofing can fit. You can suspend the computer from a rack mounted with rubber straps (cut up some rubber tie downs). Line the case with most any convienient sound proofing material, padding from an old speaker or two can work or specialty products or insulation.
Run your heat exchanger grill/fan inside and position so it's output will flow in the desired direction. This will be connected through the case using piping (flexible is ok if tough enough and is external to the box). Then you connect this to the pump and the external heat exchanger which will be located located far away. This can be very quiet, but quite expensive.
I would HIGHLY recommend that you invest in some butterfly switches that monitor airflow and use those to sound an alarm or switch off the AC power, this is beyond this meager text. I don't trust the bios monitoring much.
One last solution, not good for gaming is to use a front end that is quiet.
The front end would be one of the smaller PC's preferably disk less fan-less such as mentioned on /. (the via chips ala cirrus are I think extremely cool
running).
It would be just an vnc or X-terminal to the real horse power that's located elsewhere.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I've also been building a system for audio work, Thermalright heatsinks (the one you can clip an 80mm fan to), 4 Papst silent 80mm fans (two on the dual Duron 1.3GHz, two in the case), Enermax silent PSU, and three IDE disks with fluid dynamic bearings.
End result: a dual CPU AMD-based machine with three hard disks that's so quiet I have to look at the lights/fans to check it's running, even with the case off. I should also mention that we lined the case with sound deadening material (sheets of cork/other stuff I'm not sure of the details on), but I think you can get away with just putting a layer under the motherboard, as that seems to stop a lot of the transmitted vibration from the CPU fans.
Various 350 EX. Only problem: Only sold in Japan and extremly expensive to deliver to the US or Europe.
There are some other *very* quiet internal PSUs on the market. Fortron has some new models available with 120 mm fans (a 120 mm fan moves nearly three times more air than a fan with 80mm running at the same speed, so the fans can run really slow). Engelking has a PSU, that only uses a fan, if it get's too hot (45 degrees celsius). With a moderate PC the fan will be off most of the time.
And like some others have already pointed out: Check out the forums at silentpcreview.com. Most of my knowledge regarding quiet PCs does come from these forums.
Bye egghat.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel