Well, I've never done that before! - as the bishop said to the actress

[andrewducker]

So yesterday Ed's new graphics card (Radeon 9800 Pro) arrived. So I whipped out the NVidia 5400FX and plugged in the replacement (first graphics card I've seen that's had a separate power connection).  Fired up GTA3 and went 'ooooh' at the smoothness and high resolution.

We wandered next door for two minutes, came back and found a dead box.  Completely and utterly off, with no hope of on-ness.

So this evening I whipped the power supply out of my old PC (soon to be reborn as a server for sharing files between the two of us) and stuck it in Ed's machine.  Ta-da!  One working box - albeit with a pretty noisy fan.

So I now need a new power supply for my box, and probably a new one for Ed too, as the noise will no doubt drive him mad.

Anyone recommend a silent power supply to me?

Comments

[terminalmalaise.livejournal.com]

Silent PC Review is a decent site for that kind of thing. Their PSU list is here, and the forums could be worth a look too.

Do you mean really truly silent, quiet, or just not obnoxiously loud? There are totally fanless PSUs like the Antec Phantom, but they're pretty pricey. Personally, I have an Enermax Noisetaker that's quiet enough that I can sleep with it on 6 feet from my head in an otherwise silent room without being bothered by it. It's audible, but not at all irritating. The SPCR people seem to like them too, though Seasonic seems to get their best ratings.

If "not loud" is good enough, something from Antec's TruePower line should do fine. The only one I have to go by firsthand is from an Antec Sonata case and designed to be quieter (to my ear it's almost on par with the Enermax, plus it has a couple of fan-only molex connectors that run the case fans underspeed, which is good for noise somewhat at the expense of cooling).

Adding on...

[terminalmalaise.livejournal.com]

Found this sticky post I remembered from another forum. It's not concerned with noise, just overall quality.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Not the person to ask. My PC has 5 fans at last count (attached to various things) doesn't run unless the case is off and sounds like a motorbike starting up. It's bloody noisy - the volume on the TV has to go up several notches to cope.

I thought the only alternative was liquid cooling (too expensive).

[andrewducker]

A (near) silent power supply can nowadays be picked up pretty cheaply. And quiet harddrives aren't bad either.

My computer is certainly audible, but it's not at all loud. Get an Athlon 64 and they run at 30 degrees, with almost no cooling...

[azalemeth.livejournal.com]

The old good voodos needed a power connection.


They used more than my cd drive at the time....