Review of Silent 400w Power Supply

SnowPunk98 writes "OCModShop has done a review on a SilenX 400w 14 dBA PSU "The power supply doesn't boast any flashy designs or cool colors however that is not the purpose of this power supply. Silence is what the main goal of the unit is and there are tons of features to help achieve that.""

Comments

My 400w power supply is silent, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Until I turn it on.

Advertising?

[Kent Recal]

There are dozens of "silent" PSUs around. Just bought myself one a couple weeks ago... What exactly makes this review of one a headline?

Re:Advertising?

[Golias]

Yea, but I've never once bought a product based on a /. review.

Every time a front-page story about the iPod goes up, you get 150 posts about how much the iRiver is a better deal. Every Rio story has just as many posts trashing it in favor of the iPod.

As far as I can tell, a /. story gets you a 2-12 paragraph blurb followed by 300 posts bashing your product, your company, and anybody who buys your stuff. Not a very good way to advertize at all!

(I have, on the other hand, bought stuff I've seen on /. banner ads. My "#include " beer glasses from thinkgeek, for example.)

Outstanding!!

[loserbert]

Now I'll be able to listen to my 5 case fans that sound like an Harrier hovering above my house! That stupid power supply fan was screwing everything up....

Re:Outstanding!!

[ShadowBlasko]

This is going so offtopic, but I have never had a chance to discuss it on slashdot, so here goes anyway.

You mentioned the monitor whine, did you know that a large percentage of the populus can not hear that? Second question. Do you, by any chance, have ADD or AD/HD?

Here is why I ask:

All my life I have been able to hear the whine from television sets, and monitors. Even if I am in another room I can "feel/hear" it when someone turns on (or de-gausses) a monitor. I used to think that everyone else heard it too, and when I realized that they didn't, I quickly stopped talking about it. (didn't wanna be labelled a nutcase or anything)

Especially bad were the old "dumb terminal" CRT's that were starting to go bad. If there was one near me, it would drive me almost batty. I could hear it *all* the time. When I worked at a call center in the early 90's, I would walk around at night when I was on the late shift until I found the bad CRT and turn it off. Usually I could "triangulate?" the location by walking around the room once first.

About the same time I was (finally) diagnosed with AD/HD. About 2 years later, when I switched doctors, I was asked about things that distracted me when I was trying to concentrate. I mentioned the monitor/CRT whine, and the doctor was somewhat amused. "I hear that a lot from easily distracted people."

That got me thinking, so I brought it up at an ADHD group meeting a couple months later. Not suprising to me, almost everyone I asked at the meeting said that they could "hear" the TV's and monitors in other rooms, especially when they are first turned on, even if the volume is all the way down.

I told my doctor about it at my next appointment, and she dismissed it as coincidence. She did not seem to even believe that such a sense of "electronic or electromagnetic perception" even existed.

I had her blind test me by going in the waiting room and switching the TV on and off a specific number of times. I was correct on the number each time.

As far as I know, nothing ever came of it. I just let it go, because it seems to be damned hard to convince someone with a Phd that you might know something that they don't.

Personally I think that, if my theory is correct, (That this "perception" of Electromagnetic interference, or maybe it is just a "sound", is so common in people with ADD or AD/HD, That the increasing numbers of devices which generate those sounds could correlate with the increasing numbers of ADD and AD/HD cases) it could really be interesting to say the least.

Needless to say I have neither the expertise nor the resources to study this.

I apologize to the slashdot readers for taking up so much space, and their time, in my ramblings, I just needed to finally get that out of my system and tell someone when the opportunity came up.

And hey, if I get famous, you heard it here first.

slashdottted already...

[Anonymous Coward]

so here's another review of it, on a different site...

Quiet PCs

[Ianoo]

I have recently become totally fed up with the high pitched whine my main work machine made, so I decided it was about time to do something about it. I bought a Zalman silent PSU, a Zalman flower CPU cooler, two Zalman silent case fans and a Zalman heatpipe graphics card cooler. When they say silent, they aren't totally silent (except for the heatpipe graphics card cooler which has no fan), but they're pretty damned quiet.

My PC is transformed, the loud, obtrusive, high pitched whine has now been reduced to a quiet, low pitched rumbling. I struggle to hear it when I'm 10 feet away, and even when sitting by it and working it's so much quieter it's much more enjoyable to use. Music is also a much nicer experience without the fan noise. I've even found that my CPU runs cooler with the Zalman heatsink than it did with the medium priced heatsink I had in there before.

Re:What is silent?

[ErrorBase]

This could give you a clue.
14dBA is way below whisper ...

Here's a sound clip for the power supply:

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:What is silent?

[jeffkjo1]

Well.. 0dB would be ideal, but most people cannot hear sounds that low... especially geeks with big stereo systems.

This page has an excellent table of information on various dB listings.

According to it, human breathing at 3 feet is 10dB... can you hear people breating from 3 feet away? (I can't.)

Re:What is silent?

[Anonymous Coward]

A whisper? I have voices whispering to me all day long; it's pretty hard to ignore. "Get a rifle and climb up the water tower", or "Flick that lightswitch two more times", or "Get a load of the *** on her!", or "Time to reline your tinfoil hat". If my power supply were this annoying, I wouldn't get anything done around here at all...

Re:What is silent?

[kels]

Wrong. Zero dB is just an arbitrary choice and a sound at 0 dB has nonzero amplitude. In air the reference pressure is normally 20 micropascals. The previous poster is correct, the decibel scale is relative, and negative infinity dB is truly silent.

Silent PCs

[1HandClapping]

last year I spent four months researching quiet PCs. The Best Site for Silent PC Info and Review of the SilenX

Typically the most irritating noises in order are

1) CPU Fan

2) PSU Fan

3) Case Fans

4) HDD

I have a Zalman pure copper Flower on my CPU with only one 12cm fan ducted near it. (No CPU fan). With my HDD decoupled it was silent (i.e. I could not hear it at 2 AM from 1 meter) during normal operation and barely audible when seek/writing.

To overclockers 28dB may seem quiet, but whispers are about 24dB. I personally find it dificult to work with someone whispering 1 meter away. About every 3 dB doubles the acoustic energy. (e.g. if one fan is 20dB, then two of the same fans would be about 23dB) I guestimate my system at about 22 dB.

Re:What is silent?

[nathanh]

Errr no, the dB scale starts at 0, thre is no negative axis, hence no possibility of negative infinity. As such, 0dB is perfectly silent.

You are wrong. 0dB means a unity gain. In other words, the signal you are measuring is exactly the same intensity as the reference signal.

In audio, 0dBA (notice the A) means it's the same intensity as the smallest discernible noise to "standard" human ears. Basically it's pretty damn quiet.

You most certainly can have negative dB. It just means attenuation (ie, the signal you are measuring has less intensity than the reference signal). 0 gain (which would be truly silent) is the same as negative infinity dB.