looking for a quiet power supply for my Dell Vostro

spaceboy

The Dell PSU seems to have quite a noisy fan, which is irritating as I have my computer in a cupboard so it sounds louder than if it was a bigger room.

I have been told the Nexus Value 430W is very quiet but it's a bit expensive for me (£65). Any alternatives?

spud17

These have been mentioned on here in the past

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/home

spaceboy

I like the look of this one: http://www.xlpropc.co.uk/catalog/rasurbo-dlp451-450w-silent-power-quiet-p-165.html

GeoffX

The Corsair CMPSU-430CX is £36.43 at Scan or £35.98 at Novalogic. If it's similar to their bigger models then it should be very quiet.

You need to be careful with Dell's as a few of their models used a standard power connector, but they wired them in a non-standard way, so make sure you don't have one of them or you'll blow your motherboard and/or PSU.

spaceboy

GeoffX wrote: »

The Corsair CMPSU-430CX is £36.43 at Scan or £35.98 at Novalogic. If it's similar to their bigger models then it should be very quiet.

You need to be careful with Dell's as a few of their models used a standard power connector, but they wired them in a non-standard way, so make sure you don't have one of them or you'll blow your motherboard and/or PSU.

I'm pretty sure Dell stopped doing that years ago.

spaceboy

Just wondering if I could save some money by opening up the Dell PSU and changing the fan for a really quiet one myself? Would this be achievable?

AHAR

spaceboy wrote: »

Just wondering if I could save some money by opening up the Dell PSU and changing the fan for a really quiet one myself? Would this be achievable?

I've heard that capacitors can hold charge for quite some time after power has been removed so I wouldn't recommend poking around inside a PSU. The fan is likely to be hard wired to the circuit board so you'd have that problem to deal with. You'd have to also be sure a replacement fan would be up to the job of keeping the components cool. Maybe the fan is loud because it needs to move a lot of air because the PSU isn't very efficient? I wonder is it's getting a bit hot and bothered by being kept in a cupboard?

Check out my reply in this thread which was in relation to a different Dell system but highlights a few 'gotchas' which may also apply to your Vostro depending which model it is.
I assume you're talking about an ordinary tower case and not one of the more compact options which won't use a standard ATX PSU?

Richie-from-the-Boro

spaceboy wrote: »

Just wondering if I could save some money by opening up the Dell PSU and changing the fan for a really quiet one myself? Would this be achievable?

Yes, easily achieved, make sure you leave it completely isolated from the mains voltage for 12 hours before you open it up.

TIP : before you open it up stick a paperclip between the green wire and any black on the connector block, several times to empty any residual current.

spaceboy

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Yes, easily achieved, make sure you leave it completely isolated from the mains voltage for 12 hours before you open it up.

TIP : before you open it up stick a paperclip between the green wire and any black on the connector block, several times to empty any residual current.

What speed of fan will i need? I have a 12cm Noctua that does 800rpm. Will I need a faster spinning one?

AHAR

spaceboy wrote: »

What speed of fan will i need? I have a 12cm Noctua that does 800rpm. Will I need a faster spinning one?

You could look for part numbers on the original fan and Google them to see if you can find how much air it shifts then compare that with your fan.

Richie-from-the-Boro

spaceboy wrote: »

What speed of fan will i need? I have a 12cm Noctua that does 800rpm. Will I need a faster spinning one?

You need to shift a similar amount of Cfm as ' AHAR ' has already stated, generally I'm suspicious of fans that run sub 1k, but the size you mention at 120mm may well do. Most PSU's are over exhausted for obvious reasons but working without numbers is at best a ' guesstimate.

TIP1 : it will be full of carp when you strip it, get an airline in there and strip the grease edge from the fin end of the fan before re-assembly.

TIP2 : 50% of the exhaust capacity it negated by the tea-bag construction [ little perforations ] if you are in a situation where no pratt is going to stick a finger into a spinning fan ' chonk ' them out with a pair of snippers to improve the Cfm.