Silent 500W Power Supply

NightRyder writes "To cope with the increased power demands of today's processors and video cards a 500W silent power supply has been released by Antec. The topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently, especially concerning the increased hardware demands by new game and operating systems. Considering the processing demands of something like, *cough* Windows Vista, its important to be able to keep your computer cool without it getting loud."

Comments

Direct link to Froogle with Price Sorted Low to Hi

[Work Account]

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Antec+Phantom+ 500+(PHANTOM+500)+500-Watt+Power+Supply&btnG=Searc h+Froogle&scoring=p

"silent"

[Anonymous Coward]

i did not find word "dB" in there..

Re:"silent"

[Cave_Monster]

This fan is off most of the time but when the insides heat up it will be turned on until the temperature is below the set limit. When running, the fan's speed will vary automatically based on how hot the PSU is, so even it is running it may barely be audible because the fan is spinning slowly.

So they have mostly eliminated the need for a fan by using some good heat dissipation methods. Though if you are running your PC for extended periods of time or your PC is tucked away under a desk somewhere where it doesn't get much air flow, I would expect the fan to be humming away as normal.

Re:"silent"

[xs650]

With no fan, it should be pretty close to inaudaible from a couple of feet away.

I looked up the specs on one and it was 82% efficient at full power. That's 90 Watts of heat it needs to get rid of without a fan. Toasty!

Re:"silent"

[JourneyExpertApe]

Oh, well, it's -Inf.

Re:"silent"

[kisielk]

90 watts at peak load. I doubt the power supply would last very long running at 500 W for any extended period of time..

Re:"silent"

[moonbender]

Fortunately, pretty much no modern PC needs anywhere near 500W. Of course, the PSU does have a fan that kicks in when it gets too hot, so it's a moot point.

Re:"silent"

[SeventyBang]

I've got enough stuff plugged into mine I'm not certain I even trust 500W to power everything (for fear a power drop will hurt something). Of course, it might help to offload all of the old HDs and combine them onto a single modern one, etc.

In-store tip: if you buy a power supply someplace such as CompUSA, open the box before you go to the cash register. A couple of years ago, I picked up a power supply (600? 750?) and popped the box open. Inside was 200W. Someone switched the boxes' contents to get a near five-finger discount.


A new approach to hurricane relief funding.

Re:"silent"

[moonbender]

The most powerful PC in this test on Silent PC Review draws 214W. Granted, you can built a machine that draws more: two graphics cards, four or six HDs instead of just two,elaborate lighting setups. It probably still won't draw 500W, though...

Re:"silent"

[SeventyBang]

I think it's got twelve or thirteen old HDs plugged into it (total = ca. 1TB). That's why I pondered buying a couple of new ones and moving everything over to them. I've got a lot of material from the "good old days".

Re:"silent"

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Kind of offtopic, but is there any easy way to tell how much your machines pulling? I *do* have two video cards, a couple of harddrives, even had a tuner card in at one point.

Re:"silent"

[cortana]

Read your electricity meter, turn the PC off for an hour (oh no!), read the meter again, establish a baseline. Power up the PC for an hour, take another reading, and you can work out the about of power your PC draws. Make sure you don't turn anything else on or off while doing the test--you might want to unplug devices with thermostats (fridge/freezer) while you do it.

A better way is to get one of those little device that sit in between a device and the wall socket; they can measure the current power usage, and count the total energy consumed since a counter was reset.

Re:"silent"

[Tatarize]

Am I the only one who takes silent to mean that it's never going to make any noise? I'm sure with the /. users out there, everybody asks the question, oh really, how would you do it?

Personally I would seal up the power supply, then have it filled with oil. Remove the fan, and coat the outside with heatsink bars. It's either that or alter the form factor of the powersupply by removing it from the console box. Probably combining it with an UPS and just use the extra area to properly disperse the heat, replacing the powersuppy box with an empty box that takes DC in and splits it up properly (just wires). You can also increase the efficiency of the box so it stops burning off a lot of power as heat. Or any combination of the three.

Re:"silent"

[rikkards]

My big concern is that even though power supplies don't exhaust a lot of air normally, these silent and fanless power supplies exhaust even less or none. This would mean you need something else to get rid of the hot air which becomes another fan elsewhere so what is the point?

Re:"silent"

[fbjon]

Liquid cooling. Moves all the heat to a convenient place for dissipation.

Re:"silent"

[dajak]

It's either that or alter the form factor of the powersupply by removing it from the console box. Probably combining it with an UPS and just use the extra area to properly disperse the heat, replacing the powersuppy box with an empty box that takes DC in and splits it up properly (just wires).

I vote for this option. I have a huge fanless UPS that is not even warm to the touch. Why do I need this hot "power supply" next to my CPU inside the computer, when the UPS could output DC and easily disperse the heat? Laptops and mini-ITX already use external bricks. For big computers we simply need bigger bricks.

Re:"silent"

[Anonymous Coward]

There are power monitors that will do what you ask. One is called the Seasonic SSM-1508RA Power Angel Power Monitor. Another is called the Kill A Watt Power Monitor. They're in the $30-$40 price range.

Re:"silent"

[dajak]

I doubt the power supply would last very long running at 500 W for any extended period of time..

I doubt it is possible to get even near 500W with actual computer equipment connected to the power supply. You need to get the configuration exactly right to reproduce that number.

Re:"silent"

[jmorey]

Get a Kill A WATT. The are only about $25 US. I got one a couple of weeks ago. Great little toy.

http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4 400/P4400-CE.html/

Re:"silent"

[Anonymous Coward]

No Orleans has been water-cooled for a few weeks now... but not many people think it was convenient.

Re:"silent"

[rvw14]

The power savings alone will probably pay for the new drives in a year. Plus I can't imagine the noise that many old drives make when powered.

Re:"silent"

[plover]

With no fan, it should be absolutely inaudible from a centimeter away. I would expect an expensive power supply to not suffer from a cheap whiny transformer.

Except it has a fan. According to TFA, it doesn't kick on until the PSU's temp reaches 40, 47.5 or 55 degrees (switch selectable.) Theoretically, the temperature of the PSU will rise as the power load increases, so unless you're slinging lots of polygons through your video card and lots of equations through your CPU, it shouldn't come on very often. But it will -- if you need 500W of power, you're going to be generating lots of heat.

The bigger "silent" issue I have is that it's only an 80mm fan. Small diameter fans are by necessity louder than large diameter fans due to simple physics: a smaller fan must turn faster to move the same volume of air as a larger fan. The faster they turn, the more noise they produce. And as you point out, 90W is a lot of heat to dissipate.

Re:"silent"

[plover]

I killed two birds with one stone, and bought an APC battery backup UPS. The software that came with the UPS (which mostly sucks, by the way) does allow it to show battery status. At any time it can report how much power is being drawn, in addition to battery voltage, temperature, etc.

I bought a fairly big UPS for the capacity to hold up not only the PC and its thirsty innards, but to power the other semi-essential crap I have in the computer room. I've got the router and cable modem (almost required if you have VOIP), the LCD monitor, and a couple of USB hubs all plugged into the UPS. The USB hubs are required for not only the USB keyboard and mouse, but the battery uses USB to send the "power fail" warnings to the PC. All in all it draws 213 watts at pretty slack usage of the CPU.

Certainly I could unplug a lot of the other crap and just have the PC on the UPS and measure it, but I wasn't looking for that number.

Re:"silent"

[InvalidError]

Hook up your UPS to a two 70AH car batteries and let it run unplugged at full-load for an hour, it will be hotter. I read many stories about UPSes overheating or even catching fire when run for too long beyond what their stock batteries would normally allow at full-load. UPSes meant for extended runs have fans... look at APC Back-UPS XS and RS series... the XS has no external battery connector and no fan while the equivalent RS has both the external battery connector and a fan.

Laptop bricks only provide 12-20VDC, the laptop itself has a number of extra converters in it to provide all the other voltages (Vcore, Vram, Vio, Vterm, 3.3V, 5V, etc.) from the battery and charge-controller circuitry. The laptops' external brick is there to decouple non-essential AC power circuitry from the mobile components, the laptop still requires local bulk power regulation. There is also the problem that an external PSU would have slower transient response times. With today's systems where the load can change by 10A in microseconds or less, an external PSU would probably need a secondary regulator (at least a large capacitor bank) inside the case. For a laptop, this is not an issue because everything goes through the battery controller. For ITX, this is not as much of an issue because they are mostly low-power systems.

Since technology is moving towards local voltage regulators for faster transient response, PCs should migrate towards single-rail power distribution (something like 24V with 20-35V tolerance for easy UPS) to avoid triple, quadruple, etc.-tuple conversions... converting directly from a single higher voltage source decreases the load on intermediate regulators, reducing conduction and switching losses across the board.

PSUs with efficiencies over 90% are possible but every 1% over 85% is more expensive than the last... synchronous rectification alone doubles the number of required high-speed, high-current MOSFETs and other parts.

Re:"silent"

[Anonymous Coward]

>So they have mostly eliminated the need for a fan by using some good heat dissipation methods.

not exactly. In a traditional power supply you have a fan that runs full bore all the time, whether or not the PSU is hot or not. Antec put in a thermostat that controls the fan speed based on temperature and used better heat dissipation, to reduce the need for the fan to run as much.

If you have 4 drives, a dual cpu and 6800GT video card (with 2 procs) you can rest assured that fan will always be on. If you have a PIII with one disk and cdrom, it will probably never come on. Power usage = heat.

If you are using 490W it will run constantly...

Re:"silent"

[jepaton]

Single power distribution would decrease power conversion efficency.

The main PSU is a switching power supply, which is an efficient and cheap
method of dropping from 120V/240V down to 12V. A large voltage drop and
high current, the alternative is a BIG transformer weighing several kgs...

Switching regulators are available, which can step down from from say 24V
to 5V etc. Unfortunately, they are cost prohibitive and still will not
provide the clean power required. Also, the lower the required voltage
drop the less efficient they are.

Linear regulators have the opposite efficiency curve, they get more
efficient the lower the voltage drop required. Of course, they dispate ALL
of the dropped voltage as heat. Pdispated = Iout * (Vin - Vout). If Vin
is close to Vout then they are near 100% efficient.

In a PC, the PSU provides voltages close to those that are required, and
linear regulators are placed close to the components requiring the power.
The linear regulators provide clean power but dispate a little as waste.

For the battery/adapter powered product I am currently working on the
cost difference between a switching regulator and a linear regulator is
about 10 times.

In summary, PCs are powered the way they are because it is the best cost/
performance ratio. A single power-rail will be more expensive and less
efficient.

It would make sense if server power supplies could accept DC rather than
AC. This would save the round tripping of AC (mains) to DC (battery) to
AC (psu) to DC (computer). Telecomms has standardised on 48V, and it is
possible to buy 48V DC PSUs. I bet you can get 48V dc UPS units too...

Jonathan

Re:"silent"

[LoRdTAW]

I've got a lot of material from the "good old days".

GIF porn?

Re:"silent"

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Kind of offtopic, but is there any easy way to tell how much your machines pulling?

Get an Ammeter. Plug it into the wall and then the computer into it. It will tell you the Amps that are being drawn. Multiply by 115 for an approximation of the power usage, or dig around on google to find out how you have to convert AC Amps and Volts to Watts.

Re:"silent"

[iamhassi]

"is there any easy way to tell how much your machines pulling"

yeah, buy a Kill-A-Watt. They're ~$25 new, but i've seen them sell for ~$10 on ebay.

cool toy

Re:"silent"

[dajak]

Hook up your UPS to a two 70AH car batteries and let it run unplugged at full-load for an hour, it will be hotter. I read many stories about UPSes overheating or even catching fire when run for too long beyond what their stock batteries would normally allow at full-load.

Does this only apply to the kind of situation you get when you for instance have solar panels hooked up to the UPS during a blackout, or also to seriously oversizing your ups (for instance 1500VA for a laptop) for extended time?

My UPS is only used for occasional voltage drops of less than a second now. I have been looking for a cheap emergency backup though (not involving gas; Katrina lesson). Hooking up solar panels and a bicycle generator to the UPS in some way is exactly what I had in mind.

Re:"silent"

[InvalidError]

I dare you to find one high-power linear regulator in your PC... all but the lightest loads are powered from linear regulators now. With modern integrated SMPS chips, putting switchers everywhere is relatively inexpensive.

Look at CPU voltage regulators... the Prescott VRM must be able to provide over 100A to the socket at as little as 1.4V. This would mean your low-drop-out regulator would be dissipating up to 190W. In the real world, motherboard manufacturers use multi-phase switchers fed from 12V.

Look at video cards... all current boards have onboard switching regulators... they all feature a Maxim, TI or other power modulator switches, some surface-mount MOSFETs all mounted around inductors and filter capacitors.

Look at next-generation Pentium-M, these will have on-board PWM regulator.

Look at recent TI newsletters, there have been lots of promos for chips designed for point-of-load power regulation.

Switchers are also into most voltage-sensitive devices to buck/boost battery voltage so they can be used more effectively and completely.

Switchers are everywhere and much more practical than you appear to think.

Re:"silent"

[InvalidError]

Supersizing an UPS has three advantages:
1- larger batteries
2- beefier components
3- more efficiency at low to intermediate loads

Of those three, #1 counts double: larger batteries not only have more capacity but they also lose less of their effective capacity for a given load current. So, a 50% larger battery can yield a 75% increase in usable backup power for a given load. The other two factors are relatively minor compared to this.

If you want to power a UPS with solar panels and some dynamo/alternator attached to a bike, you would need a battery or ultracapacitors to help regulate and store the energy. Otherwise, your UPS (and yourself if you implemented the bicycle aspect) would have a really hard time generating steady output and keep the attached equipment running properly.

As far as plugging a laptop in a 1.5kVA UPS for extended battery run, I would be somewhat surprised if 1.5kVA UPSes ever overheated at something like 10% load under otherwise normal operating conditions.

If I modded my BK1500 for extended run with external batteries, I would do a typical-load run-down test to verify that it can take it without overheating then add and test the 'missing' 60mm fan for peace of mind.

Re:"silent"

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but you might want to brush up on your english: "all but" means precisely the opposite of what you think it means. You should have used "Only" up there and it would have been fine.

Re:"silent"

[InvalidError]

You're right... my mind slipped up on that one.

I shouldn't think too many sentenses ahead, that's what usually happens when I do.

Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[hvatum]

The topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently.

Yes, the topic of silent power production has been an important one to the computer community recently. Right alongside in-home cold fusion and perpetual motion machines. Oh wait, did you mean silent power conversion?

Re:Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop posting this crap to Slashdot.

Re:Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[Vitus Wagner]

Do not fuel cells produce power? I thought they do. And they are silent and their applications to computer industry were much discussed recently.

Re:Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[Whafro]

The Rampmaster Regenerator... perpetual motion machine?

Re:Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[EddyPearson]

Batteries do not produce electricity. Read a book. ("Energy cannot be created or destoryed, it can only be changed from one form to another")

Re:Bad Editing Or Terrible Spelling?

[squiggleslash]

Batteries (at least, non-rechargable ones) convert chemical reactions into electricity. While there may be "energy" in a generic sense that went into creating the environment where these chemicals existed and could react, they're not electric so electricity is being produced, not merely moved, in this process.

As far as the second definition goes, it doesn't contradict the notion that electricity is producable. Electricity is one form of energy. Converting something into something else, like heat into electricity, water pressure into electricity, or even flour into cake, is legitimately called producing it. The fact you've lose something doesn't mean you haven't created something else.

There was a story about power supplies earlier

[ReformedExCon]

I remember that the story was discussing how the advertised wattages of these power supplies were pretty much lies or gross exaggerations. So we're talking about 500W of power without cooling, but how much power can be drawn until the thing dies from heat exhaustion? And can the 500W output be sustained for extended lengths of time?

Also, does anyone find really strange that slashdot would put the CSS definition files in the images.slashdot.org domain? One computer I use shows Slashdot completely stripped down. This one shows it "normally". Any way to get rid of advertisements and images without losing the formatting as well?

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[nametaken]

This newest incarnation of the Antec Phantom line has an 80mm variable speed fan. Its in the article.

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus this one from antec is just the 300W version with a Plastic-encased fan on the front and re-badged to 500W... although it's a damned good power supply.

These XYZ reviews should be stopped,they are getting to a page for one paragraph almost, it's rediculous. Besides there are a million and one sites that have already reviewed these PSUs. There is some troll (no doubt from XYZ) who keeps submitting their stories to slashdot to get traffic.

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic, but you can turn off icons in your preferences, and download Adblock for more fine-grained image blocking. But ads aren't hosted on /. they're on other servers like falkag.net

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[sr180]

The CSS would be coming from the images domain as a measure to assist in caching. The css can be cached in a similar manner to the images, and it makes it easier to be able to configure it in a domain basis.

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[glens]

Any way to get rid of advertisements and images without losing the formatting as well?

privoxy

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Frogbert]

Any way to get rid of advertisements and images without losing the formatting as well?

Yes

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[_generica]

http://adblock.mozdev.org/

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Sax Maniac]

Use Privoxy (any browser) or Adblock (firefox) to filter things out based on arbitrary criteria. Domain-based filtering is way too crude to be useful.

Re:There was a story about power supplies earlier

[Just Some Guy]

Also, does anyone find really strange that slashdot would put the CSS definition files in the images.slashdot.org domain?

No. Besides the caching setups that other people have mentioned, IIRC the webserver on images is highly tuned for dumping huge amounts of static data across a network. Contrast with the main servers, which are equally and oppositely tuned for dynamic content.

Buy the highest efficiency p/s with a 120mm fan

[Brian Stretch]

You're better off buying a high-efficiency power supply that has a 120mm thermistor-controlled fan. Seasonic's S12 500W is my current favorite. The 120mm fan is virtually silent at moderate loads and not too bad at higher loads. High efficiency means less waste heat for the fan to need to cool and lower electric bills.

Re:Buy the highest efficiency p/s with a 120mm fan

[Anonymous Coward]

At 88-90 % efficiency at typical loads, this Antec power supply _is_ the most efficient power supply on the market.

Re:Buy the highest efficiency p/s with a 120mm fan

[NerdJock]

This and many other fanless/semifanless psu:s produce 20-30% less heat, which should compensate for the lower air flow from a 80mm fan. And a less air flow means less turbulance noise. That is assuming that the barring noise is similar for the psu:s, which isn't obvious, or even true. But you can always upgrade the fan to a better one, but you can't upgrade the effciency as easily. That said, the Seasonic is a great psu, probably the best out of the box on the market.

Re:Buy the highest efficiency p/s with a 120mm fan

[pla]

Seasonic's S12 500W is my current favorite. The 120mm fan is virtually silent at moderate loads and not too bad at higher loads.

I'll second that... I love my SeasSonic S12s (I have them in three machines now). All-but-silent, with rock-solid outputs, and according to every independant test I've read, if they say 500W, it stays solid to 499.99W, and shuts itself off (rather than smoking) at 500.01W.


However, I take exception to this entire topic...

In my PRIMARY machine, I have an S12-330. I have an Athlon 64, and a GeForce 6600. And I have 260W left to play with - A good thing, since my current upgrade path includes SLI'd 6800s and a dual-core Athlon 64, which fits well within that power budget and would make my machine pretty much a top-end modern gaming rig (though, hopefully by the time I consider my current setup in need of an upgrade, the replacements will draw even less power).

So my complaint? People don't NEED 500 and 600W power supplies. They need to look at their electric bill and dump the P4s. They need to buy a supply that performs as advertised. They need to seriously consider the end result of "anything for three more FPS" - We have KILOWATT power supplies now! With some care, an energy efficient home for four people can draw less than that!


Everyone has the "right" to waste money. But when you don't even need to make a compromise between price, performance, and power consumption - You can have them all - Why would anyone do otherwise?


(As an aside, I realize that I have compromised power for performance, in that I could run an EPIA board and have an entire machine draw 20W - And in fact, I have a machine doing just that. I mean to constrain my point to "fully functional modern PCs", though. If I could halve the power while getting 90% of the performance, however, I would - Thus my interim choice of a 6600 card, which draws only half as much power as the 6800s, in the hopes that something more efficient will hit the market before I feel a need to upgrade).

I WANT a loud power supply

[dirtsurfer]

I live in an old apartment building with thin walls and I have very loud neighbors who work the late shift.

I want my power supply to be loud. I need as much white noise as I can get.

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[Belseth]

Better yet get a nice big server with redundant power supplies. Just back that puppy up against a wall and annoy the hell out of your neighbors. "Revenge is a dish best served loud".

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[chuby]

Just get a gasoline generator... Think Big !

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should build an entire case out of fans then.....

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[The Ur-Grue]

I used to have something similar. A big Addtronics server case. I think it was model 7896A, but my memory could be failing me there. It had, as a selling point, the ability to mount about 20 80mm fans without any modding. How times have changed.

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[halleluja]

I want my power supply to be loud. I need as much white noise as I can get.

For ultra-whitening loudness, I recommend positioning your computer inside the washing machine.

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[Eccles]

I need as much white noise as I can get.

Such racism on slashdot. How about getting some noise of color?

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[Skapare]

cat < /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[486Hawk]

You want loud? Connect a few of these fans from All Electronics. That should be enough noise for anyone.

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[kilraid]

Pink noise is actually pretty much the most pleasing type of noise, as most natural noises have a similar spectral envelope. I used it successfully to mask the nocturnal voice(s) of a mad flatmate.

Re:I WANT a loud power supply

[Fulcrum of Evil]

How about getting some noise of color?

You want Pink noise?

Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

This powersupply looks nice but what is the news? The article even mentions that this is not antecs first silent power supply. There are also completely silent PSUs made by other companies with better efficiency than this.

Re:Slashvertisement?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but what would we do without the revenue generated by this ad? Surely Slashdot would fall.

Re:Slashvertisement?

[ShakaUVM]

The last time I looked into it, silent power supplies were totally inadequate for gaming. A 500W supply means that you can finally have a new video card and have a silent PS at the same time. That's pretty big news. Or, I guess it's not earth shattering, but big enough to warrant mention on Slashdot.

My current supply has a thermally controlled fan, so it's not loud at all, but some people out there go crazy for that 0db stuff.

Seasonic S12

[clarkie.mg]

Fully agree. The excellent (french) hardware site http://www.matbe.com/ has just tested yesterday the 600W version and it squashes the competition :

http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/250/seasonic-s1 2-600-watts-l--alim-parfaite/

Even if you can't read french, look at the figures especially the one concening the silence, it's almost as silent as a fanless yesico!

Re:Seasonic S12

[dago]

"The excellent (french) hardware site http://www.mat/ be.com/", and yet another time when something.be becomes "excellent", it also quickly becomes french ... ;)

Re:Seasonic S12

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully agree.

No no no! This is slashdot and you're not allowed to agree, unless the parent has lower than 5 digit... oh! That's ok then.

Re:Seasonic S12

[ForestGrump]

translated article

A better review

[alexo]

here

Re:A better review

[Evro]

Hey, but that one probably wasn't submitted by the guy who runs that site as a simple gimmick to boost traffic! I wonder if Slashdot gets kickbacks...

Re:A better review

[Zemplar]

"Mike", the builder of the test rig in that article, would have been much better off buying a water-cooled PowerMac G5 for all the extra expense he's incurred and I'm sure he's still far from silent!

Pedants Don't Win

[craznar]

"Oh wait, did you mean silent power conversion?"

Well Mr Smarty, it what case do we produce power ?

Seems to me that if we use your analogy, then power production doesn't happen, not to mention production of ANY form.

That is until the pedant takes the time to find out what production means.

Aluminium production is CONVERTING bauxite to Aluminium.

and as for this thread...

Silent Power Production is CONVERTING noisy power to silent power ... or something like that.

Re:Pedants Don't Win

[Propagandhi]

Silent Power Production is CONVERTING noisy power to silent power

Silent Power Production is converting AC to DC silently. I agree with your main points, though. Energy is conserved, therefore we're always converting it from something (mass, KE, various forms of PE, whatever).

Grandparent apparently thinks the /. editors should be able to find these pedantic little points, I think they've got their hands full with real spelling errors :) I mean, it's hard to argue that a PSU isn't outputting power...

Re:Pedants Don't Win

[hvatum]

In most people's book power production occurs when mechanical energy (such as flowing water) is converted by into electrical energy.

Maybe Commander Taco has a miniature hamptser running inside his power supply but for the rest of us that conversion takes place far away at a power plant.

Re:Pedants Don't Win

[Propagandhi]

In most people's book power production occurs when mechanical energy (such as flowing water) is converted by into electrical energy.

I'd buy that if 'most people' were mechanical engineers, but that's not the case. Mass (nuke plants), Gravity, and Chemical are all sources of PE which aren't directly related to KE (like flowing water, air, or, arguably, the photoelectric effect.. maybe...). All power plants just convert some form of energy into another, therefore the submitters slip is not a major one, and not worth fixing...

This is a silly conversation, I should be asleep.

Re:Pedants Don't Win

[hvatum]

I'd buy that if 'most people' were mechanical engineers, but that's not the case.

It is the case if you're on /.

This is a silly conversation, I should be asleep.

Hmmm, same here.

Re:Pedants Don't Win

[JourneyExpertApe]

"All power plants just convert some form of energy into another, therefore the submitters slip is not a major one, and not worth fixing..."

So what if I said I had a copper wire that produces energy? It converts electricity to electricity at a slightly lower voltage. By your definition, that's power production, I guess.

Going in my next PC

[goodbadorugly]

Having just discovered this power supply a few days ago, I can definitely say its going in my next PC. Although my primary machine thus far has been an Apple Powerbook, I can definite say that I miss a decent windows computer in my life (I switched to mac just this April). A friend asked me to troubleshoot his PC just a few days ago and scarily enough it took a few seconds to get into the groove of things in his windows environment.

Having said that, the value of a good power supply in your computer is second to none and the power supplies from Antec have never disappointed.

What intrigues me about this particular model is that unlike its less powerful brothers it actually does have a fan. Though under light loads the fan stays off or does very little spinning. For a computer I am building that is doubling as both a light gaming machine and a PVR the large rated output and silent properties make for one killer combination.

And thats what I tell myself every single dang day so I can justify its 200 dollar price tag!

Re:Going in my next PC

[lasindi]

Although my primary machine thus far has been an Apple Powerbook, I can definite say that I miss a decent windows computer in my life (I switched to mac just this April). A friend asked me to troubleshoot his PC just a few days ago and scarily enough it took a few seconds to get into the groove of things in his windows environment.

Just out of curiosity, what is it you miss about Windows? Also, why is it that troubleshooting made you nostalgic?

Re:Going in my next PC

[goodbadorugly]

Frankly I can say that there's absolutely nothing I miss about windows (except being able to play wmv movies, you never notice how everyone uses that dang format until you switch to mac). Buggy Software, bad operating system, Countless "protection" programs to keep running so your machine doesn't explode are just a few of my complaints.

The problem lies in staying the "go to guy" for the tech needs of my family and friends. Even though I maintain my households 4 windows computers it seems like Im having trouble keeping on top of the changing times. Nerd that I am, I gotta try out all the cool stuff out there to see what I can suggest to other people to meet their computer wants and needs. Unfortunately a lot of the "cool stuff" out there requires windows. I know it sounds asinine that I actually enjoy fixing other peoples computers, but what can I say, everyone has their quirks.

Re:Going in my next PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Losing that "windows touch" is good for you! Next time someone asks you to fix their computer you can just claim "im a n00b now, just like you".

Re:Going in my next PC

[Anonymous Coward]

You can play WMVs on the Mac with the OS X version of Windows Media Player, it's available as a free download on Microsoft's website.

Re:Going in my next PC

[laffer1]

Someone mentioned windows media player for the mac. Another useful program is VLC (Video lan client?) It can play avi's with mp3 audio (quicktime can't). Then download the 3ivx or divx for mac os x download and you can watch divx movies on the mac too. It can also play some wmv files that Windows Media player for the mac can't play. The biggest difference is that it doesn't have all the drm stuff so certain things won't work. (both vlc and windows media mac edition)

Virtual PC does not work for video streaming either.. too slow. And yahoo's site wont' let you use a mac at all for multimedia. Not enough drm and marketshare for their taste.

I understand your situation. I've got a ibook g4 and a wintel desktop. (linux, freebsd and solaris on it too) There are a few things you can't do on the mac like play half life.

Re:Going in my next PC

[goodbadorugly]

Thanks for the tips, I've always been a true believer in the power of vlc on any platform, most other comparable players out there just don't fit my preference on non-bloated software. The world is quickly adopting windows media player 10 and thats what scares me. There are times when I can only hear audio on a wmv movie, and other times when I can only see video, it gets annoying fast.

Funny thing is, I was actually going to add to my last post that my life feels incomplete somehow without a computer capable of playing Half Life 2.

why?

[theheff]

How loud are power supplies, anyways? Honestly? Not even 10 dB? I don't see the point of dishing out $150 for a power supply that is "silent" when I can't even hear mine now, sorry.

It is not silent

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a fan.

If that fan is moving, noise is generated.

Ergo it is not silent.

QED.

Re:It is not silent

[Frogbert]

Even if it didn't have a fan it still wouldn't be silent. There would be a slight hum of electricity and possibly some pops and cracks has a various components heated up. You can't have something that quite but you can have one you can barely hear, much less over your 5.1 system.

Re:It is not silent

[morcheeba]

It's not just fans... inductors can make noise too. On most laptops, you can hear the pitch of the power supply's whine as the processor's current needs change.

Inductors generate magnetic fields, and those fields react against other fields to generate a force -- no matter how well potted, there is just a little bit of movement..

Re:It is not silent

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if we are being pedantic, no power supply is silent. They all have some hum, even with out a fan.

Re:IT IS NOT SILENT

[moonbender]

It's still silent if the fan never turns on when you use it the way you use it. Besides, not even passively cooled PSUs are totally silent, the actual conversion has been known to create a sort of hum, buzz or ticking, especially on bad models. (Used to be worse than it is these days.)

Also, PSUs with 2 fans can still be very quiet. There's one brand of PSUs where the inner fan starts to spin up earlier than the exhaust fan (which is more easily heard). Creates positive pressure, very nice idea and apparently it really works.

Re:IT IS NOT SILENT

[cgenman]

To be fair, silent would also have no coil whine. Even without a fan you can still hear a power supply, you just have to get close enough. "Silent" just means quiet enough that you can't hear it over the background noise. It's a subjective definition, and that's what they're counting on.

Volume generally decreases with the number of fans, for a given airflow volume. If you want your machine to more quiet, double the number of fans and halve their rotational speed. Or quadrouple the number of fans, and run them almost at the point where they stop. You want a PSU that has 2X fans, running at .5 speed... Airflow increases linearly with rotation speed, whereas volume increases exponentially.

Generally the loud fans are the smaller single fans that are run at high speed. Seemingly paradoxically, a 120mm case fan will almost always be silent compared to the 40MM screamers they put on northbridge chips.

Re:IT IS NOT SILENT

[CaptnMArk]

Currently, the biggest problems in my machine is hard drive noise. I have 3 hard drives (rubber mounted).

I have a fanless PSU and CPU and a single exhaust case fan.

Coil whine is not noticeable yet.

Re:It is not silent

[Anonymous Coward]

You're human. you have blood pumping through your ears.

Therefore to you, nothing can be silent. ever.

However being near anything quieter than your own body is no different to being near something truly silent, so taking 'Silence' as pedantically as you have is kind of pointless.

Re:IT IS NOT SILENT

[cgenman]

Yeah. I had to make a custom sound-deadening enclosure with it's own series of fans to get my HDD's down to a reasonable volume. Of course, I also need a computer capable of running games... My fanless C3 is with a 1GB flashcard is pretty quiet, but try getting that to run Half-Life 2. So I'm stuck with the more noisy one. But there is a lot you can do to get the noise down.

It sounds like you're already hooked up, but just in case I recommend Silent PC Review. They were one of the first sites dedicated to the topic, and they're still the best.

Re:It is not silent

[CheeseyDJ]

If that fan is moving, noise is generated.

But if you can't hear the noise the fan is generating, it is silent from your point of view.

I thought that was fairly obvious.

Re:It is not silent

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if.. ah whom am I kidding, don't correct;

The word "silent" doesn't always mean totally noiseless. So you are just collecting karma with "witty" remarks.

Re:It is not silent

[vertinox]

It has a fan.

If that fan is moving, noise is generated.

Ergo it is not silent.

QED.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Re:It is not silent

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Just the turbulence of heated air generates noise. Any molecule aboce zero degrees Kelvin generates noise. I think air at room temperature generates around 6dB of noise.

Re:IT IS NOT SILENT

[Anonymous Coward]

It *is* silent, if the fan isn't running. Which it isn't, until the load starts getting too high and the temperature becomes a concern. For average use, the fan won't be running, and so the supply can legitimately be called 'silent'.

Re:It is not silent

[baker_tony]

The fan is turned off until it is under enough load to heat up enough that the fan needs to turn on. Therefore it is "silent" until the fan turns on. Perhaps they should've said "silent some of the time" to help people who don't read about what they're commenting on :-)

Re:It is not silent

[othojohnson]

nothing illustrates this more than an MRI machine

Hmmm

[yum]

Do you really need that much power?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I their idea of HIGH end isn't the same as mine. I just today build a system with Dual 7800GTXs, 2gigs of ram, a dual core Athlon 64, 4 SATA hard drives, + Dvd burner. Hang a few usb and firewire devices off of it, then fire up a heavy 3d game, and I'll bet you I need a BIT more than 270watts. And I'm just making sure it is stable today. I haven't even overclocked yet.

Re:Hmmm

[Kris_J]

No, but the 500W version of the Phantom comes with a fan that will kick in if things get too hot. The 300W (or is it 350W?) version has no fan, so if something goes wrong it just overheats.

Re:Hmmm

[cyclomedia]

whereas my pc falls BELOW their lowest:

2.8g p4
512mb ram (win98se)
one 40gig matrox HD
one DVD reader CD writer combo
onboard graphics*
one cpu fan
one 120mm case fan, with a resistor inline to drop it
PSU butchered so it is in the path of aforementioned 120mm fan

the psu was a very cheap one that came with a £10 case but appears to be handling things fine, sans GFX card.

i'd love a fanless power supply when i upgrade again but like silentpcreview says i doubt i'll need a 500W one, at the mo you cant hear the computer when you, say, play an mp3 or watch a DVD on it
(*the mobo didnt like my geForce)

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you got a gaming rig and an underpowered 12V rail, then yes.

Overrated subject?

[markass530]

I understand how the proliferation of the p4 and its space heater specs created a bit of a backlash against the modern computer and its exponential power requirements & noise generation, but I think it's gone overboard. Who doesn't have some kind of background noise on the computer be it, a movie, or mp3 playing. How really big is the market for absolute silence, beyond media pc's, where high power requirements shouldn't exist.

Re:Overrated subject?

[Mr2001]

My "media PC" is a medium tower on the floor next to my TV. It needs a decent power supply to run my GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (which I use for TV-out and to play Halo), and it could stand to be a lot quieter. It's distracting trying to watch a movie with that fan running.

Re:Overrated subject?

[markass530]

5200 Ultra? Isn't that an oxymoron? I never knew such a beast existed.

Re:Overrated subject?

[Mr2001]

Indeed it did... here's a review.

You want loud...

[vchoy]

...You don't need a powersupply, why not try the Nvidia FlowFX GFX card?

or mirror

A silent power producer?

[Charles Jo]

Inconceivable!

Why all the silent computers?

[Zakabog]

I've got 2 computers with 6 hard drives, a refrigerator and a small pepsi machine, my room sounds like a wind tunnel and that's just the way I like it!

I've really never been bothered by the noise, it's very loud in my room and I'm just used to it. If it was silent in here I'd never be able to fall asleep because I'm just used to hearing that noise in the background and that always helps me sleep. Kind of like a wave machine or something, it's peacefull. Lets me know we still have power. If I wanted to make a silent PC I could probably do it pretty easily, water cooled and kept in a box (like a wooden box or a cabinet or something like that) with sufficient ventilation.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[LarsWestergren]

Well, you are unusual then. Noise affects people differently, but experiements show that for many people, a lot of ambient noise disturbs sleep, causing fewer REM periods. It can also damage your hearing over time.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[Dysproxia]

my room sounds like a wind tunnel and that's just the way I like it!

Yes, you are a big man. But some of us still have our hearing and are not fond of constant (artificial) tinnitus.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[MasJ]

Actually, I totally agree with the parent post. In summers I have the air conditioner running so that noise kind of drowns out my PC. But in winters I can't sleep at night if it's awfully quiet, I have to keep the PC running and have got to have that hard drive light flickering to sleep. Call me crazy but I've been sleeping with the PC on for over 10 years now, it's impossible to sleep without it. I can't stand absolute silence if I need to sleep : (.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[AaronLawrence]

I've noticed that a nice even white noise makes me sleep poorly. I wake up feeling kind of drugged, even though I slept pretty solidly.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Silence is all about the freedom to pick your noises. 6000rpm fan might well be welcome white-noise when i'm trying to sleep, but when viewing a movie i'd certainly be better off without it.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try physical activity, fatty.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[karnal]

My wife likes to sleep with the TV on.

I find that after a few nights of "TV-on" sleep, I feel like total crap. Almost like I haven't slept.

Now I turn the TV off when I go to sleep.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[Vitriol Angst]

+4 Insightful?

Really? I've fricken' put original blueprints on this sight and I'm lucky to get a 3.... you must have been really smart in a previous life or something. I wouldn't say insightful, I'd think you were more of a +4 funny.

Plus whore honey?

No, +4 Funny.

Puss gore sunny?

Never mind. More math that my dog won't understand. Even more futile because I don't have a dog. I've got a very loud PC as well, but it doesn't really bother me either because the interface requires me to cool the CPU with my prostate. It does make my teeth kind of tickle... so the sound isn't quite the issue it used to be. I never thought I'd be biting a pillow this much ... live and learn.

Re:Why all the silent computers?

[theJML]

Why silent computers?

I have a few linux boxes. I have a fianceé.

If the first one is loud, so is the second one...'nuff said.

500W+

[khann80]

While I am impressed with a quiet strong power supply I would rather see advances in NOT needed something this big. Though a single computer doesn't really draw that much power most of the people (read geeks) I know have a bunch of computers. I really don't want my computers drawing more power than the house next door.

Re:500W+

[pedestrian crossing]

500W is the capacity of the PS, not the actual power usage. It is all of the -other- components in your computer that determine how much power you are using. The important factor in the power supply itself is its conversion efficiency.

In general, a large-capacity PS is a good thing; if you are only pulling, say 300W through a 500W supply, odds are it will be running cool and quiet, and providing clean power to your components, since you are not pushing the PS to its design limit.

That said, your point that it would be a good thing if people didn't need so much power (ie., used less demanding components) is right on. But I believe it is a good thing to use a bigger PS than you think you need, it helps the rest of your parts last longer if they are getting good, clean power.

Re:500W+

[Anonymous Coward]

I do. I want hot computers. Lots of them. I want my computers to make my house blaze brightly in the infrared.

It'll disguise the heat from the sunlamps in the basement for my "garden" :-)

The only noise it makes is a slight crackling...

[thomble]

...and that's the sound of your server room burning down.

While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[saskboy]

Don't forget to invest at least $50US into a UPS, so that your investment is isolated from surges, and browouts. You'll also benefit from being mostly immune from short power flickers, as long as your modem and router are backed up by the battery in the UPS too.

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[rthille]

And be careful what you hook up to the UPS. You don't want high-current things like laser printers hooked up, and not just because it'll drain your battery faster. Also, motors are bad. Something about inductive loads. I've got two separate strips, well marked as to whether they are 'interruptable' or 'uninterruptable'.

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[pedestrian crossing]

I run my system on a UPS for the reasons you state, but I had an experience that makes me wonder.

I had a motherboard that died (fried capacitors, anyone?), and the resulting load tripped the circuit breaker for that room.

But the UPS kept the power coming in spite of the tripped breaker, and the result was a fair amount of smoke from the MB before the power supply in the PC finally gave up and died.

I got lucky, but it could have easily burned the house down...

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[saskboy]

Wow, I'd guess that's from a faulty UPS? What brand did you have? Did you get insurance from their lifetime guarantee off of it? Most UPSes I know of have some sort of waranty so that if you have a power problem and their product doesn't protect you, then they'll replace their defective product and the equipment it wrecked.

I have a Cyber Power right now, but the battery has died in it, so it only gives about .5 seconds protection from power failure for my computer and networking gear.

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[pedestrian crossing]

The UPS (1400W APC) wasn't faulty, it worked like a champ and kept providing power after the circuit breaker in the house tripped.

The problem is inherent in having a large-capacity UPS. If something that is connected to it starts pulling enough load to trip the room's breaker, the UPS keeps the power coming, which kind of defeats the purpose of a circuit breaker. In my case the increased load was a shorted-out mobo, which almost caught fire before the power supply in the computer acted as an expensive circuit breaker between the UPS and the mobo.

In some circumstances, having uninterruptable power can have unforseen results.

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[saskboy]

I understand now. I thought a UPS would have some sort of fuse that would take care of a situation like that. Glad you avoided a fire.

Re:While you're spending $200 on a PSU...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand how the household circuit breaker could be tripped by a working UPS. Please explain.

I WANT a politically correct power supply

[Anonymous Coward]

"I want my power supply to be loud. I need as much white noise as I can get."

Hey man! That's racist. The politically correct phrase is athletically-challenged noise.

Wouldn't be /. without....

[divisivemind]

.. a comment disparaging yet-to-be-released Windoze

Re:Wouldn't be /. without....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Slashdot. Get over it.

Batteries produce power

[Markus Registrada]

... silently.

Power is defined as energy transmitted/consumed/converted per unit time. A battery (like a fuel tank, or a dam) stores energy. Unplugged, power is zero. When you draw from it, it's producing power, and drawing down its energy reserves to do so.

Things get simpler when you use precise language, and avoid confusing yourself.

Re:Batteries produce power

[kfg]

A battery (like a fuel tank, or a dam) stores energy.

An AC to DC power "supply" is not a battery, fuel tank, or dam. It neither stores nor actually supplies power. The potential energy comes from a source external to the power "supply" and is "pushed" through it.

KFG

Re:Batteries produce power

[Tango42]

The mains supplies power to the PSU and the PSU supplies power to the PC. It does that by converting it, but so does everything else that produces power, or anything for that matter.

Would you say Intel don't produce processors? By your logic they just convert the component parts into processors.

Re:Batteries produce power

[kfg]

You are confusing power, which is the flow of electricity through the wire, with energy. It is the potential energy which supplies the power. The power supply is just a system of pipes and valves, the pump, which provides the potential, is the supplier. Remove the power supply and electrical energy still flows to the componants of the computer (although the computer will not be "happy" about it). Turn of the pump and it does not.

A battery and dam actually store and release potential energy. They are pumps. A power supply just sits there in the way of the flow, it is a passive componant.

By your logic they just convert the component parts into processors.

Well I presume they are not producing matter from the void, but using preexisting, found matter, yes. I produce a chair, but I do so by converting a tree into a chair. It would be a pretty neat trick if I could actually produce a tree.

But this has nothing to do with the power supply of a computer. The electrons already exist in the wire. The generating plant pushes them through the wire. It's their motion that is power. A constriction in a pipe is not a water supply. That would be the cistern (water battery) on the roof, converting the potential energy of gravity into power.

KFG

Re:Batteries produce power

[Intron]

By your definition, what does produce power? A generator is just converting mechanical energy to electricity, not actually creating power. The Sun is just a big battery converting nuclear energy to light and heat. It doesn't actually create energy. Nothing does. All places that you get power from are converters of one type or another, since the total amount of mass+energy in the universe doesn't change (much).

Re:Batteries produce power

[Ryan Amos]

The process of matter -> energy is considered power production. Usually some sort of exothermic reaction (say, burning diesel fuel) releases the energy stored in matter (e=mc^2 and all that jazz) The efficiency is nowhere near fusion, but it's the same principle.

Re:Batteries produce power

[kfg]

By your definition, what does produce power?

A mass in motion. Delta W/Delta t.

A generator is just converting mechanical energy to electricity, not actually creating power.

You are definately confusing power with energy. Power is not energy. My concrete slab floor has a good deal of energy. E=mc^2 plus a certain amount of thermal energy. It is doing no work so it is producing no energy.

A coal fired steam generator converts heat energy into electrical potential energy. When the potential energy is released by your opening the valve at your computer (pushing the "on" button) electrons move through the wires. It is the motion over time that is power.

The generator is the source of the potential. The power supply is not. A battery and a dam are actually reseviors of potential energy. Thus a battery is a power supply. It is the resevoir of surplus electrons and the motive force to push them through the wire.

A power supply is a passive componant.

There's a dam on a pond near your house. The pond is the water supply, the dam the means by which potential energy is stored in the pond. There is a big pipe from the dam to your house. A littler pipe goes from the big pipe into your house, where there is a network of various pipes of various sizes that "convert" the flow of the water (make the water move faster or slower). Your home plumbing is the "power supply."

Except in this case you can more easily intuit that it is the pond that is really the water supply.

When you open a faucet water flows through the pipes and it is the motion of the water that is power, and the potential energy stored in the pond by the dam that supplies the energy to create the motion.

Your plumbing is passive.

If instead of a pond you have a water tower on your roof, you fill it with water from somewhere or other (which is going to require the use of power, maybe your arm moving in a circle). The tower is the water supply, the water in it has potential energy transfered to it when it was put into the tank (converted from the heat energy of a Mars bar).

The tank is a water battery. The potential energy stored in it will make water move through your pipes.

Your plumbing (power supply) is still just plumbing. It "converts" the water from flowing down at one speed to water flowing left at another. It doesn't supply the water, the energy or have anything at all to do with power. The falling water is power.

A generator takes electrons from a resevoir at point A (its coils) and pushes them through the wires to point B. In the process they move through your power "supply" which makes them "go left."

Re:Batteries produce power

[Anonymous Coward]

Power is defined as energy transmitted/consumed/converted per unit time. A battery (like a fuel tank, or a dam) stores energy. Unplugged, power is zero. When you draw from it, it's producing power, and drawing down its energy reserves to do so.

Things get simpler when you use precise language, and avoid confusing yourself.

And, when you have a degree in electrical engineering!

Re:Batteries produce power

[pipingguy]

  Things get simpler when you use precise language, and avoid confusing yourself.
 
Yo, homey, mad props on wordin' up, you be da bomb. Shiznit!

Direct link to Antec's page for this supply

[Some Guy in Canada]

This is Antec's page about this model of power supply:
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID= 24500.

Thank Joe Betts

[Markus Registrada]

It was Joe Betts, working at IBM Almaden Research Lab, who designed the first 90%+ efficient switching power-brick, for the Thinkpad. Before that, bricks were all twice as big, and ran hot-hot-hot. After that, all the other guys had to clean up their acts too. He didn't study electrical engineering in school, but he didn't let that slow him down; he learned what he needed when he needed it.

Nowadays he's at Oqo.

This is lame.

[Zebra_X]

Considering the processing demands of something like, *cough* Windows Vista, its important to be able to keep your computer cool without it getting loud."

There have been a number of posts in recent weeks that have been all /cry /moan /sob about Vista's requirements.

High computing requirements are a fact of life when you have an operating system that has a fully abstracted graphics layer (OS X comes to mind). No doubt Vista will be "borrowing" the quartz architecture. From Apple's site "Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and later, or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required."

I don't read anything about people complaining that their G4 or G5 requires a dedicated GPU and very fast processor to run OS X. Apple has made their hardware such a black box that no one really notices that the hardware is generally several steps above the PC realm in terms of performance (though you wouldn't always know it). Microsoft is moving in a similar direction, though I'm sure that even thouse of us with integrated intel graphics cards will have a reasonable experience.

The funny thing is Mac users have had these hardware requirements (and cost) for over 4 years now.

Re:This is lame.

[Yaztromo]

There have been a number of posts in recent weeks that have been all /cry /moan /sob about Vista's requirements.

High computing requirements are a fact of life when you have an operating system that has a fully abstracted graphics layer (OS X comes to mind). No doubt Vista will be "borrowing" the quartz architecture. From Apple's site "Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and later, or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required."

Are you high? Can you not see the difference between a video card with 16MB VRAM versus 256MB VRAM? That's what Microsoft is suggesting you need to use Aero and Glass. Apple's Quartz Extreme only requires 64MB VRAM.

Want to know why people are moaning about Vista's requirements? Because Microsoft is requiring users to have four times the video memory to do what a Macintosh can do today.

And to try to make this post somewhat on-topic, my PowerBook does Quartz 2D Extreme with not only 64MB of VRAM, but also only uses a 65W power supply. And that drives the video display as well.

Yaz.

Re:This is lame.

[Zebra_X]

"Am I high?" No.

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry360.html

Have a read. 256 is "ideal". 128 is "better" which would indicate that 64 is not out of the running as a minimum. the ati radeon 9600, a near univeral chip ships at 128 (in your beloved G5 no less LOL) and 256 . You can also get the 256 model for 75 bucks. What's the problem? If you had to ask apple what the "ideal" GPU requirements for the OS were, what do you think they would say? There is also no way of knowing how well it will perform until it's released. Nigel is the only source of information that we have on GPU requirements. But to put all of this squarely against your statement: Microsoft is requiring nothing of you as a user. You don't need to upgrade if you don't want to buy a new graphics card. Nor is there any indication that if you did upgrade you would be "required" to go out and buy a video card with 256 mb ram.

Re:This is lame.

[KylePflug]

Having run Aero Glass on a 128mb video card very, very smoothly, I can confidently say taht 256mb is a huge overestimation of the requirements. And you don't *have* to run in Glass.

Re:This is lame.

[drsmithy]

Apple has made their hardware such a black box that no one really notices that the hardware is generally several steps above the PC realm in terms of performance (though you wouldn't always know it).

You seem to have the bass-ackwards. Apple is typically several steps *below* the PC realm in terms of hardware specifications and performance (carefully scripted photoshop benchmarks aside and occasional brief periods of time after the introduction of brand new hardware excepted) - and that's ignoring the situations where comparable hardware on the Mac simply doesn't exist.

Re:This is lame.

[jimi the hippie]

How is 128 going to be better than 256?

Re:This is lame.

[Zebra_X]

The size statements are independent. Better does not modify ideal.

Re:This is lame.

[Yaztromo]

No, you're high.

You see, on the Mac, 64MB of VRAM is considered "ideal" for Quartz 2D Extreme, so the Windows Vista requirements are still 4 times higher.

Look, you came up with an idiotic comparison. And now you're trying to make an uneducated extrapolation that Vista's effects will even work in 64MB of VRAM, when the very site you quote only mentions 128MB VRAM and 256MB VRAM. Indeed, to quote from the very first paragraph:

A 128 megabyte display card will be good, and a 256 megabyte or better display card will be ideal.

So no, 128MB isn't listed as "better", only as "good". And anyone who has dealt with Microsoft for any length of time knows that this can typically be translated as meaning "anything less is going to suck".

You can't go around saying "people shouldn't moan about Vista's requirements -- the Mac has high requirements as well!" when, in actual fact, Apple's requirements are a quarter of what is currently known about Vista's requirements in the video processing capabilities you yourself decided to compare.

(And I'm not even going to get into the fact that Vista is still more than a year away, and that what we currently know about it's minimum requirements could very well go up during that time...the fact that you're comparing vaporware to released software that achieves the same ends with less hardware is telling in and of itself).

Yaz.

Re:This is lame.

[Zebra_X]

You see, on the Mac, 64MB of VRAM is considered "ideal" for Quartz 2D Extreme, so the Windows Vista requirements are still 4 times higher.

You are making that up. The apple line contains systems with 32 - 128 mb of VRAM. In addition there are no pages on the apple site that state the "ideal" amount of ram, just the minimum @ 16 MB. Source? Also, the requirements are not 4 times higher.

And now you're trying to make an uneducated extrapolation that Vista's effects will even work in 64MB of VRAM, when the very site you quote only mentions 128MB VRAM and 256MB VRAM. Indeed, to quote from the very first paragraph:

LOL. At least I cite sources. You've made baseless unproven claims. See this link: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/graph ics-reqs.mspx. Aero will require 32 mb, and Aero Glass will require 64 mb for minimums. Also, 128 is cited as "recommended" for aero glass.

Apple's requirements are a quarter of what is currently known about Vista's requirements in the video processing capabilities you yourself
decided to compare.

Apple's requirements are half of the proposed vista minimums not a quarter.

(And I'm not even going to get into the fact that Vista is still more than a year away, and that what we currently know about it's minimum requirements could very well go up during that time...the fact that you're comparing vaporware to released software that achieves the same ends with less hardware is telling in and of itself).

"Vaporware" - that's why there is a beta out? Last time I checked vaporware applied to a product that has been announced but has no tangible proof of its existance. The minium requirements could change, thanks for restating what I've already said.

What you fail to realize is that at OS X's inital release it's system requirements were significantly higher than XP's. This is why I say that OS X has already "set the bar" if you will, and that for the most part the jump to Vista is not really that drastic in comparison to what Apple has already done. At it's release XP required a video card that will support 800x600 operation and at least 8 mb of video ram if you want to watch DVD's. OS X required double the minimum amount of RAM of XP, the recommended amount was also double of XP as well. It is for these reasons that I use OS X as an example for an OS that has high system requirements.

Re:This is lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

[I don't read anything about people complaining that their G4 or G5 requires a dedicated GPU and very fast processor to run OS X.]

I have a couple of old iMac G3-400 and G3-333 machines that run OS X just fine, all day every day. They are still fine office machines. Also, each version of X since 10.0 has been *faster* on those old machines than the previous one. When you're just doing basic work (mail, web, MS Word, Excel, etc), you can't tell much of a difference between those and the dual 2.7 G5s.

OS X has become more efficient over time, not less.

Newegg

[DavidLeeRoth]

For all you guys jumpin' to get this, the detailed specs of it are located here, as well as a place to buy it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817103926#DetailSpecs

IT IS NOT SILENT

[CaptnMArk]

It has a fan.

Silent = no fan
Quiet = quiet fan

(2x fan -> ! Quiet)

IMO

(I now have a silent 350W power supply)

redirect

[ruiner5000]

can we just redirect slashdot to xyzcomputing? it would make it easier really.

Just as a data point

[ChrisShmit]

The human brain uses 50 watts.

Re:Just as a data point

[Cave_Monster]

50W to run something that uses less than 10% of its theoretical capacity ... what a power hungry device! What are brain engineers doing these days? Obviously not their jobs. :P

Re:Just as a data point

[Anonymous Coward]

We use 100% of our brain. (well, maybe you don't :p)

Re:Just as a data point

[BoneFlower]

We might use 100% of the physical mass, but that doesn't mean we use 100% of the capacity.

Re:Just as a data point

[Anonymous Coward]

Please state your definition for brain capacity and mass so I can say you're wrong :p

Exactly.

[Craig Davison]

Now that the motors on (consumer level) hard drives are nearly silent, the loudest source of noise from your computer is probably the processor fan, followed by any small peripheral fans such as those found on video cards and motherboard chipsets. The power supply fan is probably the quietest moving part in your PC.

Power supplies also make the least distracting sound (IMO) because the large, slow fans produce more of a whoosh than a whine. Try powering on your computer with your processor out and no drives plugged in to see what I mean.

Re:Exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

true, my power supply has a 100mm fan making it extremely quiet. However you can also get 100mm fans for your processor and your video card.

This makes the loudest fan in my case, the fan on the chipset.

Lousy review, and about 5 months late

[freidog]

Silent PC Review did a review of the Phaton 500 back in May; and did a far better job of actually putting it through its paces.

This is a typical PSU review, that is to say worthless. The problem is to do a good PSU reivew you actually need quite a bit of hardware, most little online sites lack even the most basic testing tools (a good multimeter and a controllable load). They make no mention of how they measured the voltages (software, or voltmeter, and from where, pigtail, ATX connector, somewhere else), they put a system that probably doesn't draw 125W DC at load to test out a 500W PSU, they have no real PSU temperature or efficency information. Typical of a site who's reviewing expertiese consists soley of swaping out parts, running 3D Mark and reporting the difference.

Silent PC Review does half way decent reviews, and over the last year or so XBit Labs has starting doing very good PSU reviews. Beyond that there aren't too many places that consistantly hit the mark.

For a silent PSU (not sure why this is that big of a deal, I have a TruePower 330W and can't hear it over the HDD, but I guess some people will always pay for that last dB quieter), there's of course the Phantom 300, the SilverStone 'NF' series, a 300 and a 400W version, the Fortron Source Zen 300; recently reviewed on XBitLabs and Silent PC Review, with just rock solid voltages across the spectrum. And of course the SeaSonic S12 line while not fanless is known to be extremely quiet and highly efficient

Re:Lousy review, and about 5 months late

[AaronLawrence]

Agreed. The silentpc review was MUCH better, more thorough. And no ads! Remarkable. Whereas the XYZ "review" was loaded down with "contextual" junk links and massive ads.

Thanks SPCR, donation sent your way...

Re:Lousy review, and about 5 months late

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't this review posted already? It's not even new as far as I can tell...maybe it is and it's just another crappy XYZ review. I nominate banning XYZ from /. Waste of precious BW :)

Re:I GOT A GREASED UP YODA DOLL SHOVED UP MY ASS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Receiving, that is.

Not sure about you

[TeamAwsom]

But the idea of smart fan control has always scared me. I'm not ready to trust something that turns the fan off. My latest motherboard has this control and it was a little too much for me to swallow - the massive wallet reduction and then the sight of that fan sitting there stationary.

Re:Direct link to Froogle with Price Sorted Low to

[JourneyExpertApe]

Wow, only $150. What a bargain!
[/sarcasm]

Do the Slashvertizements cost less if they're posted this late?

Antec stuff usually is very good VALUE.

[elucubra]

Disclaimer: no relation to ANTEC, just a pleased customer.

I personaly own three ANTEC cases, and I must say they are GOOD! All three cases are in a SOHO, not very large, and you just don't hear them.
The ARIA ( my personal favorite) is a SFF micro ATX case that lets me put in MY choice mATX mobo, micro, and cooler.
It has an external 5,25" bay with a spring loaded trapdoor to allow the installation of any unit without regard to the color, since once the tray is closed, it is fully hidden.
The whole thing has ONE thumbscrew to open, the rest being spring tabs. It can house up to three internal drives, has a built in card reader, it includes an optional rear slot cover fan, rubber spacer screws for mounting HDD, plenty of power headers, 120 mm. silent fans, plenty of screws, standoffs, metal brackets for multiple internal configurations, and more.

All for about $90 / 80.

I haven't pulled out my SPL meter, but the thing is very, very quiet ( one LJ4+ in standby is louder than all three ANTECS).

All in all, Very Good Value.

Nerds contribute to Global Warming

[gonza]

With reports like this, this and this (Polar ice caps melting), not to mention the fact that events like Katrina are expected to increase in number, you'd think well informed nerds could get over the light headed feeling they get when someone presents the next upgrade to their computer system and consider the impact that their coal-powered l33t-box is having.

Re:Nerds contribute to Global Warming

[nelsonal]

The big one is driving, the US rolling stock is several times bigger than the national electric grid. It all depends on if said geeks drive to work or commute a different way (electronically, public trans, bike, etc). If the latter, they probably have a fairly minor impact relative to someone who has a webTV at home but drives to the clubs or shopping centers for entertainment.

Consumer Level

[TheStonepedo]

Where do you set your "consumer level"? If your consumer is playing fancy dancy games, there will be noisy fans on video cards, processors, and chipsets. If your consumer is trying to get a silent computer, fighting for 500 watts of power seems a little much. Most applications that really gobble power are going to be those with heavy emphasis on 3d graphics or video processing. A silent computer could run an embedded VIA chip on much less power, output satisfactory 2d video and surround audio, and cost less in total than high-end gaming video cards. I can't imagine too many 500 watt consumers care more about silencing their box more than they care about cranking out a few more frames per second.

Re:Consumer Level

[Craig Davison]

I meant to say that consumer level hard drives are not a significant source of noise. The average cheap 200 GB SATA drives you would find in a computer store will probably be a fluid dynamic bearing or similar silent drive. The expensive 70GB Ultra320 15K RPM drives intended for the RAID array in the server room are still as noisy as ever.

And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Moraelin]

"And to try to make this post somewhat on-topic, my PowerBook does Quartz 2D Extreme with not only 64MB of VRAM, but also only uses a 65W power supply. And that drives the video display as well."

Right. But you just somehow know that Vista will need 500W for that display card. That's funny, because I thought the RAM wasn't what used a ton of power on VGA cards. I'm pretty sure you could get a 256 MB 9250 or 5200. And here's the fun part: a 5200 doesn't need more power in a PC than it needs in a Mac.

Add a 25W Pentium M (you know, the same one that Apple itself is going to use in its Intel Macs) and it seems to me like you don't end up needing a small nuclear plant, Vista or no Vista.

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken, Vista will need a fast 256MB graphics card all for itself. If you want to run 3D games, you will need at least a 512MB video card (256MB for Vista, and 256MB for the game) and probably a 1GB card.

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Moraelin]

Geeze, dude, even skipping over the fact that MS never said 256 MB would be required, do you even understand what Windows uses a video card for?

_How_ is that card going to stay in use while you run a full-screen 3D game? No, really, what UI animations do you think Windows runs in the background while a game has the full screen? Why would it need to keep that RAM allocated? No, seriously.

For that matter, what do you think it uses it for when you're outside a game? Well, 99% of the time for nothing whatsoever, and the other 1% of the time for some fancy UI animation. And that's if it's a REALLY fancy UI.

So a slower graphics card would do... what? Animate those occasional fancy effects at 10 frames per second instead of 60? (And then go back to sitting idle.) Even skipping over the fact that you can turn that fancy stuff off completely, how's that going to force you to get a top graphics card and a 500W PSU?

So, please.

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[AMD4L1PH3]

Why would it need to keep that RAM allocated? No, seriously. So a slower graphics card would do... what? Animate those occasional fancy effects at 10 frames per second instead of 60? (And then go back to sitting idle.) Even skipping over the fact that you can turn that fancy stuff off completely, how's that going to force you to get a top graphics card and a 500W PSU?

+1 if I had mod points

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Vitriol Angst]

Seriously dude?

Serious.

Dude?

Yeah. Serious.

Seriously serious.

Dude!

Well what about the minimum specs for the processor and graphics card? Dude?

Dude. Just a little eye candy.

Dude, they are offloading a 3D interface -- just like Core Graphics on the Mac to be rendered by the graphics card ... so you can't really get the GUI to work without the 256 Meg Card -- it isn't eye candy -- it's the whole interface and resources that will be used by future applications that want to take advantage of the Quartz--I mean Aqua technology. Plus, the services are going to require a processor that hasn't come out yet. All told, do you know of a 3Ghz CPU and 256 Meg 3D card that can run with less than a 400 Watt Power supply?

Seriously Dude?

Serious. ... Dude ...

Hey, I'm a Mac user and even I know that the specs aren't for eye candy. So serious. ... hmmm, Major.

Re:And how do you know Vista needs 500W?

[Yaztromo]

Right. But you just somehow know that Vista will need 500W for that display card.

Sigh...welcome to Reading Comprehension 101.

I didn't make any suggestion that Vista needs a 500W power supply. Others have (including the /. article summary), but I made no such suggestion. So don't attribute it to me.

However, you've set-up a fine strawman, so far be it for me to prevent you from knocking it down.

Yaz.

Get Well Soon!

[hrm]

What's with the *cough*? Do you have a cold or something?

Re:Get Well Soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

In before "it's a Micro$$$oft Bug/Virus LOL".

p.s. If you were going to post this, shut up.

That's trolling about Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Vista doesn't have any higher requirements. It is RECOMMENDED though. You see, you can put on all kinds of eye candy on you Linux desktop as well making it just as heavy. Most of the people do not though. They are not forced into that. Neither will they be with Vista. It has the lighter options available as well all the time.

The poster obviously has not bothered even checking out what the Vista is all about and what it is like it seems.

What comes to a slight baseline upgrade (to ~ medium range P4s and such) it's actually just healthy (no need supporting ancient crap that is ovrwhelmingly slow and bad to work with) and most of us have been way over that line for couple years already. ALSO it allows them to optimize the Vista greatly.

Just like what for instance Gentoo people are doing. Building modern stuff with no unnecessary antics slowing the OS down. It's nice. (Though the eternal compiling sucks.)

Is the PS now the biggest heat producer in an PC?

[Dr. Spork]

I had just built a new computer with a 90nm Athlon64 and a 500W power supply. This is mainly for work, so no hot/fancy GPU. The CPU heatsink is absolutely cold to the touch. The air blown from inside the case feels exactly the same temperature as background. But, the air that comes out of the power supply is noticably warm. It really seems like the power supply is the only thing that is actually producing any heat. Is this typical of modern systems? How much more difficult is it to make efficient power supplies? Somehow I feel even worse about all the power I waste on power supply inefficiency than the power I waste with my CPU.

Re:Is the PS now the biggest heat producer in an P

[lucifer_666]

Look, you are probably correct. But please humour me and take that case cover off, and double... no tripple check your heatsink is actually touching the CPU. Check it is secured down tight. Check you have used thermal material.

Basically there is no way that heat sink should be cold. The heat must be going somewhere. If your heatsink is not seated correctly, the heat is going back through the CPU pins to the motherboard, which will go bang some time in the near future.

I know you are probably very skilled and good, but please... just humour me... everybody could make a mistake.

Phantom Blows...

[mungeh]

My phantom 500w lasted about 5 days before it ceased to function in any computer I tried it in. Took the surge protector with it now.

A good test of this PSU will be to see how the manafacturer deals with my problem.

hexus

[Anonymous Coward]

Hexus.net recently benchmarked 34 PSU's,

http://img.hexus.net/v2/psu/taoyuan_34_2005/images /bench_temp.png
http://img.hexus.net/v2/psu/taoyuan_34_2005/images /bench_efficiency.png

"Interestingly and one for the conspiracy theorists, the top 4, including two engineering samples given to us by FSP, are all manufactured by FSP Group. The vast majority of supplies have between 70 and 80% efficiency under heavy load however, and 75% is a fine figure to use in quick calculations based on input power, to find output power into the system, if you want a rough guide and can't measure and calculate it yourself.

An efficiency of 80% or more from the FSP Group units is from recent designs that make use of more expensive components that waste less input power as heat, converting more to output power. As time goes by, the other vendors in the group should catch up. 80% efficiency when outputting a true 700 watts is outstanding."

"The AOpen AO700-12ALN is an engineering sample of a design they've created whose connector bundle isn't final. AOpen plan to use the internals in an enthusiast-class PSU and wanted to know what I thought. The full 700W of output power being made at 82.82% efficiency without any huge heat issues left me gobsmacked. +12V was a little on the high side under heavy load, but a whopping 60A of current capacity from four separate +12V rails more than makes up for it.

They hinted that the design was capable of a frankly rediculous 900W or so of true output power at 75% efficiency, should they wish to set it up that way.

They've been experimenting in the labs to come up with a design for the enthusiast and while it won't be cheap, it should perform like a champ given the showing of the engineering sample."

"Funnies
You don't spend a week in PD's company without hilarity ensuing. As I tested the QTec Triple Fan 650W, PD was sat nearby working on some copy for the site. He heard me laughing as the input power shot up to 900W for just 400W of output power. "Video it, Rys!". So I did. The following download is the last few seconds of that PSU's life, in input power terms, before I turn the camera off and stand back from the test bench to watch it pop. I really wish I'd caught it on camera for you, but I didn't want to stand too close as nearly 1100 watts made that piece of junk go bang.

Click the image below to download the ~600KiB .avi file. XviD is the encoder, so a recent FFDShow will help you play it if you can't already."
http://img.hexus.net/v2/psu/taoyuan_34_2005/images /psulol.jpg
http://img.hexus.net/v2/psu/taoyuan_34_2005/images /lol.avi

Review
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359&pa ge=22

Re:hexus

[Anonymous Coward]

And another thing

"FSP Group Epsilon FSP700-80GL
FSP contacted us recently (3rd week of August) to let us know that a similar configuration will be sold by them at retail under the Epsilon brand. Their FSP Group Epsilon FSP700-80GL is a 700W supply with similar characteristic. Connector configuration is still to be decided and we'll let you know what it is as soon as they've finalised it, but expect dual PCI Express graphics power, plenty of SATA and a modular ATX cable. Hopefully presentation will be spot on, too.

The certification for the Epsilon FSP700-80GL is complete, the unit passing CE and complying with the European Low Voltage Directive and FSP have used an external testing house for the certification. Look out for a full review of the unit as soon as we can get our hands on one."

http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/english/1_product/2_de tail.asp?mainid=1&fid=98&proid=462
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1 841&page=3

I don't understand

[TheScorpion420]

I have a relatively mild system, still power hungry, but not overly and it runs on a 250 Watt Sparkle PSU. Has been doing so for about 6 months, I though I needed a huge over the top PSU and I bought one, and it proceeded to take out one of my main HDD's, and it wasn't a bargain basement one either. That 250 watt psu runs a Asus A7V400 MB, 2 200gig SATA HDD's, 2 ATA 133 HDD's, DVD-ROM and DVD-RW, AMD XP 2700+ and a GeForce5200 Ultra, never a burp or complaint. I just don't understand why in the world you would need 500 watts of PSU unless you were running some quad CPU monster or something.

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see here.
The *actual* peak wattage of a dual-core Opteron is 110W. See amd.com for that if you need proof.

Each DIMM is up to 9 W, but budget 10 to be safe.

Your drives are 20 W peak each, but budget 25 to be safe.

Graphics cards are getting worse than CPUs. Even moderate cards are up to 50 W peak and imagine a high end SLI config.

Budget another 50-100 W for the motherboard and other cards/devices you may have.

So a dual-core Opteron, 2 DIMMs, 4 hard drives, 1 DVDRW, 1 midrange graphics card is easily over 300 watts *actual peak* and that's before you take PSU inefficiency into account. A decent SLI config would blow that wattage easily over 400 W. Suddenly you need a 550-600 W PSU to cover that. An 800W one would save you more money by being more efficient.

it's high efficiency...

[YesIAmAScript]

But it isn't actually higher than the Antec recommended. SilentPCReview had decided it was, but has since written a large article about how their measurements overestimated the efficiency of high capacity power supplies, like the Seasonic 500W.

They're both high efficency, quiet power supplies. The Antec fails the regulation specs on the 3.3V line, so perhaps that's a reason to buy the Seasonic. Otherwise, it's really a toss up. Take your pick.

Say, did you even read about the Antec 500W anyway? It actually has a fan, it is thermistor controlled. At regular useage levels, it doesn't turn the fan on at all. Sound familiar? The Antec fan is located on the inside of the machine, not at the back. So you won't hear it. I do agree in general a 120mm fan is better than an 80mm, but in this case, you won't hear either of them, unless perhaps you don't have hard drives in your machine and thus it is truly silent.

Kinda weird. Many responses on /. seem to think the Phantom is fanless. Like perhaps they didn't even read the article. The article mentions it has a fan IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH.

Re:it's high efficiency...

[moonbender]

Well, many people don't read the article. It would have been useful to mention it in the summary. (Note: I knew all about the Phantom 500 before, anyway, I thought everybody did.)

Zenion-Air effect (ionic breeze)

[Spy Handler]

maybe when the patent on zenion-air effect (used in the ionic breeze air purifier) expires, they could use it for computer fans.

Zenion-air effect is a way of inducing an airflow without using fans or moving parts so it's vewy vewy quiet.

Making a silent power supply is trivial!

[Anonymous Coward]

The question boils down to one of economics, size and weight. In any event, you still have the problem of cooling the rest of the computer. Do you want a silent computer? How much are you willing to spend?

My own solution is to put the noisy computer in the basement and xterm to it with a relatively quiet laptop.

Sonic War

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a nice Sub and when you goto work (but the neighbors are home) turn it on at 19hz, just low enough so they cannot hear it, but it will still effect them - and their pets!

Using Oil to Suppress Noise?

[Bad to the Ben]

I was just thinking, wouldn't mineral oil submersion solutions like this and this be a solution to noise? Would it not be possible to somehow seal the entire PSU, fill it with mineral oil and have some kind of heat exchanger system? If powered the exchanger with natural convection instead of a pump (ie allow the warm oil to rise into the exchanger at the top of the supply, cool and then drain back in to the bottom), it could be extremely quiet. You might need a small fan to encourage circulation in really hot PSUs, but I'm guessing it could be quite low power, and the oil could dampen a lot of the vibration, and thus noise.

This could conceivably also reduce dust problems, and increase reliability as there would be very few, if any, moving parts.

Not really

[Moraelin]

To put things into perspective, 10 dBA would be a completely unobstructed 80mm fan at less than 1000 RPM. (And a _good_ fan at that. El-cheapo ball bearing fans are noisier.) You can easily get PSU fans which are around the 30 dBA mark at full speed. E.g., a "silent" Tagan I bought has 28 dBA ones, but it's two of them, so make that 31 dBA for both.

Again, that's for completely unobstructed fans. When you have a fan blowing against an obstruction (e.g., a heatsink), it will make an extra whoosh or whistle. When you have something obstructing its intake, as is the case with most exhaust fans on PSUs, then it makes even more noise. Spin a 28 dBA fan to full speed when it has a big heatsink obstructing its intake, and it really starts to scream.

And you can reach full speed easier than you think. Most of these "silent" PSUs are happy to give you the dBA number when it's running completely idle and in a cold room. That's what it really means for most of them when you see "less than 20 dBA!!!" on the box: yeah, you'll get that if you don't draw more than 1A out of it, and you have your window open in December. Or rather, even then that would be what their fans would do at 5V if they were completely unobstructed, not what they do when mounted on the PSU. But put it in a power-hungry PC and run it on a hot August day, and you'll see most of them hitting the max RPM within minutes.

Re:Not really

[Cesare Ferrari]

I do a fair bit of DSP development work, and used to work full time doing that sort of thing. Fan noise is really difficult to deal with when you are trying to hear some odd clicks/pops in some DSP algorithm you are developing.

My solution was to put the machines in the neighbouring room, with the cables fed through a hole in the wall. It might sound a little extreme, but it took 1/2 hour with a jigsaw.

Cesare

Well, how's this for a setup then

[Moraelin]

In my silent PC, the CPU fan is a 12 dBA Papst fan, and set to be temperature controlled by the motherboard. So it's very silent. The graphics card is a 9800 Pro Ultimate Edition, so it has no fan at all. And the HDD is the most silent one available now, namely a Samsung 160 GB, _and_ it's packed in a sound-dampening enclosure.

So trust me, the PSU can _easily_ be the noisiest thing in that computer. In fact, with every single "silent" PSU I've tried, short of the fanless Antec Phantom, it actually was the noisiest thing. (The Antec Phantom was silent all right, but overheated and died on a warm summer day.)

At the moment it's running with an 120mm 18dBA Papst fan on the PSU, and that's finally an acceptably almost-silent computer.

(And btw, if your hard drives whine, then you told me you have one of the old noisy non-FDB models. In which you haven't really told me that your PSU is silent, but that your hard drives are louder. So, yeah, in your case then upgrading the HDD would be what gives you the most noise reduction.)

Re:Well, how's this for a setup then

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in my PC I have:

A 3000 AMD64 with a fanless thermaltake sonic tower cooler
A Gigabyte Nvidia 6800 card with no fan
A Asus A8V deluxe MB with no fan.
A Seasonic 12-430 power supply
Antec P180 case. (4 120 mm low speed fans)

I can't hear the power supply

Yep, that's what annoyed me too

[Moraelin]

Yep, that's how I got started on trying to soundproof my PC too. I first started to be annoyed by noisy computers when I bought a DVD drive and rented a few movies. Whenever two movie characters spoke softly, it would be an ordeal just trying to understand what they're saying, because the white noise was drowning it.

And generally, even when I'm not watching a movie or listening to music, a quiet conversation is 45 dBA. A normal conversation at 1 ft distance is 60 dBA. Doing the same near a 40 dBA PC puts those two at respectively 5 dBA and 20 dBA signal-to-noise ratio, which is crap. (I doubt any of the "so what if it's noisy" gang would even consider buying a 20dBA SNR soundcard, for example.) In fact a quiet conversation becomes outright impossible.

Re:"silent" - NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought one hoping to quiet my machine. It was silent for about 2 minutes when the fan kikked in - it screamed like a banshee! I returned it the next day and put back my el-cheapo supply.

idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

"silence" is the absence of "dB". you weren't supposed to find any dB.

Neon

[ReVeL75]

Is that a small blue neon tube on the rear side of the PSU?

So, new OS means new PSU?

[ohjethuth]

"Considering the processing demands of something like, *cough* Windows Vista"
Troll

How to make a fan quiet

[kpneil]

Some time ago I had the chance to fit a 120 mm fan in a case.
This was a nice bit of equipment, all metal made in Germany.
At first the whoosh was quite something but I stuck a 10 ohm resistor in
the power line. This left more than enough airflow to drag enough air past
5 SCSI disks (all at least five years old, so not all that cool!) and I had to put my ear close to hear the sound of air moving.
None of the disks was more than faintly warm to the touch.

Once upon a time

[Vitus Wagner]

Once upon a time I've asked wife of one my friend, how she can tolerate humming of all his computers round the clock. And she explained that her father was captain of river ship, and she spent much of her childhood in the cabin aboard the ship. So she is used to an idea, that when engines run smoothly, everything is Ok, but if silence fells, something wrong have happened.

thank you

[akhomerun]

thank you for the Antec advertisement, Taco

as for the rest of us who actually pay attention to the tech world, this is NO breakthrough as there are already a ton of fanless power supplies out there.

list of all fanless powersupplies already availible on newegg

in fact, this antec supply still has a fan. how is this a breakthrough? how is this worth posting?

oh i forgot, it's NOT, it's and ADVERTISEMENT.

Yes

[PengoNet]

I've got one. And yes it is.

Silent PSU for the brave.....

[Grrrrrrr!]

http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8& Product_ID=243&CATID=2

It's not fanless

[Daverd]

From TFA:

The Phantom 500 has been bumped up from 350W to 500W but has number of other interesting changes, the most important of which is the addition of a fan. This means this power supply is no longer fanless but is Antec has still labeled it as "silent".

Zalman TNN 500AF

[Pig27]

I couldn't stand the noise of my PC at home so my latest has a Zalman TNN 500AF case with an Athlong 64 X2 2GHz etc.
The silence is just amazing.
I can hear the fridge in the kitchen again and the only way I know my computer is running is by touching - it's warm when it is running. I can listen to the HiFi while the computer is on, too.
Another advantage seems to be that the case does a wonderful job with RF shielding. We live deep in the countryside and my wife and I can again be in the dining room while the computer is on - no more intrusive noise and that feeling of a huge electronic presence is gone.
Once you have a computer with no fans, that's enough. The hard drive makes virtually no noise and the optical drive only when it's working. Of course you end up with warm and then hot CDs and DVDs after a long install....
For the first time I noticed that my second monitor makes a very slight noise when on...
Buying that Zalman has been the best thing I have done for quite a while. Just an unbelievable difference.

Re:Is the PS now the biggest heat producer in an P

[BoneFlower]

I second checking how well the heat sink is attached. The heat sink should be moderately warm to the touch during operation and shortly after shutdown. Definitely shouldn't be *hot*, but it should be noticeably above room temperature. Of course, if you have some insane fan or water cooling system attached to the heat sink, you might manage to achieve "cold", but thats far outside a normal system.

As for the warmest air being that exiting the power supply, thats normal. In addition to the power supplies own heat, it generally sucks warm air out of the case, resulting in considerably more heat exiting it than that it produces on its own.

My experience with the Phantom 500

[Dr. Trevorkian]

I recently purchased one of these to power a new SLI system. Just because it's built for gaming doesn't mean I'm going to give up on having a quiet system.

The PSU does look cool, and it does seem to perform well (though I've no real way of measuring it other than whether it successfully powers my system or not).

My one complaint is that the fan they include, to kick in when needed, is an exceptionally loud little fan. That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Regardless, as the reviewer said, you need decent case ventilation to accompany this PSU. I have a 120mm exhausting the case, and one 88mm intake across from the zalman-cooled cpu (dual core athlon). There are also two 88s running air over the HDD rack at the bottom front of the case, but as this is one of those shiny, slick little cases without a grill in the front, those are just moving internal air. The two video cards are XFX GeForce 6600 LEs with only broad heatsinks, no fans.

That said, it seems to be good enough airflow for most conditions, with the PSU fan only kicking on when spending a little time in a demanding video game like Half-Life 2.

Truth in advertising

[felis_panthera]

I hate to burst everyone's bubble... but the Phantom is not silent.... merely very quiet... I work for Voodoo PC and we've started using the Phantom 500 in machines that need help in the noise department.... they only have one fan, and a good design with tons of surface area to bleed the heat... the problems are it needs to have room to dissipate that heat, probably at least an inch clearance on every side unless you want to have another fan aimed at the PSU....

the only really silent power supplies that I've seen come from Zalman in their TNN Series (Totally No Noise).... those cases are awesome, but building one will result in the builder being coated in thermal paste up to the elbow.... the 400W power supply is fanless, as is the entire system.... and the chassis is so heavy duty that you can't even hear the drives spin up.... plus it looks (and essentially is) a giant radiator...

Software Fan

[Rick.C]

Considering the processing demands of something like, *cough* Windows Vista...

Windows Vista will include a feature, code-named WinFan, that will deal with power supply heat dissipation in software.

Microsoft is rumored to be working on WinPSU, a software-implemented power supply for the next Windows version after Vista.

For those who prefer the noise of a fan, WinFan will generate white noise through your sound card. There is already a rumor of a virus that replaces the white noise .wav file with the sound of a fan with failing bearings.

No, it uses 50 terrawatts

[Anonymous Coward]

I can throw out stupid, wro9ng, and meaningless numbers just as easily as you can.

The brain is a chemical device, not an electrical device, despite the fact that there is electrical activity.

Thought itself is a chemical process, which does have electrical components (as do many other, non-living chemical processes).

Your computer is not a brain and your brain is not a computer. Your computer cannot think. How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it becomes self-aware?

</pedant>

Re:No, it uses 50 terrawatts

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Your computer is not a brain and your brain is not a computer. Your computer cannot think. How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it becomes self-aware?

Your brain is a computer. It just has better software than your computer.

Make it a dictionary.

[sammy baby]

You first. More specifically, start with a dictionary

produce P Pronunciation Key (pr-ds, -dys, pr-)
v. produced, producing, produces
v. tr...
3. To bring forth; exhibit: reached into a pocket and produced a packet of matches; failed to produce an eyewitness to the crime.

Unless you're suggesting that the guy in the example has clothes which spontaneously generate matches?

Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Another blatent slashvertisement at its best. Great job for the submitter who kept the contact site info blank. I'm sure it is the guy who runs this 'review' website.

Mentioning Windows Vista has NOTHING todo with the power supply and was thrown in for fluff or to make the editors miss the point that this is a POWER SUPPLY review of the single unit. There is no useful news here and the XYZ site has been getting boatloads of traffic from slashdot lately.

Get a life XYZ, no one wants to read your crap.

Gaming

[No Such Agency]

My gaming machine (runs hot and rather noisy due to case fans including a blowhole) produces a fair amount of noise, which can be an annoying distraction when I'm actually playing (esp. games like CS where you might want to hear faint footsteps etc). I suppose I should get headphones...

Re:I GOT A GREASED UP YODA DOLL SHOVED UP MY ASS!

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Yoda doll is still smarter than you!

You asshole trolls and off-topic morons really need to be dropped from the top of the Empire State Building. How sad that your pathetic lives make trolling an exciting venture for you.

Tell Steve Jobs

[ChrisF79]

I hope the good folks over at Apple are looking at this technology for their next line of machines. I was going to buy a Powermac a little while ago to replace my powerbook but the machine was far more noisy than I had expected. With Apple focusing so much on aesthetics and the user experience, it seems like a sure fit to reduce the noise level of their machines.

Someone needs to show this to my roommate.

[CrimsonSamurai]

His computer is so fucking noisy. It's probably a lousy casefan or something, but this would help in some way. Jesus, he set it to compile gentoo at night one time, how can I sleep with a fucking jet taking off. My computer isn't silent, but the only thing that really makes that much noise is my video card, which is a BFG Geforce 6800GT. For some reason their genius engineers decided to put two 30mm fans on the card, when the stock nvidia cooler was fine.

Re:Is the PS now the biggest heat producer in an P

[Dr. Spork]

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't exaggerating when I said the cpu heatsink was cold, and it is the stock AMD heatsink (which comes with a rather fast fan). The thing is, my CPU temps only reach into the lower 40's when the system is under load. I'm not overclocking that 3000+, I know a lot of people like to. I think it's just a very energy efficient chip, and I regret buying such a big, hot power supply for a system that draws so little juice.

Silent power

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been silently producing a high power source, methane, for my co-workers enjoyment for years.

Re:Direct link to Froogle with Price Sorted Low to

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article If the PSU gets too warm their will be issues,

It would be nice if they used there correctly

Upper case fan louder than my PSU fans

[aschlemm]

I put together a 3GhZ P4 system and got a Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480w PSU which allows the RPMs of one of the cooling fans to be adjusted. I also didn't want a high RPM CPU cooler so I got a huge Zalman CNPS7700-CU copper heatsink that uses a 120mm fan. Overall this system is much quieter than my old 900MhZ Athlon system I replaced it with. I built my system into a Lian Li PC-60 Plus aluminum case and it draws air into the front of the case with a 120MM fan which is very quiet. The fan that seems to be making most of the noise is the 80mm fan that is at the top of the case. I guess I need to see if there is a more quiet 80mm fan I could replace it with and see if it makes any difference. The PSU fan is very loud if I run the variable speed fan at 100% but I'm finding that I can run it at about 50% which is enough of a speed reduction that I cannot hear the PSU fans over the 80mm fan at the top of the case.

Oil-Filled power supply, mad scientist version

[w8300v-2]

You could always put the PSU circuit board in a 'can', with a couple of insulators on the top to feed the AC power into, fill it with mineral oil and spray paint it gray, then have it 'hang' on the outside of the PC case... just be sure to keep the squirrels away from it.

Who says "Ergo"?

[Vitriol Angst]

Ergo... Ergo, you guys must be loads of laughs at parties.

Hot Babe: ... Light as a feather ... you can't feel a thing.

Slash Geek: Hey, if it touches me and causes friction, Ergo it causes feeling. That's "Ergo" with a capital "E". Meaning, a significant ergo.

Me: Significant when compared to the vibration of my foot upside your thick skull?

Slash Geek: Even when you compare a miniscule amount to a statistically large quantity--

My foot: "Whack!"

Big Geeky Cranium: "Thump"

Me: I feel better now.

Hot Babe: Oh thank you, I've been trying to ditch his conversation of how TCIP isn't really packets per se all night. Thanks for the rescue.

Me: Don't mention it. Say, have you met my overly loud and vibrating PC? It has some unique features.

Hot Babe: Well I don't really think...

Me: Hey I'm making a dirty joke, we won't do anything but sit on the washer during spin cycle.

Hot Babe: I'll get my coat.

Moral:
OK. Silent PCs are not and never will be totally silent. We get that you guys don't miss anything except for the forest surrounding the trees. Sheesh! But what does this have to do with tolerating the presence of your computer or getting laid?

Datacenters in the home

[Ommadawn]

With all the computers that /.ers are running, I'm sure that the idea of a datacenter room (closet? basement?) isn't that far-fetched because, at least some of the geeks *I* know, have a lot of old, noisy computers running because they were free and they run linux or *BSD just fine.

But individual computers are getting loud enough that I wonder how many others are starting to think about putting their main system in a sound-proof place like the closet, running longer monitor, mouse, kbd cables, etc?

Pre-emptive MS bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a "game" I play while perusing Slashdot articles. I read the article, then I read the posts having made a mental bet how many replies before someone works Microsoft bashing into a completely unrelated thread.

This one is pretty impressive in that the original post worked it in very subtly...by starting a new sentence to do it.

something more effecient did hit...

[YesIAmAScript]

The 7800 series of video cards.

I own a 6800 Ultra and a 7800 GT (not GTX). Both are about the same speed (the 7800 GT is slightly faster). But the difference in power consumption is enormous.

Do not consider a 6800 series. They are just too large and too hot. NVidia knew this a while back, the 7800 series is actually a further development/refinement of the 6600, not the 6800. NVidia seemed to know the 6800 had many undesireable characteristics a long time ago.

I have to say I'm in no way a fan of SLI either, but that's a personal thing.

I'd highly recommend you get a single 7800 GTX, it performs as well as two 6800 Ultras in most situations. And there's no SLI hassle, no need for a huge power supply.

I replaced my 3.0GHz P4 (Northwood, I think, not the 31 pipeline stage versions) with an Athlon X2 4200+. Now, the Athlon does run somewhat cooler, but honestly, difference is not astounding. The Athlon is a lot more powerful though, but then again, it's almost 3 years newer than my Intel processor. Short version: I think you're barking up the wrong tree blaming P4 for people getting enormous power supplies. My work machine is a 3.2GHz Prescott P4, and it has a 300W power supply and has no problems. A big CPU (like my P4 or Athlon X2) will be rated at max between 85 and 110W (both my P4 and X2 are rated at 89W, Athlon X2 4400+ and up are rated at 110W, Intel's dual-core EE actually hits like 130W though). 110W isn't the problem. What's taking a lot of power is fancy video cards (like my 6800 Ultra), dual video cards or (as you say), people's imagination.

I mean, a fancy video card could take 80W. So I have 160W in my CPU+GPU, perhaps 40W in mass storage (HDs go about 15W each), and I'm sure there's a fair bit of "misc". If you add all that up, you get, what, 250W, 300W? And that's with a monster video card. People are just buying way too much power supply. Either that, or they're putting 11 HDs in their machines (don't joke, I saw a guy buying a case the other day that could do that, and my new motherboard could run 12 drives with no add-in cards!). I run my 6800 Ultra/P4 3.0GHz machine just fine on an Antec 380W PS.

BTW, I think you're overamping Seasonic a bit here. I'm not saying they are bad power supplies, quite the opposite. But It's near impossible to make a power supply that would cut off on a given load with 1% accuracy. And even if you could, testing it would be tough. SilentPCReview (good PS reviewers, and fans of the Seasonic) found out they were 5% off on their loadings on high end power supplies. So, even if Seasonic had worked a miracle here, SPCR couldn't have detected it.

I'd have a Seasonic S12-430 (although some think the 500 is more efficient, even at light loads) in my machine right now, except I just bought a new Antec Sonata II case, which came with a nice, silent power supply. So I'm saving my money and sticking with what I got. But if one hadn't been bundled, I'd have a Seasonic for sure.

Re:something more effecient did hit...

[pla]

I'd highly recommend you get a single 7800 GTX, it performs as well as two 6800 Ultras in most situations. And there's no SLI hassle, no need for a huge power supply.

Ah, thank you for that info! Good to know.

Actually, though, I don't so much care about gaming performance - I chose the 66/6800 primarily because it counts as one of the few chips that offers dual DVI outputs (and only wanted SLI so I could eventually go to a quad LCD display with a minimum of hassle). Not to say I don't game at all (I certainly do!), but I realize that, once I can have fullscreen at 60fps (which I can in virtually all games even now, in its first decent-but-not-high-end incarnation), I can't get any better than that. :)

I have to say I'm in no way a fan of SLI either, but that's a personal thing.

Me neither - I consider it a messy hack. But, at least on my motherboard, SLI will let me run two cards at x8, rather than one at x16 and one at a mere x1 (don't know if that holds true of all boards with more than one x16 slot, or just a limit on mine).


BTW, I think you're overamping Seasonic a bit here.

Perhaps a tiny bit, but not much. I chose them after reading quite a few reviews, and they just crushed the competition in test after test. As the two most important points, their active PFC works, and they give the stated voltage right up to the point they shut off due to overload (which happens within a watt or two of the stated limit, rather than having low voltage until they smoke within a hundred watts or two of the advertised limit). And of course, the near-silence doesn't hurt.

External PSU

[Arpie]

Would anyone care to tell me why an external PSU is not available?

It just seems to me that if you moved the heat-generating PSU out of the case, you would get more space, less heat from the PSU into the case, less heat from the processors &c to the CPU and so on.

Is it just the fact of having another component to carry around? How often do most people really carry/move around their desktop PCs?

Re:External PSU

[Grishnakh]

It sounds like it'd just be a PITA to me. Why is the PS special? Why not just go all the way and have everything in separate external enclosures? External PS, external hard drives, external optical drives, etc. It'd suck any time you had to move your system, and the wiring mess would be intolerable. The wiring alone is one reason to keep the PS internal; having all those separate wires going everywhere would be a pain. (You probably can't put power wires in the same cable as data wires because of signal integrity problems.)

Re:External PSU

[Arpie]

Absolutely. Having a ton of cables would suck. But I don't see why it couldn't be just one cable going to the case and then maybe even some sort of modular cabling system (a la xconnect) inside.

I don't think you need to extrapolate too much as in everything external, but the PSU in particular is bulky, generates a lot of heat, etc.

If you do want to extrapolate, however, I remember reading in a Wired Magazine a few years ago Sun had some plans for a technology where, if memory serves, any hardware would just be part of the network. Need a new HD, plug it into the network, need a second monitor? Plug it into the network. It might have turned to this JINI.

Re:External PSU

[Grishnakh]

But I don't see why it couldn't be just one cable going to the case and then maybe even some sort of modular cabling system (a la xconnect) inside.

Perhaps, but I just don't see the benefits. The PSU is bulky, but it doesn't generate that much heat, at least my Seasonic S12-600 doesn't with over 80% efficiency. The air coming out of it is quite cool compared to the air from the rest of the system. It certainly doesn't produce remotely close to the heat that the CPU, northbridge, and GPU produce. I'd rather keep my system in one, easily-transported piece than have lots of parts lying around with cables interconnecting them.

If you do want to extrapolate, however, I remember reading in a Wired Magazine a few years ago Sun had some plans for a technology where, if memory serves, any hardware would just be part of the network. Need a new HD, plug it into the network, need a second monitor? Plug it into the network.

Sounds convenient, but the performance must absolutely suck. We already have things like network-connected monitors and hard drives, but they're terrible. A network-connected monitor in reality is nothing more than a monitor with an embedded computer connected, probably using a compressed remote-display protocol like VNC. It might be useful for some applications, but it'll suck for playing games, and just for regular desktop systems it'd suck because all that extra computing hardware would drive up the cost and power consumption for zero gain. It's cheaper and easier to just connect your DVI cable directly to your GPU card (or integrated GPU).

We also have network-connected hard drives: they're called NAS and SAN. These both have their places, but for most desktop systems (and especially at home) they're not worth it. They cost more because you again have to have an embedded computer inside them, and their performance is horrible compared to DAS (direct-attached storage). High-end SANs with GbE can get pretty close to wire speed, but for that kind of money that's still much slower than a direct-attached SCSI RAID array.

Having a system where you can just plug things in to a network and they "just work" sounds great and all, but it just isn't practical. It's like having an electric power distribution system in your house where you can just plug in a nightlight or a clothes dryer in any outlet and it just works. It could be done, but the technical challenges make it totally not worth it (for instance, in my hypothetical example you'd have to run huge-gauge expensive aluminum wire all over your house instead of small-gauge copper, and then you'd have to make sure all the outlets are aluminum too so you don't start a fire, then you'd waste lots of power because aluminum is less conductive than copper, etc.).

Minor clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article summary: The topic of silent power production has been an important one...

This should be called power conversion, not production.

JINI

[Arpie]

Wired article from 1999:

(...)
"A Jini-enabled device works by announcing itself to the network, which will immediately be able to understand what kind of device was just plugged in, what kind of software drivers are necessary, and the capabilities of the device."
(...)