QUOTE(darin @ Apr 25 2004, 10:53 AM)
Hey guys, check this out. I found a powersupply that uses no fans, just heatsinks. tell me what ya'll think about it:
http://silentmaxx.net/catalog/ps_prosilence_350pcsIt's kinda expensive, but maybe it will be worth it.
Try a SilentPCReview forum search for "Prosilence" and see what you can dig up. Some people have been happy with it, others report a high failure rate and bad customer service.
Is the rest of your computer completely silent? If not, then don't bother with a fanless PSU. If you feel up to doing a little handywork, you can get a near-silent PSU for cheap. Take a decent 1-fan 80mm PSU, duct it so that it gets its own cold air supply and doesn't have to deal with the hot case air, and then swap the stock fan with a 6-volted Panaflo L1a in it. This PSU would be quieter than any 3.5" hard drive on the market, except perhaps the single-platter Samsung Spinpoint, and it would cost 1/3rd as much as the Prosilence. Actually, it would probably be quieter than any stock fanned PSU on the market, too!
It's not safe to do a low-speed fan swap and then just shove the PSU back in the case, but when you duct the PSU's intake, you drop the PSU's internal temperature by 10C (or whatever the difference is between ambient temperature and top-of-the-case temperature). That's why you can safely mod the PSU with a fan that's too slow for any commercial PSU.
I've been running my Antec 400W PSU with only one 7V Panaflo for a year now. It's powering two Palomino-core XP1600+ chips, and the ducting job isn't even that good. It can handle hours of gaming or video encoding without any instability.