Quiet PSU Round-up

Odd prices for the Tagan at scan.co.uk for those in the UK. If you look up the product using the normal search or going to the relevant section you will see a price for the Tagan of £49.00 (ex VAT).

However, if you go to the TODAY ONLY section, scroll down about 3/4 of the way to just below the Chenbro Cases, you will see the same unit for sale at £40.50.

Are people allowed to do this? Have the same product up in the same store at different prices?

Chris

 

Products on the TODAY ONLY page have a 10% discount for that day only. If you order one you get the lower price whichever page you order from.

 

Interesting but veryconfusing. I ordered this afternoon from the normal product page and price indicated and the invoice that I printed showed the FULL price of the product - £49 (ex Vat).

However, I wnt back to the store a little while ago and just browsed the "Today Only" pages purely browsing to find that the price of this unit in this section was at £40.50 (ex VAT). Thats a little over 17.3% off, not 10% off.

I then cancelled the original order (that for some reason did not appear on there systems yet!) and re-order the product from the Today Only page getting an invoice that indicated the LOWER price!

Surely, if the will offer the product at the same LOWER price, they could ripple the price effect accross the store and produce Invoices that indicate this lower price. Otherwise you will get customers (like me for instance) that feel that they may have been didled.

I'm all for offers and discounts, but this is not very clear at all.

Chris

 

That is strange. I guess it pays to check your invoice.

 

I think this is a little more involved than that. This is what I have found from the Trading Standards site.

...
It's illegal for shops to sell things at more than their advertised price unless it is a genuine mistake. Our advice would be that the business should have a checking system to prevent pricing errors and ensure that any identified are quickly corrected.
...

Also, it is true that just because goods are maked up at a given price dosen't mean to say that the retailer HAS to sell at that price. They can refuse the sale compleetly.

However, as can bee seen above, the retailer CANNOT see for MORE than the advertised price. That is illegal.

I can't check my bank balance until tomorrow so I don't know what they have taken from the account, if they have actually taken anything. If they have subtracted the higher amount I belive they could be in serious trouble.

I'll report back tommorow.

Chris

 

I just read a review on the Tagan that says it has ten 4 pin Molex. That sweetens the pie a bit.

Indeed, I saw the Zalman ZM-MFC1 Fan Speed Controller that takes a single 4 pin Molex input. Has control over 6 devices or 4 fans/2 lights. Price of a Tagan and a fan bus is about the same as the price of one Globalwin.

The plot thickens....

 

Yeah, mine did too

 

I wuv my Tagan

hoo-hah

*sorry, not very constructive, but the truth *

 

Well, the PSU has arrived and has now been working for a while with no problems. I can say that it is indeed very, VERY quiet. All I need now is a passive northbridge and graphics cooler, and some quite case fans and I'm living in the quiet lane. The Aerocool DSP-101 CPU cooler is already very good and quiet.

Still, the new PSU has not resolved my PC freezing glitch that I thought was attributable to a dodgy power supply that only happens under intensive CPU (not necessarily graphic) operations. Extensive memory testing proves negative (memtest86+ running solid for 24 hours+) and CPU temperatures are fine at 42 deg C. I think this is an issue with selecting the “Top Performance” option on my Gigabyte GA-7AXP motherboard.

 

PSU's

I've spent the last few weeks looking for a good PSU as I am trying to go as QUITE as I possibly can, and I can honestly say that the Zalman PSU is AMAZING, I tried the Enermax Wisper, Antec 380, but they all went back, the Zalman is the best, hands down. The only little beef I had is, as it is one of the most expencive PSU, they could have made the cabling a little nicer. Your review is what got me to try it, thanks macroman, give me a shout if you need anything

 

I would love to have been able to afford to buy a few of these PSU's listed here and in SilientPCreview.com but have no funds. The Zalaman WAS on my list of possibles but just pushed the budget a bit to far, as did most of the others.

Chris

 

I just purchased a Tagan and when it is turned off it does make a faint ticking sound. However, when the PC is powered up a here a strange 'electrical whirring' sound (it's a little hard to describe). It's not the fans; does anyone have any ideas?

Other than that it seems to be working fine...

 

If it seems to working ok then i wouldnt worry too much - my Tagan clicks too, but its so quiet i dont even notice it when operating my pc.
As for that 'electrical whirring' sound, when i installed my Tagan (because of how quiet it is) i noticed all sorts of sounds id never heard before - like my hard disks and my CPU fan. Maybe its something like that.

 

Tick Tock Tick Tock - The Verdict?

Hi

I've just found these postings on the ticking noises in the Tagan 480W PSU and I have excactly the same experience. So concerned was I that I returned mine to Scan who told me that it was faulty and sent me a replacement!

However, even my new PSU replacememt has a ticking noise although I don;t think its as bad as the last one was. Might just be my ears getting paranoid over all this!

Most people on the bit-tech forum seem to say that ticking is normal in PSUs. If this is the case I wonder why Scan seemed clueless when I phoned them for advice and also diagnoised the ticking as a fault? Rather odd don't you think? Maybe they just aren;t aware of such noises as I doubt they are electricians but it still concerns me that their technicians didn;t know anything.

I expect to hear some noise from the PSUs fans or a little whirl of electricity but the ticking noises are a little disconcerting.

Is the conclusion here that all PSUs make some sort of ticking noise?

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks people,
Stephen.

 

Mine has PSU ticking noise (Tagan 480W) but seems fine.

Ben

 

Excellant, another ticking Tagan. How long have you had your Tagan up and running Ben?

Is it the classic ticking as soon as powered on but not nessarily with the PC up and running?

S

 

The ticking issue was discussed on SPCR. It seems the ticking noise is a 'feature' of Tagen PSUs as most people hear it (a lucky few have ones that don't tick). Several people have tried dismantling it to find out what makes the noise (the fan was eliminated early on) but still no closer to a solution. It seems the tick is produced by the electronics, I'm torn between getting a Tagen and a Zalman 400, the Tagen Kicks out more Wattage and is cheaper but the Zalman is nearly 50% more expensive but no ticking. I'm still not decided, my system is silent at the moment but my PSU is a solid 300W and I'm upgrading to a new meaty graphics card at the end of the summer which might need a little more (my psu runs a few fans, 2 optical drives, 2 hdd, my AMD mobile, couple of Cold Cathodes, etc) so I'd really like to hear peoples opinions of the ticking sound, how loud? As loud as a 12v Panaflo?

 

With my machine turned on and running I cannot hear any ticking. That's not to say my PC is noisy. It isn't. I can only hear the ticking if I put my ear by the PSU fan whether the PC is turned on or off.

 

1. 3 weeks

2. yes

would not worry as i can not hear it and the only fans in my system are that of the tagan. This is not even in my case it is beside it

Ben

 

I bought the Zalaman a wekk before this review. I've not had any problems with it and theres certainly no ticking.
When I ran it on its own all I could hear was the sort of woosh sound of air moving and it was extremely quiet. Had to have my head right next to it to hear it.

Lines are pretty stable too and it's handled everything I've thrown at it: O/C'd CPU, 3 HDD's, a few case fans, 2 optical drives, 2 cathodes, pump.