Hey, anybody have one of these? In my attempt to silence my rig, I've noticed that the 135mm fan in mine has a hugely irritating high-pitched resonant hum, not unlike a very faint plane going overhead. It's subtle, but INCREDIBLY annoying as the PC stays on in the same room and is about three feet away. It is the loudest fan in my case by far, despite having basically zero load. Just wondering whether it's a common issue or if I can replace the fan or something, or whether I should just bite the bullet and get one of those fancy passive cooled PSUs.
There's no need to go passive cooled, some fans are very quiet, especially when not under load. If you were to replace it i'd go for one that is as close to yours as possible, just without the whine obviously.
I used to have a 600w one of these. I was very quiet. Not silent, but quiet all the same. I have no reservations recommending them.
Cheaper PSUs tend to be noiser, and this wouldn't be the first time I've heard about it from an OCZ unit. Depends whether or not you've got money to spend and how much you value the quietness. You could sell the PSU 2nd hand and buy yourself something quieter, but as already mentioned, you don't have to go passive to get that. Do you have a budget in mind?
I just bought a 500w one of these. The only other fan in my case is the one on the cpu, so I'll go home and stick my finger in and report back with what I hear...
Thanks for the replies, folks, much appreciated. The OCZ unit really wasn't all that cheap, if I remember correctly, as I bought it about two years ago. As such, I doubt it's covered by warranty (the fact that the OCZ reps are ignoring me on the official forum says as much). The thing is, I'm not sure it is a defect or anything; it's probably just a crappy fan. It is quiet, it just whines, whereas all of my other (quality) fans give off nothing more than the sound of airflow, if anything. Is there a way I can stop the PSU fan just so I can see how loud it is compared to everything else? There must presumably be a way of doing this that doesn't involve killing myself with 240V. As for budget — no, I try not to put an upper limit on PSUs, given how important they are as components. I'm considering the Antec Truepower 650 that was so well reviewed by bit.
Stick a pencil through the grille to stop the fan. You could manually stop everything else to confirm. The Antec is a solid choice and uses a quality fan. If you do want ABSOLUTE silence, the Seasonic X-650 is the way to go.
Just poke a pencil through the grill for a few seconds, don't do it for too long or you risk burning the motor out. Antec truepower new 650 is a great PSU and very quiet, the only time I've heard it make any noise is when running prime95 and furmark together and by that point 2 graphics card fans and the CPU fan are all going full tilt so it's not that noticeable.
I can confirm that mine is quieter than my CPU. In terms of the warranty, found this on the OCZ website:
