Antec TruePower 380 died

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:07 pm

I bought an Antec Sonata case many years ago and it came with this TruePower 380 bundled in. It's been working great, 24/7 but yesterday I shut it down for an OS upgrade and it wouldn't come back on. The little green pilot LED on my mobo turns on, so the standby power still works, but nothing else.

I went to Frys and bought an Antec EarthWatts 380 to replace it. It's working OK, but I miss 2 specific things - it has no fan-monitor connector, so I can't monitor the PS fan speed. And, the TruePower had a dedicated fan-power output, that was variable output (load dependent). So now I have two 120mm fans running full bore in the case, and it's a lot louder than it was before.

I looked at all the current Seasonic 80plus models and it seems none of them have either the fan monitor or the variable fan power connector. Does anyone know of any models that do? I could of course go get a separate fan controller but most of them are 4-5 channel which is overkill, and also most of them are manual control. The system was nice and quiet with the stock TruePower 380, that's basically what I want but Antec discontinued those features years ago.

I see Enermax has some units with fan monitor connector at least. Any other good candidates?

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 7:50 pm

Those features disappeared some years ago. Motherboards now have lots of control-enabled fan headers, which have more or less taken their place. If the 120mm fans were runnning at min before, then I;d say just run them at 5V -- there are many ways to do this w/o spending a penny.

highlandsun · Post by **highlandsun** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:48 am

MikeC wrote:Those features disappeared some years ago. Motherboards now have lots of control-enabled fan headers, which have more or less taken their place. If the 120mm fans were runnning at min before, then I;d say just run them at 5V -- there are many ways to do this w/o spending a penny.

Thanks for the reply. Had a bit of a "doh!!" moment. The motherboard is an Asus A8v Deluxe and it indeed has "Q-Fan2" control for the CPU and case fan headers. For the CPU fan it was just a matter of turning Q-Fan on in the BIOS. For the case fan, I had to remove the 3-pin to molex adaptor (that I used to use with the old PS's fan output) and just plug it straight into the board. Now 2 out of 3 fans are quiet. The exhaust fan that came with the case is just a 2-wire unit with a molex connector. I managed to make it work by plugging it into a floppy power adapter, and plugging the floppy connector into the fan header (shifted by 1 pin, since there's no RPM sensor). I don't think this header has any speed control (it's not in the BIOS menu anyway) so I'm planning to replace it with a thermally controlled fan. I looked at the Antec SmartCool and the Enermax Apollish. I've ordered the Enermax from Newegg, hope it's good enough. One thing that occurred to me is if the exhaust fan is running too slowly, will it trap hot air inside the case?

Given that this is the cold week in Los Angeles, it's fine to have slow fans for now. But just doing a 7V or 5V mod on the exhaust fan would be a bad idea; as soon as summer rolls around it will be a lot hotter.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 4:19 am

highlandsun wrote:...I don't think this header has any speed control (it's not in the BIOS menu anyway) so I'm planning to replace it with a thermally controlled fan. I looked at the Antec SmartCool and the Enermax Apollish. I've ordered the Enermax from Newegg, hope it's good enough. One thing that occurred to me is if the exhaust fan is running too slowly, will it trap hot air inside the case?

Given that this is the cold week in Los Angeles, it's fine to have slow fans for now. But just doing a 7V or 5V mod on the exhaust fan would be a bad idea; as soon as summer rolls around it will be a lot hotter.

I dont have experience with the Enermax, but I had som of the older Arctic thermally controlled fans, and I was dissapointed. Even thoug my case wasnt particularly hot, the fans spinned at too high RPM's, and therefor was way too noisy.

Today, I use 12 cm fans, wich dont draw much power. So I've used a Y-splitter, and both my case exhaust fan and CPU fan, are controlled by my CPU fan header. Works great for me

However, if you consider this, I'll strongly recommend you consult your mobo manual and find out how much power the CPU fan header can deliver, and ensure the fans combined draws less