The Sound of... relative quiet.

[vakkotaur]

On Sunday I had some power supply problems with belgian and even after the supply was going again I didn't quite trust it, and the fan was still noisy enough to be an irritant. Monday there was a trip to Computer Renaissance in Mankato and a replacement power supply purchased. Today I made the swap.

The machine is a few years old and was a Wal-Mart mail-order item that I added the RAM and HDD to as the Wal-Mart prices were out of line. One thing they skimped on was the power supply. I'm a bit surprised it lasted this long as if I am reading it right, it's a mere 180 Watt unit. I expected to replace it with a 230 or 250 or 300 Watt device. The cheapest new supply (used weren't much if any cheaper) was the one I bought, and it's 480 Watts. I like efficiency, but I also like power circuitry to "loaf along" rather than be at all strained.

It was a true hardware project. I managed to cut myself getting the ATX connector from the old supply disconnected from the motherboard. But the new supply is in and running fine, and quietly. The thing has two fans, but is still rather quiet. While I had thing apart, I also adjust the speed of the CPU fan down a bit so that it is quieter too. It's not silent, but it is much quieter than before.