Phantom Menace - Lota talk, no answers.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 11:03 pm

So far, I think half or more of the people buying psu's for their silent/quiet rig would truly not mind buying one of these. However, people like me feel uncomfortable, and here are the reasons:

1. We play games like half-life2, battlefield 1942, and so on.
2. We would rather overclock than underclock/undervolt, and at best, keep settings near default
3. 2.2ghz in amd64 and 3.4 in P4 is the bare starting levels of the processors we have in our systems, stuff gets hot easily. Spcr testing rigs with 2.4 pentiums and 9500 ati cards really dont stress a system like a 2004 pimp-rig might.
4. No review explains HOW to make SURE you dont get too much heat build up in a performance minded system using this psu. They just say, "this failed here, this didnt fail here.... nothing about, This is how you can keep the system cool.
5. We dont care about it failing (as much). It's like 1/15th the cost of thte whole rig, what we care about is having our systems reboot or getting hd failure because this thing might also be known as a Holly Hobby, E-Z bake oven.
6. How is it possible that antec says it hasnt had problems with no more than say 20 units, yet, there are like over 20 people with failures thoughout the forums. What's the chance only SPCR people buy phantoms???? (not a big chance.)
7. Why would someone pay 100 dollars plus shipping for a seasonic when its 149 dollars flat for a phantom, supposedly the most efficient psu ever made, and it's silent?

8. I am grateful for the spcr peeps and forum posters for making this obsession.

Pjotor · Post by **Pjotor** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:21 am

I play games, too (mainly BF1942 and BFV), and I have no stability problems.

The answer to your question 6 (higher number of failures) might be that a lot of us are really pushing the lower end of the ventilation/airflow envelope. The Phantom behaves really nicely with good airflow. When the airflow is decreased in order to decrease noise, instability rears its ugly head.

Answer to your question 4 (how to keep the system cool), related to the above, is to keep a steady airflow through your computer using at least one exhaust fan. I do fine with a 120mm Papst at 5 V, but every case and every setup is unique, therefore YMWV (your mileage Will vary). The heat generators in my case are, mainly, an XP-M 2500+ at 2300 MHz and a Leadtek 5900XT card. I think you can avoid pretty much any and all heat problems using a 120mm exhaust fan at 12 V, as long as it's not too weak and your intakes are not overly restrictive.

Hope this helps at least some. The Phantom is a wonderful(ly quiet) PSU if you adapt your case to it's peculiarities, i.e., at least one extra exhaust fan.

eLekTRiK · Post by **eLekTRiK** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:21 am

1. me too
2. me too
3. P4 2.4GHz @3.0GHz, ATI Radeon 9800... not exactly top of the line but I think they burn enough juice to make the point
4. monitor temperatures... if anything looks too hot either add more fans or run your existing fans faster. For this particular PSU, I suggest making sure that you don't have a 0-pressure case so that at least some air flows through the PSU. As long as you have some sort of exhaust fan pulling air over the Phantom heatsink fins below the unit, you should be fine.
5. no comment
6. no comment. Mine is fine.
7. because the efficiency difference is not that great (especially at idle, where the seasonic may be better), and in most systems a well-regulated PSU fan won't be audible above other noise sources like HDD and other fans. The only reason I see to get a phantom is if you water cool and want things even quieter. Also, some people can take advantage of that PSU fan to do exhaust work and ditch an extra case fan.

In my rig, if I had gone with a Seasonic, I probably would get rid of one of my case fans. Granted that my case fans at their current settings are probably quieter than the Seasonic, but I'm still not sure it warranted the extra $50.

Post by **Rusty075** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:53 am

I think you're right about people being uncomfortable buying one, but I think your reasons are nearly completely wrong. They certainly reflect your reasons for being uncomfortable, but you probably haven't been around here long enough to extrapolate that to the community at large:

1. I don't think gaming has much impact on PSU selction. Nearly everyone buys PSu's based on their system's max wattage, regardless of what they doto get it there.
2. You're probably cruising the wrong forum if you think that's true.
3. The SPCR PSU testing rig tests PSU's beyond the point possible with any available system, no matter how l33t, and the Phantom passed that with flying colors.
4. Because no one knows the "how" to prevent failure.
5. No, I think people are worried about the reports of failure. Besides the huge inconvenience of having to RMA your PSU, there's always the fear of a dying PSU taking out other components on its way to the Great Beyond.
6. Many people return defective hardware to their reseller, not Antec. The reseller may just be pitching them in the trash rather than paying the shipping to send them back to the manu.
7. Efficiency is good, yes. But for even a high-powered system the difference between the Phantom and other quality PSU's amounts to less than 10 watts of heat. The downside to passive PSU's is that you at least maintain, and usually increase, the case airflow you had with a conventional PSU. That often negates any gains made from losing the fan in the PSU. The dBa gain from upper the voltage on your case fans even a couple of volts is often bigger than the ~3dBa gain from having a second slow 120mm fan in the system.

The high price, worrisome failure reports, and little effect on total system noise are the more likely reasons for people's reluctance to buy.

madman2003 · Post by **madman2003** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:29 am

Keep in mind that a psu fan works in a much more restricted environment than most casefans. Don't know if that's of any concern noise wise.(can anyone shed some light on this) The fan flexibility is also greater with a fanless psu. It seems unlikely that antec would make a product with a 50% failure rate within a few weeks and still give it 3 years warranty. Maintaining airflow through the psu is critical, anyone not willing to tweak airflow through the case is probably making a bad choice buying a fanless psu. For me it's going to be a bit easier, since the second choice (seasonic) isn't available in my country.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:47 am

"6. Many people return defective hardware to their reseller, not Antec. The reseller may just be pitching them in the trash rather than paying the shipping to send them back to the manu. "

This is it. yes, that's what it must be. Impossible for so few to ffail, everyone returns everything non-stop in this world of compy's and electronics.

Sketchy comments from that antec rep, in my opinion.

However, I believe its probably a decent product.

I thank all of you for your comments, they answered everything this end of the compy world probably could need to know about it.

Something else: its only 49 dollars more I have a revision A2 tornado 400watt guy, so i dont want to give them another 100 dollars after getting defective equipment.

Tobias · Post by **Tobias** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:15 pm

It is important to compare apples to apples as well... Here we have some defective units in the part of the world that is members of SPCR. This is not your normal everyday crowd either, I wouldn't be surprised if this would be the community of people with the highest number of Phantoms/person. And with only 4000 units sold in the world, we even constitute a large body of Antecs buyers. Those faulty units found by SPCR members make up up to about 0,5% of those which in itself talks volumes af the phantoms penetration on these forums.

Now, what the rep from Antec said was that they had reports of 20 bad units in North America, which does not include Europe or Asia or the rest of the world. Okey, I admit, that these numbers seem alittle low myself, but it is possible that either a bad batch, problems with the APFC in EU or for that matter, that the Unit is desperate for *some* airflow which we as a community starve it of.

So, to sum up. I suggest that the perceived difference between what Antec said and what have been reported on these forums can be caused by a number of other causes than that there is a problem with the design. I suspect that the relativly high penetration of the PSU in this community and the special tastes of the members of this forum is mostly to blame for our relatively high number of reported defective units. In short, we as a group are nuts and all of us dream the impossible(?) dream of "noiceless" in secret.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:47 pm

In the end, it does come down to these questions:

1) Does a fanless PSU make for a quieter PC?
2) Does a fanless PSU have the same reliability as a fan cooled PSU?

Answers:

1) Only if it means fewer fans and lower airflow can be used. Not always the case, and sometimes, the difference is very marginal even if another fan is eliminated.
2) Assuming all things equal (in terms of engineering, quality of parts & assembly, etc), the fan cooled PSU HAS to be a bit more reliable. There's just no other answer unless you're using it in a super lower power system (like a Pentium M, mini-ITX, etc). With one, at least some some cooling airflow is assured; with the other, how hot it runs depends on mercy of the user.

|Romeo| · Post by **|Romeo|** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 4:22 pm

2) Assuming all things equal (in terms of engineering, quality of parts & assembly, etc), the fan cooled PSU HAS to be a bit more reliable. There's just no other answer unless you're using it in a super lower power system (like a Pentium M, mini-ITX, etc). With one, at leasome come cooling airflow is assured; with the other, how hot it runs depends on mercy of the user.

???
So what you're suggesting is that a PSU that needs a fan to keep it running is more reliable than one that does not? I know a few power supply engineers (somewhat more powerful than PC power supplies) who labour to remove fans because they are a failure point.

If you choose to operate the supply (or any other component) outside of its specified environment (be that thermal, pressure, electrical or anything else) then you have no right to assume that it'll work.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 5:06 pm

|Romeo| wrote:If you choose to operate the supply (or any other component) outside of its specified environment (be that thermal, pressure, electrical or anything else) then you have no right to assume that it'll work.

Surely you don't believe that modders, games or silencers follow all the sensible rules all the time?

This is not a really relevant point. imo. You're saying everyone must follow the makers' guidelines all the time or face whatever the consequences & I say whether they do or don't is just part of the "environment".

What I am really saying is that... if you give a good fanless PSU to a thousand users and a good fan-cooled (quiet) PSU to another thousand users, more of the first group of PSUs will probably fail sooner than the second. I'm not positive about this, but I think if the same number of people put fanless and fanned PSUs into overhot cases, then more fanless ones are likely to give up first.

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 6:23 pm

well, fans are probably the most common points of failure in any PC, so if your PSU "needs" a fan running then yeah, you lose. i've had a few PSU fans die but i've been lucky enough that it's never damaged anything, including the PSU. the Phantom's obviously a well-made PSU and designed to get rid of heat as well as it can, so it's probably more reliable than any $30 sheet-aluminum box with a generic 80mm fan wheezing through everything crammed inside. that doesn't mean a Phantom wouldn't be better, possibly even much better, with a fan though. i think Mike's point was more like, if you put a fan in a Phantom, then it cannot possibly avoid being more reliable than a regular Phantom (pretend it's just a very, very well-made air-cooled PSU in this case).

might be better off thinking in terms of the mods one could do to take advantage of not having to have airflow right through the PSU, since it's designed like a big heatsink. (edit: instead of just thinking "yay one less fan" and forgetting about it, i mean)

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:03 pm

the psu is by far the most annoying noise maker ever created besides ATI mini gpu fans and mini northbridge fans, both of which are kinda easy to get around.

One more fan makes a huge difference. try cutting off one fan from a system, youll hear the difference, and definitately feel the difference.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:54 pm

System 2 in my sig has three fans. From my seating position, with the PC under the desk, I can't ever hear the PSU fan (Nexus 80mm fan @ 6.75V). I can hear the exhaust fan (Nexus 120mm fan @ 6.75V) and the CPU fan (Nexus 120mm fan @ 8.44V). But only in the dead of the night, when system 1 in my sig is off. I can't hear the difference between one Nexus 120mm fan running or two Nexus 120mm fans running. (If you are interested; there is a sticky in the Fans & Control forum that explains why this is possible.)

Maybe you should listen to some systems with really quiet components, before you do these bold statements based on your experiences with non-quiet systems.

P.S. The PC is making funny "puffing" noises now, because it is folding a QMD workunit. But these noises are definately not fan related.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:59 pm

I think that if Antec would integrate the Phantom into a case made specifically for it, with the PSU Heat Sink fins exposed on the top of the case, then it might get sufficient cooling without a fan to be a more viable solution. The way it is now, even if the PSU does not have a fan attached, another case fan is needed to exhaust the hot air from the case (or an existing case fan must run faster).

Tobias · Post by **Tobias** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:16 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote: One more fan makes a huge difference. try cutting off one fan from a system, youll hear the difference, and definitately feel the difference.

Here I have to revert back to what Rusty was saying. You are an active verbal and outspoken member of these forums and as such you have a good possibility to be one of the bigger names here. However, I do not think that you have yet spent enough time here to grasp the true essence of these fourms. Most people have a twofan system and one of those fans are the PSU fan and the other an undervolted 80mm fan. Both of those fans are run so slow that their noice doesn't exceed the background noicefloor.

This means that airflow as you know it doesn't exist and the soundlevel is allready below ambient. In the majority of these systems cutting one of those fans WILL mean that:Since the airflow is allready as low as possible, cutting one fan will half the available airflow and this must be compensated. No ifs, no buts, no nothing. Airflow is Minimized, there HAVE to be a certain airflow in the computer, otherwise things will go from "to loud" to downright "ugly" in a wiff. So, the effect of a phantom in an "SPCR standard system" (If there is such a thing) is that the minimum required airflow must come from somewhere ells. Either another fan, or turning up an existing fan. So, either you replace the PSU-fan, or your exhaust-fan will be alot noicier...

Having an extra fan has one merrit, though, that will skew this picture alittle. A fan that is not in a PSU will have an easier time moving air than a fan in a PSU which will reduce the turbulence and thus it might be somewhat quieter. However, if the noice was below the noicefloor to begin with, or if you can not add a good fan in a good place, the use of a Phantom will not result in an improvment and will cost you alot of money. If you plan you system well, a Phantom is definately a viable solutions that will get your system down below the noicfloor, but it is not a necessary part to get there.

and on a somewhat other topic...

~El~Jefe~ wrote: the psu is by far the most annoying noise maker ever created

No, the Harddrive is. You can't live without it. There are no (affordable) "passive" solutions. All you can do is to accept that noicesource and try to reduce it's effect as good as you possibly can.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:38 am

odd, i hear everything besides the hd.

But anyways, I am going to get that phantom next week, I think it is worth a shot. I might also put a panaflo 80 on the gfx card, the zalman is vgood but i might as well go silent as it needs minimal air flow on this zalman blue sandwich heatsink. Pabst on the back is great, a steady, smooth fan at 5-10 volts, and moves the air noticably.

thanx for input. My boldness has gleaned a lot of info in this forum

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:04 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:odd, i hear everything besides the hd.

Try turning on your computer with the harddisk plugged in and not plugged in.

If you can't hear a noise difference then your rig is probably noisier than those who've replied to this thread.

As an example to Tobias' point:
At the moment, my fanned (M1A @ 5V) PSU competes with the noise from my "suspended" harddisks. Would I get a Phantom to reduce noise further? No, because my exhaust fan (Nexus 120 @ 6.5V) is moving so little air that the Phantom would probably cook in there. And turning up the Nexus fan to prevent that would pretty much negate any noise reduction I would gain from going with the Phantom.

Would I *ever* use a Phantom? Yes. If I was doing an HTPC setup with a lower power CPU & GPU, suspended notebook harddrives then yes; the internal heat generation would be low enough to cope with along with the Phantom and a fanned PSU would probably be the biggest noise source in such a system anyway.

|Romeo| · Post by **|Romeo|** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:28 am

MikeC wrote:
|Romeo| wrote:If you choose to operate the supply (or any other component) outside of its specified environment (be that thermal, pressure, electrical or anything else) then you have no right to assume that it'll work.
Surely you don't believe that modders, games or silencers follow all the sensible rules all the time?

I'm an optimist!

But I do think that it's important to ckeck these things -in the case of the Phantom, it says 0 to +65C for environmental temperature whilst operating.

This is not a really relevant point. imo. You're saying everyone must follow the makers' guidelines all the time or face whatever the consequences & I say whether they do or don't is just part of the "environment".
What I am really saying is that... if you give a good fanless PSU to a thousand users and a good fan-cooled (quiet) PSU to another thousand users, more of the first group of PSUs will probably fail sooner than the second. I'm not positive about this, but I think if the same number of people put fanless and fanned PSUs into overhot cases, then more fanless ones are likely to give up first.

Well; yes. I mean if I connected a PSU to three phase, I wouldn't expect it to work. As I said, I'm an optimist.

Now onto failures; Antec & Seasonic both quote their MTBF at 25C which is handy, although in this context 80C would have been more directly useful. However, if we're assuming the same quality of components, lets take that a step further and assume that their lifespans are shortened by greater heat in by similar amounts so the fact that we have mesasurements at 25C rather than 80C does not matter.

The Phantom, the TP & the NP all have MTBFs of 80K hours Seasonic say 100K hours, but specifically exclude the fan from that number. This suggests quite strongly that the fan doesn't meet that. Finally, the datasheet for the NP gives an operating environment temperature as 0 to +50C (TP is +10 to +50C). The Phantom lets not forget is 0 to +65C. This would suggest that the fan is not happy above 50C (which is not terribly unreasonable since it's a mechanical part). Perhaps something for future reviews; run the supply in a oven to determine at what ambient temperature it fails...[/quote]

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:54 am

The fan is probably excluded from that number because they don't know the MTBF of the fan. Yate Loon doesn't have much numbers on their website, but a comparable Papst fan (4412FGL) has a service life of 80k hours at 40°C and 35k hours at 75°C, but this at full speed. The fan in the PSU almost never runs at full speed, so it's service life will be longer. Plus it is at the intake side of the PSU, so I doubt it will often reach 50°C.

Measurements about the MTBF at 80°C are completely useless, because if your case temp is 80°C then your computer is dead anyway.

tay · Post by **tay** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:53 am

I think there have been some very interesting viewpoints expressed in this thread.

WRT the benefit of removing 1 fan from a 2 or 3 fan system, please check out this post by mikec. Basically you realize that you would much rather have 2 or 3 or even 4 very slow fans than 1 fast/medium one. For instance, Mike talks about his wifes PC with 3 80mm L1As which is the quietest PC he's ever built.

WRT MTBF numbers

Now onto failures; Antec & Seasonic both quote their MTBF at 25C which is handy, although in this context 80C would have been more directly useful. However, if we're assuming the same quality of components, lets take that a step further and assume that their lifespans are shortened by greater heat in by similar amounts so the fact that we have mesasurements at 25C rather than 80C does not matter.

IMO this assumption is not a valid one and is removing the advantage of a fan in the fanned PSU. The fact that the S12 will not run at 60C regularly while the phantom is likely to depending on load is the exact reason people that are a little weary of fanless PSUs remain so. Of course the S12 now has an additional component that is prone to failure, which also negatively affects its failure rate if the fan is not monitored.

If I lived in an airconditioned room with ambient always below 25C and with a lightly loaded system, (finances notwithstanding) the fanless PSU would be the ideal solution.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:21 am

I never have the temperature in my house below 74 degrees F. Also, none of my fans that have thermal guages ever drop below the medium setting for exhaust, my system doesnt exit as much heat. The psu sensors, as a rule, I believe are too agressive in flipping to their higher settings. Sometimes this 400 watt Tornado goes into high mode for a minute or two, thats like louder than my unsilenced pIII tualatin system wiht 60mm fans.

Not that impressive.

Also, a nexus fan spinning at a rediculously low speed is not really much of a fan in a room that gets warm with a psu that has a thermostat in it. I would however try a nexus fan setup if I could find one that has a better front air intake system than the one I have currently. that slot at the bottom is constrictive, there is no grill on this pricey-ish case, the Coolermaster Cavalier with the blue sound thingy/dial.

I am considering water cooling Reserator with the gpu and a phantom, however, the whole rig is a tad pricey.

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Wed Mar 23, 2005 11:59 pm

m0002a wrote:I think that if Antec would integrate the Phantom into a case made specifically for it, with the PSU Heat Sink fins exposed on the top of the case, then it might get sufficient cooling

that's exactly the first mod that came to mind, i was just too lazy and my post was already getting long enough. just cut out a rectangle in the top of your case and drill new mounting holes, so you'd have the top of the Phantom flush with the top of your case.

the second one that came to mind was that in a case with substantial space above the PSU, you could use an exhaust fan directly above the PSU to draw air along the top surface of the Phantom, and possibly cool a drive or two suspended there if one were so inclined.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:29 am

yes, I totally agree, I would have it completely sealed off from the rest of the case and then on top to freely breath. and also a hammer to kill the blue light.

land · Post by **land** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 am

2. What about overclocking AND undervolting? As in P4 2.4 @ 3.0 @ 1.25v? (Yes, I know 2.4 is not exactly a high standard from which to start oc-ing, but it can be done, and it's a 25% increase in performance at 15% less power).

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:54 am

Not many amd64 mobo's support undervolting at all. I have heard rumors about 90nm ones (not sempron, I dont consider them for performance) that they do not want to go very high in terms of OC'ing.

I would gather a 2.0 ghz 90 nm on a DFI board would be best to test all of this. maybe gigabyte.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:27 am

I am possibly the stingiest member of SPCR, so my reason to avoid the Phantom is extremely simple--it costs too much! If I want a fanless PSU, I'll take the cheapest PSU I have lying around and remove the fan.

I agree with Tobias that the hard drive is the most annoying sound in the system. You can deal with fan noise pretty easily, but the hard drive is tough. It's almost worth purposefully leaving some low frequency fan noise in place to mask annoying high pitched drive whine.

Since I'm so stingy, I'm far more likely to try and reuse an old (loud) hard drive than buy new. This makes the problem of hard drive noise even more difficult, to say the least.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:06 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:I am possibly the stingiest member of SPCR, so my reason to avoid the Phantom is extremely simple--it costs too much! If I want a fanless PSU, I'll take the cheapest PSU I have lying around and remove the fan.

I agree with Tobias that the hard drive is the most annoying sound in the system. You can deal with fan noise pretty easily, but the hard drive is tough. It's almost worth purposefully leaving some low frequency fan noise in place to mask annoying high pitched drive whine.

Since I'm so stingy, I'm far more likely to try and reuse an old (loud) hard drive than buy new. This makes the problem of hard drive noise even more difficult, to say the least.

If your hd whines at all, its a bad situation. a simple, cheap, fast moving nidec (Microcenter) hd at 120 gigs, sata or Uata, is very very quiet, and does not have that dry whine that is truly horrendous. I cant think of a worse sound in a room besides a noisy hd. Id rather have some blubbering mass of a geekazoid ripping farts.

ToasterIQ2000 · Post by **ToasterIQ2000** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:51 pm

I've just finished giving "Really Cool and Quiet Power Supplies?" ( http://www20.tomshardware.com/howto/20050401/index.html ) a read.

I think mostly it makes SPCR's power supply reviews look good, very good.

I have a Phantom on the shelf where I can stare at it and think, as a backup or spare. I briefly use-tested it, to be sure that I didn't get an out-of-the-box dud.

Among other things, THG said: "When we tried to hook up a second test set-up with more accurate measurement capabilities to the Phantom 350, it failed completely with a loud noise and a blue flash inside the power supply case." Unfortunately, there isn't enough test bench description in THG to know whether or not they provided any air flow through or around the Phantom, nor are there pictures of what actually blew.

Page 1 of the Phantom manual says "Since Phantom doesn't need or include a cooling fan, you must make sure that your chasis has enough exhast fans installed to properly cool your other components." While the "...does not need or include..." sounds like fairly strong and explicit language, the ends of the Phantom are grilled, and later in the manual "The power supply includes an over-temperature protection sensor, which can trip and shutdown the power supply at 100 C. Such an overheated condition is typically the result of internal current overloading or a cooling fan failure." Perhaps implying contrary to the "doesn't need." I'm feeling too langauge nitpicky.

My main thoughts the last week or two on the Phantom on my shelf have run towards (1) mounting it vertically so that the hot-air-goes-up principle would draw air through the Phantom end to end, and (2) how might I safely run water the length of 2 or 3 of the Phantoms big cooling fins, on both sides.

Are there any Phantom owners here who have been monitoring temps? Anyone have some general descriptive stories on under what conditions the over-temperature protection sensor kicks in?

( I'm fishing for info an the Phantom here. There are plenty of comments about THG elsewhere. )

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 8:00 pm

seems like no one will suggest getting one in general or not suggest.

I think if you have a case that has good flow it is fine and dandy to use. and that doesnt mean good flow above 5volt speed, just good flow in and out.

Baker · Post by **Baker** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 9:51 pm

Hey Jefe-

I am running a Phantom 350 in my rig. 3 months now.

I overclock, I play games all the time, and I make games for a living. I'm also fairly obsessed with having a very quiet computer.

I'd definitely recommend this PSU based on my experience thus far. I've never touched the thing and had it be more than warm to the touch, even after a marathon Half-Life2 or Age of Mythology session.

A three year warranty is nice too.

I think the articles & how-to's on this site are just about the best reading for how to build a computer with an optimized airflow, which is going to be important no matter what PSU you're using.

All of my previous systems' loudest component was the PSU, and I tried _many_ PSU's. So a good chunk of my 'silencing time' was generally spent working a way to feed cool air to the PSU.

So my take from the usage instructions with the Phantom is:

1) The phantom doesn't need a fan in and of itself.
2) Your other components must have cooling such that their heat is removed from the system.
3) Therefore, if you provide enough cooling to evacuate the heat from the other components in your case, the Phantom will be fine.

That's where I was always having problems with other PSU's as well, the heat fed into them from my other components would ramp up the PSU fan.

The 2nd most quiet PSU I have is a Fortron 350 (w/ 120mm fan) that I modded (well had a friend dremel it for me) a Sonata to put the PSU in upside down so it was drawing air in directly from above instead of grabbing recycled (hot) air from the CPU.

I did order a Seasonic at some point, but I was unlucky enough to get their "crazy fan revision" (I forget which one it was, it seems this has been fixed) which would change the fan speed with every 1% deviation in CPU usage.

Anyway I'm getting off topic here. I have posted favorably in the past about my Phantom, but I don't know if I was specific about how I used it.

I have:

Antec SLK 3000-B
Asus A8V Deluxe, rev. 2.0, bios 1009, CNQ enabled
A64 3000+ overclocked 450 MHZ to 2.25 GHz
Zalman 7700 CPU Heatsink @ < 5v
1 GB Corsair XMS 3200
nVidia GeForce 6800 GT, oc'd to 402 MHz core, and 1.04 GHz mem
Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer5
Samsung Spinpoint 160 GB PATA (Sorbothane mounted)
Audigy2 ZS
2 Plextor optical drives (412 & Premium)

I have 2 120mm case fans, the TriCool that came with the 3000B set on low, and a Nexus at 5v directly on the hard drive.

At 24C room temperature:

Idle Mobo/CPU: ~ 30C / 35C
Load Mobo/CPU: ~ 34C / 50C

This is the quietest computer I've owned, and it has no stability issues.

The loudest thing in my computer is easily the VGA Silencer, even though I have that thing cranked as low as it will go without making the system unstable (using fanmate to feed it a steady low setting, it's not as loud as letting the card use PWM to vary the voltage to the fan).

I read that Tom's article as well, I wish they'd detailed the testing procedures. Also, their efficiency numbers don't seem to match up with what MikeC measured in his lab test. I trust MikeC more.

A review detailing "Really Cool and Quiet" power supplies should include some sort of sound measurements for those that have a fan included. I bought a Zalman 400 watt PSU based on their assurance that it was "whisper" quiet early on in my silencing obsession, and I was very disappointed. So when they say of the Greenberger supply "Even after prolonged use, the fan never became uncomfortably loud", does that mean 20db? 30? 40?

I would like to see SPCR reviews of those units though.

-B

Phantom Menace - Lota talk, no answers.

Phantom Menace - Lota talk, no answers.

Re: Phantom Menace - Lota talk, no answers.