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What's the best cheap PSU to get that's reasonably quiet (well, preferably as near silent as possible)?

My current PSU sounds like a hovercraft and with it only being 350w I think it's struggling.

Looking to spend about £30.

Cheers in advance.

I was just about to ask if anyone had a spare 350w ATX PSU that they didn't want (save me buying one) as I have one that seems to have blown (it smells of burning at least which I think is the give away) failing that where can I get one cheap ??

For Power to the people.... http://www.ebuyer.com/product/20083 £6.48p inc VAT cheap as chips.

For Sam http://www.ebuyer.com/product/102994 £21.99 inc VAT I have used several of these and the are pretty much silent and good value indeed good voltages and loads of connectors for the old molex 4 pins as well as 1 sata connector too

or

If you wish for a bit cheaper but with 2 sata's then http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135453/ I personally havent used one of these but the specs look fine for anything less than a quad core and dual graphics set up.

Was looking at that one earlier actually but a few reviews saying it was anything but silent put me off, but if you say it is then I'd rather believe you than some numpty who's left a review on ebuyer.

Cheers JJ!

Not a problem Sam, I have used probably 8+ of these and they sound as quiet as any I have used TBH, very steady voltage too which is a big plus point.

The onyl word of caution...Ebuyer sometimes use different suppliers for their own brand stuff (though I believe this not to be one of thse items), so what some people get may not be exactly the same as what others get, this said....I have always had exactly the same make and they are fine, certainly a vast improvement on your own 747 taking off you currently have :)

Am I correct in thinking that if I replace the 350w with a 300w that all will still run ok, the pc (P4) is only running 2 x DVD drives, HDD & older Nvidia card, so not too much ?

I'm sure I'm correct in thinking that you only have to start going up to 350w / 400w + etc when you start loading the pc with cooling fan's lot's of drives etc etc

This is just to confirm my thinking is correct as I don't usually worry about PSU's, whatever comes in the case !!

I use a 550w psu and I have an overclocked motherboard/processor, 2 hard drives, 2 Nvidia7600GT graphics cards and 2 dvd drives, plus 5 case fans and 2 heatsink fans.

In short, you'll be fine.

As Si says.

I have a dual core E6750 overclocked to 4ghz, 2 hard drives on SataII, twin SLi 8800GT graphics cards, 2 big coolings fans, watercooling all running off molex or Sata connectors on a 500w power supply, that little lot draws only 400w power on full power in games.

PC's dont draw as much power as a lot of crappy websites/magazines will tell you, download a power supply/power draw tester like the Asus one and you will be surprised.

I would expect an on P4 or an Intel celery processor with dual dvds, hdd and old graphics would only pull about 200-220w max.

Went for a Hiper PSU in the end and also ended up buying a new Coolermaster case with two 12cm fans.

Swapped it all over this evening, it's now running virtually silent and a good 15ºc cooler under load. Gave the heatsink a fresh load of thermal paste as well whilst I was at it.

Only got the one case fan running at the moment though because the other two are too loud!

I am the same Sam, I have 3 "virtually silent" fans in my case even running them at 5v instead of 7v or the 12v standard they are still too loud for my liking so I have disconnected them, my PC runs cool anyway but I like it that way with the amount of overclock my Processor and memory have.

Mine run at 25db which is far too loud. Been meaning to change them but I can't really afford it at the moment. Also want to change the fan in my psu as it's too loud. I might just get a new psu though.

All my fans run at 15-17db as I made sure I bought them specifically, I am still waiting for my watercooling to turn up then I can turn all but my case fan off, I havent measured my DB level but I would say its about 20db which is too loud for me, I have a 12db PSU and it is pretty silent really I can cope with that level!

The fans I've turned off are one 80mm and one 120mm. The 80mm is supposed to be silent but it's not. The 120mm fan was a £1.50 jobby off ebuyer and the reviews said it was 'virtually silent', yeah right. I'm going to get a couple of new ones next month and get some decent rubber mountings as well to stop the vibrations. Think I'm going to need a fan controller as well.

Also my CPU fan was revving quite high, but then I found I hadn't clicked the heatsink back on properly :oops: I only found out when it got above 70ºc (max temp set in the BIOS) and the PC turned itself off.

Have you tried running the virtually silent fan at 7x or even 5v Sam can make a huge difference in noise levels.

How do I go about that?

i've just recently upgraded my PSU to a Corsair TX650w from this thing http://www.ebuyer.com/product/119227

i was going to sell it if anyone is interested? it is only 5 months old and was a stop gap until i could afford something better for overclocking and powering a decent graphics card.

Which i'm purchasing next month  8)

Depending on your motherboard there are sometimes options in the BIOS to run the fans at less voltage.

Or you could get a dedicated fan controller which goes in a free bay slot.

What other fans did you purchase Sam?

the only fan i can here in my machine is my graphics card. it's noisy as hell which is another reason i'm upgrading.

my other two fans are Arctic Cooler & Coolermaster. You could also include my Freezer Pro too. they are all silent.
I'm currently searching for a 120mm x 15mm fan for my case. There is room for a 120mm fan where my 80mm Arctic Cooler is yet the amount of air being shifted is on par with a kittens fart.
A 25mm wide fan wont do as my HD is sat directly in front of it and the fan encroaches by at least 5mm.

I'm also thinking of getting a better Midi Tower case for better air flow etc. Mine's currently a Cooler Master Elite 330.

I only bought a 120mm case fan, I already had a 80mm case fan and there was a 120mm fan already in the new Coolermaster case. The PSU has a 120mm fan as well.

I don't think my mobo BIOS has the ability to alter the fan voltage, plus I've only got one chassis fan plug on the mobo and the rest are connected by molex.

I meant what brand?

Best thing to do is read the reviews, the specifications give you a good idea but they bullshit a lot because they know most people won't test them.

To swap over voltages of fans the easiest way is to follow these instructions, its just a case of swapping over connectors in the molex e.g. yellow and red together = 7v, red and the closest block connector = 5v, yellow and black closest block = 12v.

Pretty easy to change the molex pins around mate.

Heres a little description of how to do it.....

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article6-page1.html

No point now, my PC's dead :(

Got home from work and went to turn it on... nothing. Absolutely dead.

It won't even POST, no power what-so-ever. I've stripped it down to a barebone system and still had no luck. I've tried clearing the CMOS and that doesn't work. I've tried my old PSU as well but that didn't work. I've come to the conclusion either the mobo or CPU is fried. It's a right fucker, was working fine last night when I shut it down and now nothing. Must've been a power surge during the day or something.

Have you checked it's plugged in?

If the mobo or CPU was fried it should still boot into something - you should get fans running and warning beeps galore - but the fans should run.....

Yes, I'm not that stupid!
Yes, I'm not that stupid!

Have you tried a different plug / cabley thing. It should do something.

Fuse?

If the mobo has gone you will get nothing whatsoever, no posting no beeps...nowt. if the CPU has gone sometimes you get a posting but not always, do you have a friend with a spare socket (insert chip...478,775,AM2 here) CPU?

Thats my first port of call for a non posting mobo, if you try a chip that is known to be good then the mobo is definatly gone.

...one other thing....

I am not suggesting you have not looked at it...or that you would ignore summut so silly...

Have you checked the fuse in the PSU power lead? if you have tried another PSU was it on the same power cable?

Just a  thought mate.

are there any lights on in your house?

Lick my Arse Orifice...great minds :)

Tried another PSU and a different cable. Power socket on the wall is known to be working, tried my monitor on it and it's fine.

What chip and mobo are you using Sam?

The 775 dual core chip can handle power surges easily and still boot but mobos are much more fickle and will fry at the drop of a hat.

AMD are more liable to burn the chip than the mobo in my experience.

Worst case senario...both gone..not good :(

A little tip Martin....if you are going to use overclocking then DO NOT use the Arctic Freezer Pro 7...its designed for volume of air/sound volume and is not a good overclocking heat sink, I know this from experience! I had one and running my E6750 at 3.8ghz it was running at 80 degrees...far too hot for a processor, I swapped for Sycthe Mine....twice the price but twice the efficiency!

Just popped on a couple of Akasa Vortexx Neos on my 8800GT's....wow what a difference...playing Crysis it has cooled them down by 30 degrees!

Sounds like you had a dodgy one, not one review I have read has said a bad thing about that heatsink.

I'm currently running an E6400 @ 3Ghz with the dustiest AC Freezer Pro ever and it doesn't get hotter than 50 degrees under full load.

It's a 775 dual core, so hopefully I can rule out the chip then.

If I get a new mobo I'll have to re-format my HDD won't I?

It ran my E6750 at 3.4ghz going to around 55 degrees but as soon as I added votage it got far too warm, it needed 1.45v to get it stable and as soon as you got near the max it went haywire  heat wise, but I cant rule out the possibility of a slightly flawed one.

But the new Sycthe Mine is about 10 degrees cooler on full power with full overvolting, but that is running at 4ghz now stable as a rock.

But the Freezer Pro is no designed for huge overclocking, its more for quietness of the pc IMO.

If you get a same mobo then no need at all for reformat, if you go for one with the same chipset then no you wont need to reformat either, but with a whole new mobo and chipset....which is probably the best option...then 90% yes you will need to reformat.

The 775 chip can handle a lot of shit though its reknown for it, but if you know anyone that has one then try a spare first, even if its a really slow crap one like an E2100 or even a socket 775 Intel Celery series which are about £20 brand new.

Cheers for the advice. My mobo is only £25 brand new now so I might just buy a new one as it seems to be the culprit.

I've found a way to jump the PSU to see if it'll power on without the mobo so I'm going to give that a bash when I get home tonight. If that works then I can definitely rule the PSU out and more or less rule the CPU out.

Anyone got any experience of Foxconn or ASRock mobos?

And has anyone got a non-OEM copy of XP I can borrow? My XP cd is OEM branded so won't work with a new mobo.

I can burn you a real copy of XP if you have a license key.

honestly?

I have upped my cpu to 3.8ghz @ 1.385v last night and ran Orthos for over an hour to stress test it. Turned on RealTemps and it was sat at just under 50deg.
Also looked in the bios and that was saying similar temps too.

As for the Vortex Neo i'm going to order one of those when i get my 4870 next month. Apparently (like you say) it dropps the temps down by a good 30deg

having a look at the Scythe Mine JJ it looks pretty meaty.

Question though! Which direction does the heatsinc sit?
My freezer Pro sits so that the air flow is directed towards the exhaust fan at the back of the case. The Scythe Mine looks like it will have to be aiming upwards towards to PSU?

Yeah I've got a key. Cheers Si!

I used coretemp for my test temperature as I found realtemp under-read the 65nm core by up to 10 degrees, apparently relatemp is only 100% reliable with the 45nm core processors as it just geustimates the temperature of the processor based upon distance to the TJ max...a figure that Intel dont actually release to the public.

My temps were based upon the coretemp as I would rather err on the side of caution than assume the lower temp is right, as realtemp stated on 1.45v at 4ghz my processor was only running at 70 degrees (which is acceptable temps for the 65nm core) but the coretemp stated 10 degrees hotter.

If reltemp was 100% correct then I had no problem....so the jury is out on that!

The Vortexx Neos are bloody brilliant and a piece of piss to fit...takes 5 mins max and the average is about 25 to 35 degrees cooler on medium to full power after 10 mins or more running.

The Scythe Mine has a fan stuck firmly in the middle of a sandwhich of 2 coolers and expels the air to the back of the case exactly as the freezer 7 pro does.

http://www.oldspeak.org/images/scythe-mine-b/13-heatsink-all-round.jpg

i'm running an E8400 45nm processor so i should be ok on RealTemp.

yeah i did a google of the Scythe Mine. Looks a meaty peice of kit that's for sure.
Is it a lot better than the Freezer Pro?????

everyone on the Overclockers forum has raved about the Vortexx so it's definitely the choice for me next month.

The Scythe mine for overclocking is a lot better than the Freezer 7 Pro....going by all the reviews I read before I bought it but for serious overclocking you have to go watercooled mate.

Heres one review of the coolers, the biggest set of tests I have seen which actually convinced me to buy the Scythe in the first place....

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=8757&page=116

I didnt go for the Thermaltake Big Typ VX because at the time I couldnt find any in the country!

With the Vortexx Neo's tho....make sure you have a spare sys fan port on the Mobo because its only a 3 pin cable so it cant run off the 4 pin GPU port on the card itself, and these cables are pretty short about 5 inches in length, but they do supply a molex connector but I dont like having wires running all round my case.

Oh and read the reviews about the 4870 with the Vortexx Neo.....apparently its not as good with the ATI cards as it is with the Nvidia, as the 8800GT (which is what I use) has a notoriously shit fan that cant keep the card under 90 degrees on full load, whereas the Neos keep it to no higher than 69 on full load.

If its not as good at cooling you may be better off putting the extra £25 to a better graphics card like the 260 or 280 Nvidia card in the first place.

Bloody hell John, I thought I was a geek.......

 :lamo:

for the money though surely an ATI 4870 is the better choice?!
from all the reviews i've read anyway.

I've also got a Crossfire board so i'm better off as once i've enough cash crossfire is where i'm heading.

my comp specs are
Foxconn P35AP-S, E8400 @ 3.8ghz, Freezer Pro, Corsair TX650w, SSP F1 750gig 32mb Cache, 4gig Hyper X 1066mhz DDR2 and a shitty 7900GT

Nah mate I am fully aware of my geekyness(!) lessons will not be offered!

Apart from the 4(?) people who have posted regually in this thread does anyone have any idea what they are on about? :)

I think they are fitting a kitchen in their cars or something. Seems to be a lot of talk about sinks and fridges

Yeah the 4870 is pound for pound the best value/performance but I personally prefer the Nvidia cards and for the same price you could get a 260, but then thats not a patch on the 280 or 9800GX2 but they are almost double the price.

In the same situation I would go for the 4870, but what I was getting at was the cooler thing, the 4870 with the Vortexx Neo appears to be not the best option, apparently you may as well stay with the stock cooler, according to overclockers.co.uk forums.

ah i get what you mean.

it's something i'll look into a lot more cos the cards run hot. around 80deg apparently.

i've always been an Nvidia fan but i can't justify paying twice the price for very little gain.

they lost me around page 2.

Well I never, I got home and tested the new PSU - dead. Tested the old PSU - works like a charm, although I'm sure it didn't work yesterday.

Never mind, all back up and running now. PSU on it's way back to ebuyer tomorrow.

Sounds like the internal fuse blew then.

Good that you don't need to get a new motherboard and re-install windows

Good stuff Sam, a lot cheaper than buying a new CPU and Mobo.

I have spent the evening cleaning my computer and doing some proper wire management. In doing so I noticed a tiny jumper in my hard drives so they've not been operating at full speed. I did wonder why they'd always seemed slower than expected  :doh:

The jumper block was pushed in so far it was hard to see.

Doh! but then again...yahay! cos its sorted! always nice to get big improvements in speed for no cost whatsoever!

are you able to fit in a 120mm fan in this or are you stuck with the 100mm one?

Nah mate, a 120mm fan can be put in but it overhangs a bit, I havent had the need yet but its possible.....

http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/023/scmn1000_detail.html

As seen above

If you want a 12omm fan on a heatsink then a tuniq tower is probably the best option.

I recently put an extra 1GB of RAM into my pc and I can't really see any improvement. It reconized it all right and it changed from 500mb to 1.5GB, but performance wise, still seems the same.

Was there something else I got to do apart from sticking the stick in?

When you say performance what do you mean?

RAM stores data temporarily so it doesn't have to read the hard disk all of the time (which is slower). You might get pauses when you switch from internet explorer to word and try and type something if you don't have enough RAM (as an example).

It's not going to make the raw speed of the computer quicker. So if you want to compress a file or convert a file to an MP3, a faster processor would be more useful. Things like Football Manager won't load quicker in between fixtures (as the processor is being used to generate the other games in between) but switching between menus should be a lot smoother and there should be less of a lag.

What are your other specs and what operating system are you running?

As Mr Pie says, memory will not affect the general running speed of a PC all it will do is speed up changing/opening/running more than 1 thing at a time type operations, going from 512mb to 1.5gb you will see virtually no difference in running of the PC, also if you are running Vista you may see a very slight improvement, but it will be very slight.

Latest recommendations for XP are 2gb memory running on dual channel and for Vista 4gb seems to be the target.

Oh right, I was hoping FM would speed up. boo. Photo programmes suffer a bit.

I'm on XP and my PC is 8 years old.
2.66ghz ATI Radeon Pentium 4, do you think it will be able to support FM 09?

I personally think that spec will be able to run the new FM09 when it is released but (minimum specs havent been released yet either) I would expect minimum spec to be 1gb of memory, 2ghz processor and XP or Vista.

New PC parts are so cheap now that updating/upgrading your system is advisable before taking on the new FM (or any other new title) as an 8 year old system is getting very very old now (I suggest updating/upgrading a PC every 3 years).

or every 18months like at my work!

getting a new PC installed today. currently i'm using a mesh system (C2D 2.13mhz 6400, 2gig ram Asus P5q Board and Nvidia 7600gt Card) with dual 19" monitors.
Upgrading to a Dell but not sure of spec as yet. Still having 2 19" monitors though.  8)

Do you have a pc or a laptop VV?

For about £70 you could get a new motherboard and a dual core processor which would run FM no problems at a quick speed.