I replaced the fan in my zalman 400a with a panaflo L1A and the results are it's louder than stock.
Since the L1A has a lower CFM it looks like the PSU spins it at max speed all the time.
Summers can get pretty hot here in oz and I don't have air-com.
What Can I do to safely fix this?
a) fan isolators on the L1a
b) run L1a on 7v full time
c) Replace with a panaflo Med or High speed
d) Replace with med or high and run them at 7v
Weird thing is that my HSF has an L1a running at 12v and it doesn't bother me at all.
kogi
Zalman 400a louder AFTER L1A mod
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GenghiS_KhaN
- Posts: 210
- Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2003 1:40 pm
- Location: Kortrijk, Belgium
I think 7v is a bit low if it gets warm. If you put a 66 ohm resistor you will get 8.5v which still moves a decent amount of air, but most of the noise is gone. Isolators etc would help but a lot of PSU's dont have enough clearance to fit them in. An M1A modded to 5v moves a bit more air (I think) than an L1A at 5v so you may want to try that instead. Remember to use heatshrink etc 
. Of course there is no substitute to running cooler air to your PSU.
. Of course there is no substitute to running cooler air to your PSU.I believe you will have clearance for EAR type fan isolators. I used them in a similar (Fortron) PSU. However, at the low speed the swapped in 80mm L1A spins, I'm not sure the isolaters are doing anything. Also, I had to pull all the guts out of the power supply chassis in order to mount the fan using the EAR isolators.
In my case, I also was not satisfied with the noise level of my Fortron FSP300-60PFN after swapping in an L1A, so I unscrewed & removed the thermisor from it's attachment point on one of the heatsinks and left it in free air, positioned several milimeters from the heat sink. Power supply is very quiet now and fan never ramps up. Exhaust temperatures are warmer than before, but not alarmingly so.
In my case, I also was not satisfied with the noise level of my Fortron FSP300-60PFN after swapping in an L1A, so I unscrewed & removed the thermisor from it's attachment point on one of the heatsinks and left it in free air, positioned several milimeters from the heat sink. Power supply is very quiet now and fan never ramps up. Exhaust temperatures are warmer than before, but not alarmingly so.
Replacing the stock fan in my zm300a made a world of difference. I too had to remove all the inerts of the psu to mount the fan with EAR isolators.
I taped up the bottom grill to keep the psu from sucking up all the heat from the cpu. No fresh air duct.
I dont think the fan ever goes above minimum.. but the warm weather has just arrived, so we'll see.
I taped up the bottom grill to keep the psu from sucking up all the heat from the cpu. No fresh air duct.
I dont think the fan ever goes above minimum.. but the warm weather has just arrived, so we'll see.
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MonsterMac
- Posts: 330
- Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:33 am
check out my fresh air duct over in the gallery. i did it to an antec 380W PSU that came with my old sonata and when it was 73F in my room last night; i touched teh side of my PSU and it was COLD to the touch; thats how much the duct does. The psu fan is temperature controlled and never goes above 5V bceause of the duct. here's teh link: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=11926
it looks really ghetto and restrictive but it works great.
it looks really ghetto and restrictive but it works great.
What's an F1A?kogi wrote:/me dork
It is quieter after the l1a mod. It was a rogue video card fan making all the noise.
But it is still not as quiet as I like. So now I've got a M1A at 7v, if that's not good enough I'll use a F1A at 5v
From my perspective, if a L1A swap is still too noisy, you've got several options, which will make the PSU quieter but hotter which may impact PSU longevity:
1. PSU cold air duct - all good stuff here, helps lower PSU temps and fan speed as thermistor will be cooler.
2. Relocate thermistor, this is what I did on my Fortron. Lowers fan speed by making the fan speed control circuit think the PSU is cooler than it is. PSU will be quieter & hotter.
3. Relocate the PSU to outside the PC case as Mike C. has done. A drastic version of cold air intake.
4. Power the PSU fan via a lower fixed voltage, fanmate or fan controller. You can manually set your fan speed, but will lose automatic temperature control provided by the bypassed PSU fan control circuit.
I recommend going back to the L1A. If you're comfortable with fabricating one, go with the duct. However, the duct alone may not be enough. If not, I'd move the thermistor as a next step. Look for a little eraser head component w/ 2-wires that is likely epoxied or strapped to one of the internal PSU heatsinks. Carefully pry/cut it free and reposition it several mm away from the heatsink. Monitor PSU temps post mod, using Rusty's calibrated finger approach and by gauging PSU exhaust temps.
