Making the A4000 silent / A4000 PSU ventilation

[Jose]

What's up dudes. Since I was disappointed with the noise of the A4000 PSU I decided to start a thread on the best way to make the thing silent. That's one of the things I allways preferred on my A1200 over my noisy AMD PC.

So right now I was thinking about changing the PSU's fan.
By the way the PSU, at least mine, blows air out of the PSU both sides: out of the case, and with even more air flow to the inside. This is in contradiction with some previous thread where I saw people mentioning their A4000's PSU blowed air inside the case, others outside...

 Of course one could adapt a PC PSU, but is it worth the hassle? Could there be problems?

I think there a lot more A4000 owners interested out there. 8-)

[Jope]

The air is supposed to be blown out from the rear of the PSU.

Buy a silent fan and replace the existing fan. Also widen the holes behind the PSU so they don't hinder the airflow.

[Doobrey]

It`s not worth the hassle replacing the PSU with an AT or ATX one if the original is still working.
 Apart from the motherboard power connector, you`d have to figure out how to connect the power switch (built into the A4000 PSU, connected to the button by a long rod) and also cover the holes in the back of the case with the smaller PSU.

 After I replaced the fan in mine, I also drilled a large hole in the side of the PSU nearest the motherboard and put a grill on it to stop wires getting in.
 The IDE and SCSI cables to the drives at the front of the case almost blocked the vents in the front of the PSU, so no air could get in!

[Jose]

" The IDE and SCSI cables to the drives at the front of the case almost blocked the vents in the front of the PSU, so no air could get in"

I also noticed that problem. Could there be a cool way of keeping an eye on the PSU temperature? Like installing one of those temperature measurement dedices some PC mod freaks use?
The cables on the back of my CD Rom actually toutch the PSU and I bet the CDRom itself probably stops a lot of air flow.

[patrik]

@Jose:

Here are some ideas on how you can modify the A4000D powersupply to improve airflow drasticly:
The back of the powersupply
The front of the powersupply

Regarding the issue with almost no clearance between the back of the CD-ROM drive and the powersupply, read this thread about short CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives.

Some general tips to lower heat and improve airflow in the A4000D:
- Make sure to remove all unused backplates to improve airflow in general as thats the area where air is supposed to be sucked in.

- Route all cables in a way that interferes as little as possible with the airflow and preferably use rounded IDE, SCSI and if possible floppy cables.

- Only mount one harddrive internally in the A4000D and make sure its not a heat-monster. Honestly - there is no need for more than one harddrive - drives are big and cheap enough nowadays for you to be able to use just use one.

- Remove all expansion-cards which are just sitting there but not being used.


Good luck!


/Patrik

[Jose]

@Patrik

I'll defenitly check that out 8-)

[Jose]

I think I'll ditch out those metal works on the PSU case for now, never done such a thing... but the rest of the tips are cool, speciall the short CD/DVD Roms, though that implies ditching off my current one.

Any tips on super silent fans ?

[duesi]

Jose wrote:
I think I'll ditch out those metal works on the PSU case for now, never done such a thing... but the rest of the tips are cool, speciall the short CD/DVD Roms, though that implies ditching off my current one.

Any tips on super silent fans ?

verax

Front-view of my PSU:


thats a normal grill from a dead PC PSU  :-)

[patrik]

@Jose:

The CD-ROM drive I mentioned in the thread about short CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives will set you back somewhere around 10-15EUR which is a quite reasonable amount of money.

For a silent fan I would recommend a Papst fan. The 12dB(A), 33m3/h model is very silent and should cover your cooling-needs, but I would recommend the 19dB(A) 45m3/h model in combination with for example a Zalman Fan Mate 1 or Fan Mate 2 to give you a great possibility to freely choose from a scale between silent operation with low airflow to not as silent operation with high airflow depending on your current cooling needs. There are adapters to connect the 3-pin fan-connectors to 4-pin molex harddrive connectors widely available if you dont feel like soldering. The stores selling the fans and fancontrollers mentioned above _should_ have those adapters in stock.


/Patrik

[Jose]

Great! As for the FanMate wouldn't it be better to have some kind of device to monitor the temperature before lowering the fanspeed? I've seen plenty for CPU and motherboards but don't know how one could be used in a PSU.

Only 12db :-). I think I'll order one of those.

[patrik]

@Jose:

The meaning with the higher capacity 19dB(A) fan in combination with the fan mate was that you would get the possibility to set the fans rpm to whatever you like - for example 1500rpm - then the 19dB(A) fan would be equal to the 12dB(A) fan in rpm and emit an equal noise which is 12dB(A). Then if you one day felt like throwing lots of expansions into your A4000D you would have the possibility to increase the rpm of the fan to increase the aircirculation in the case to keep a low temperature.

A fancontroller like the fan mate is rather hard to compare to a controller which sets the fans rpm according to the temperature. The temperature based fancontroller just sets the rpm to whatever it is built to do a certain temperature disregarding of what you want it to do, but with a fancontroller like the fan mate you can choose the rpm you want.

If you have the computer in a room which has a rather stable temperature, the need for a temperature based fancontroller is very small as the fan will end up at quite the same rpm after a few minutes when the temperature in the case has stabilized.


/Patrik

[Jose]

Seems that some of the Verax ones duesi mentioned, have  temperature controled operation which can be regulated.
 
They don't mention the noise in db though, just say they're silent...

I was looking at the PSU and was thinking, since the air is supposed to go outiside of the case on the back and and fan is situated to the inside the temperature sensor wouldn't work that well I guess...

[Jose]

Here's something  very interesting I read in a SOME REVIEW that included Verax fans:

"The Verax CAIRdB thermally controlled fans are one the most unique zero-noise fans in the marketplace that we have tested. The stealthy acoustical act is accomplished by tossing out convention and starting with a completely fresh impeller design. It's not surprising to discover that the company that created these fans has its background in research & development of fluid engineering.

So quiet are the Verax CAIRdB fans that you literally have to hold one up to your ear to hear anything - there is almost no discernible noise signature till the fand starts to kick into the 2000RPM range around 40 degrees Celsius. Even then, compared to other socket A heatsinks the CAIRdB KP2 fan is still positively quiet."


The things are expensive though, but to someone that gives silence very much value like me, I'll buy one soon.
That was a nice link duesi.  8-)

[patrik]

@Jose:

Those fans looks very promising. The progressive ones have a very sensible temperature-fanspeed-curve. The 80x80x25mm KPE model should be very good for mounting in the A4000D powersupply as you could place the external temperature-sensor near the air-outlets in the back of the powersupply. That way the fan would be regulated based on the temperature the components which have the hottest air flowing over them are experiencing.


/Patrik

[Jose]

Hadn't noticed there was one with an external temp. sensor.
Sould be perfect then!