Well, that's it, I'm already using a new power supply. A Corsair RM750x. The change has been beastly. I've gone from putting up with a constant annoying noise to total silence. Something essential for working, especially at night.
If you read this previous post, you already know that I gave a nearly 14 year old power supply a ticket in anticipation of it cracking because it didn't sound good at all.
The solution was to replace who knows how many components and since I have assembled a PC from scratch it was not the plan to leave a degraded one.
I remember a previous PSU whose fan sticker had peeled off a bit and when it spun it made a sound quite similar to coil whine, as the fan had no possible adjustment and was always spinning, as in this one that I had to retire. No luck, the fan was more or less OK and could even be replaced, but the rest was already very degraded and the person who checked it advised me to replace it and not to stretch it much more.
This is the sound it made when I turned on the computer. The initial coil whine was decreasing at idle, but the humming sound remained and increased little by little.
However, when the workload arrived, things got worse. The coil whine returned and the noise became almost unbearable.
The new Corsair comes packaged in a brand-coloured box containing the PSU, its bundle of cables and two cardboard envelopes with the screws, a few cable ties and some plastic cable combs.
The cables, despite not being covered with the typical braided sheath or braided mesh, have a coating and finish that you can sense the quality of the cables. They are very flexible and tame very well, making them easy to fit in tight or less accessible places. In addition, they are much thinner overall. This is appreciated. In my previous box they were so tight that I had to shoehorn the lid shut and jump on top of it.
I have chosen this model for two reasons, not only because of the good reviews about its performance, but also because it is a brand with a certain prestige and the different certifications or its 10-year warranty. You can check its specifications on the manufacturer's website.
It is a robustly built, well-finished fountain, weighing about 1.80 kg.
It's quiet to begin with. The Zero RPM mode completely eliminates fan noise at low and medium loads because it remains stationary.
Zero RPM mode activates the fan only when necessary, allowing the power supply to run quietly under light loads or at idle. That is, the fan does not spin when it is under 40% load. From then on it starts to do so gradually without increasing frequency peaks.
Another reason is that it comes with a handy hand knob in case you need more air to flow continuously through the power supply or to blow some heat out of the chassis at any given moment. It's as simple as turning the knob. To return to normal operation, simply turn it in the opposite direction to stop this manual fan speed control function.
In addition to the utility for which it was conceived, this control also allows you to easily and quickly check if the fan is working or if it has any strange noise. Something that becomes quite complicated and awkward when the PSU is placed on the floor of the case and is installed with the fan on the bottom.
One thing that has really struck me is the insistence of the manufacturer, and almost everyone who has reviewed and tested this supply, is that they point out very effusively that it has 100% Japanese electrolytic capacitors (rated at 105°C).
Are you telling me that there is no one in Japan, as big as it is, that manufactures bad capacitors?
Installing it was even quicker and easier than dismantling the old one. The cables are very mouldable and have the perfect thickness for the new box in which I have placed it, which I will review another day.
The result has exceeded even my best wishes. The silence in everyday tasks and at rest is almost absolute. And I say almost, so as not to sound exaggerated, but even if you put your ear close to the box you can't hear any noise coming from the source, if anything you can hear a very slight vibration that confirms that there are several things running inside with electricity :P
In the next two installments I will take a look at the new case and the monster CPU cooler that keeps the PC cooler than Jack Nicholson in the snow maze of the Overlook Hotel.
