Need New PSU

[Winnow]

After many years of flawless power, my Tagan PSU has started whining. Whenever my screens update, or I scroll, move a window, etc, I get a high pitched hiss from the PSU. Most likely it's dust or a coil going bad. I don't feel like taking my PSU apart since it's 480W and barely in spec for powering what I have now. Ye'ole blast from the can of air didn't help so it's on to buying a new one.

I have an Antec P180 case. It's famous for having the separate chambers, with the PSU on the bottom, quite a ways from the typical motherboard power socket. So, first up is having a PSU that can reach the motherboard socket. Second is that my 480 Tagan barely fits in the PSU cage. I need to find a high watt, quality PSu that will fit in the case.

So, anyone with the Antec P180 case have a 7-900 Watt quality PSU they can recommend that fits? And by fit, I mean that you can cram it it...nothing really "fits" in the P180...the cables have like 2 inches of room before a big fan that they need to twisted up and stuffed through a hole.

The noise is very annoying but it's nice that the Tagan at least keeps on chugging along, allowing me to research a PSU instead of buy one in an emergency.

[masteen]

I'm using an Antec EarthWatts power supply, and the case is an Antec Dark Fleet. Power sup lives on the bottom AND the wires live under the mobo tray, and it had no issues with cable legnth.

I'd bet that all of the newer Antec power sups, but definitely the EarthWatts series, have cables that will work for you.

[Aabidano]

Last Tagan croaked after ~5 years, replaced it with a CoolMax "GreenPower".

Does what it's supposed to do, PC can sleep and wake up now too, didn't work right with the Tagan.

[Aardor]

I highly recommend anything from PC Power and Cooling. Only having 1 12V rail with a massive amount of amps on it is awesome for overclocking.

I have a P180 Case, and their 750W psu from a few years ago, but these 2 have nearly the same dimensions (<.25 of an inch difference, and it isn't *that* tight for the PSU now):

910W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

1200W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product (lol)

[Aabidano]

Have a P180 as well, really like it. Bought a newer one that's similar, can't recall the # but it's pretty spiffy too.

[Aslanna]

I have a P182 and hate it! At least when upgrading stuff inside it. When I put in a new video card I had to take the front drive cage out because it wouldn't fit otherwise so now I have a drive sitting loose there.

Anyway, the power supply I had in there for 3 years was a Thermaltake 700W and it worked fine. The only reason I replaced it with a Thermaltake Black Widow (850W) nearly a year ago was because I put it in another case. The only bad thing was that according to the specs on their site it was the same size as the 700W I had but it wasn't! It was about a half inch or so longer so it was an even tighter fit in the P182. To really get it to fit I had to break off that weird overhanging shit on that fan down there.

[Winnow]

I'm using an Antec EarthWatts power supply, and the case is an Antec Dark Fleet. Power sup lives on the bottom AND the wires live under the mobo tray, and it had no issues with cable legnth.

I'd bet that all of the newer Antec power sups, but definitely the EarthWatts series, have cables that will work for you.

I bought a 700W Antec EarthWatts at lunch, read a ton of bad reviews about the fan sucking after just a few months and returned it for a Thermaltake 775W Toughpower XT that I had Fry's price match Newegg for 119.00. Let me know if your fan holds up after a few months! Besides the can the EarthWatts looked to be a decent PSU.

I can't stand shitty fans. Hate them with a passion so seeing every other review on Newegg tell me how the fan was clicking or noisy made my decision easy.

I read a few reviews on the Toughpower XT and they've all been very good. I haven't stuck this in my PC yet, will do that tomorrow.

Rails:

25A 25A and +12V = 64A (64 is super high)

This guys seems to have honest PSU reviews:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... y&reid=182

This is the key part that made me buy it:

Aesthetics (10% of the final score) - U! G! L! Y! This thing got no alibi! It ugly! I just don't like this color, people. Not at all. Back when Thermaltake was making shiny off brown units, those I could almost see myself wanting to kind of think about starting to sort of debate liking. But this with the sleeving that still doesn't go all the way into the case? Just... no. 4.

It still got a 9 rating with his fugyly 4 rating...and who really gives a shit what a PSU looks like?

Performance 9.5
Functionality 9.5
Value 9.5
Aesthetics 4

Total Score 9

With the load I put on this PSU which will typically be less than half, this thing will be quiet and cool. Eventually I'll be able to use this with one of the latest high end graphics card in my next build.

Keep in mind this is not a top of the line PSU but the build quality is there which is what I want. 119.00 is decent price for 775W quality.

[Aslanna]

Thermaltake wasn't the first thing that came to mind when I was looking for power supplies. I was originally going for Tagan but NewEgg was out of stock at the time. Nowadays I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them though as I've had zero problems with the two I have. But I'm not a power user with the crazy SLI and overclocking so not sure how they would hold up for that (fine I am sure) but for everyday normal use I have no complaints.

[Aabidano]

Something I keep in mind when reading "public" reviews:
Most won't write a review unless they've had a bad experience
Most people are idiots at least some of the time

Fan ticking is probably a realistic complaint, but you have no idea what % of them are actually bad from the number of reviews. Some will be bad\fail, it's going to happen with a cheapo commodity part. Some percentage of those will generate a complaint. Without knowing the numbers the reviews don't mean much.

Warranty complaints are the ones I look for.

I've seen loud moaning and gnashing of teeth about products I've worked on and know that stats for, some even had (douchebag) analysts get pissy. All for failure rates well under what we say is going to happen if they bother to read the docs.

[Winnow]

Fan ticking is probably a realistic complaint, but you have no idea what % of them are actually bad from the number of reviews. Some will be bad\fail, it's going to happen with a cheapo commodity part. Some percentage of those will generate a complaint. Without knowing the numbers the reviews don't mean much.

A bad fan is a bad fan. I understand user reviews but that's a hardware issue, not a user issue. The fan even looks cheap. Even morons can't really impact the performance of a fan.

Cons: Fan started clicking after 7 months usage.

Cons: Fan makes some clicking-like sound after using it for a while.

Cons: Its making a loud Clicking Noise and yes i checked to make sure it wasn't the hard drives its not... the fan i'm not sure that its running properly

Cons: Be aware that the fan is loud.

Cons: TICK, TICK, TICK, This thing is driving me crazy. I can hear the fan rubbinig on something. The ticking is there about 95% of the time. Not real loud, but very annoying. I dont want to take my computer down to RMA this. Antec should be sending out replacements at no charge to us.

Cons: Not even 2 months old and makes a real annoying sound

Cons: The fan is complete garbage.

Cons: Easily the loudest component in my system. Not happy.

Cons: The thing sounds like a freakin jet engine. I couldn't believe how loud this thing is. I can literally hear it from the next room

Cons: The unbearable rapid clicking sound coming from the fan was enough to make me RMA it for a replacement.

Cons: The fan of the PSU started to make a lot of noise after 2 weeks. I'm really annoyed, I'll have to wait for long time and waste my time.

Cons: Much louder than I anticipated. Loudest Antec PS I've ever owned

Cons: The power supply was silent initially but after two months or so it developed an intermittent rattle that was driving me nuts. It sounded like the fan was hitting something inside so I RMA'd it

Cons: Extremely loud fan!

Cons: The fan started making some noise so we are returning it for another identical one (sans the noise

Cons: noisy???

I don't think I'll roll the dice with that. I've had my share of bad fans. I don't want to start off knowing it's a bad one. The Thermaltake 775W Toughpower XT I purchased uses same fan found ion the high end Corsair TX950W PSU (made by HongHua Electron Technological CO LTD) so that's a good start.

[Aslanna]

Personally I always though Antec power supplies, while good, were overpriced. The one in my Sonata case I bought long ago was fine although it died after about 4 years use.

[Winnow]

The only PSU I can vouch for is Tagan. And that's just for my particular PSU. The big companies have various lines of PSU. High end and budget, mid range, etc. Even for the Antec Earthwatts, the 650W seems to perform better than the 750W.


Checking my Newegg purchase history (I love that you can see everything, in my case, back to 2002)

I purchased my PSU:

Tagan TG-480-U22 480W ATX SLI Ready Power Supply

12/15/2005

It's been going 24/7 for 5 years and 4 months. 44,000 hours. Not bad, not bad. And that's pushing it's max capacity over the past few years.

[Winnow]

Good lord,

I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to change the PSU in an Antec P180 case.

For those that don't have Antec P1xx cases, the power supply is located on the bottom of the case. There's a little hole that you squeeze all of your cables through. Keeping the PSU, and some hard drives if you want some down there, isolated keeps the rest of the system cooler...but makes for more of a bitchy time setting up your cabling.

It took me longer to get the old PSU out than to put the new one in.

I shed a tear while removing the Tagan...or maybe it was some of the loads of dust that got in my eyes after 5 years of accumulation.

The Thermaltake ToughPower XP has better sleeving and is also more modular than the Tagan. It also has better, more modern, cable connections. I was able to significantly clean up the inside of my PC using the new modular system.

Booting up my PC, the new PSU is inaudible even with the side panel off and my ear right next to it. That's the good news. The bad news is the hissy-high pitched noise is still there, although lower in level. It's either something on my motherboard or my video card. More good news is at least now that I have a 775W quality PSU, I can get a new video card if it turns out to be the Video Card. I'll have to pop in an old video card to see if that's what it is. If it's the Motherboard then that sucks because I'm not really up for a full upgrade right now but would probably have to go CPU/Motherboard/Ram minimum if it's the Motherboard.

I also think I'm extremely anal when it comes to noise. My PC is super quiet so I notice any little noise. The way I have my desk/pc's setup, my PC is on the floor right beside me. If i move a couple feet or move my head over the desk, I can't hear shit. I actually can't hear the hiss unless I have my side panel off and my ear is close...but I know it's there so subconsciously I hear it even when I'm not close! I think what I'll end up doing is moving my PC from under my desk to outside on the side if my desk where it's not in direct view. That would be enough to make it completely inaudible.

I think the Tagan is still usable. It really was taxed with the load in my system. I was a few Watts short on the recommended wattage when I bought the nVidia 285 back whenever. The hiss is greatly reduced but not gone so I think the lack of power contributed. I have a full PC of emergency PC parts in case anything goes.

Start the counter! 44,000 hours is the number to beat. That would be sometime in 2016.

[Aslanna]

I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to change the PSU in an Antec P180 case.

For those that don't have Antec P1xx cases, the power supply is located on the bottom of the case. There's a little hole that you squeeze all of your cables through. Keeping the PSU, and some hard drives if you want some down there, isolated keeps the rest of the system cooler...but makes for more of a bitchy time setting up your cabling.

I took that out. I don't really think it does as much as they say. I'm sure it's more a marketing bullet item.

[Aabidano]

What Winnow needs is a Denon gold plated, high fidelity power supply. Only $499.99

[Stonie]

Now that you've changed the power supply and the noise is still there, do you think it might be a bad capacitor on the motherboard? Several motherboard forum posts I've read had a sound very similar to what you are describing, especially under heavier load, and it turned out to be a capacitor.

[Winnow]

Now that you've changed the power supply and the noise is still there, do you think it might be a bad capacitor on the motherboard? Several motherboard forum posts I've read had a sound very similar to what you are describing, especially under heavier load, and it turned out to be a capacitor.

That's almost certainly what it is although the noise is reduced to the point where I can't hear it so it is a load issue as well. At least the more powerful PSU helped in reducing the noise.

[Stonie]

At least now you know you still have a good backup power supply.