Log Why do cases for an APU-Build (no graphics card) Suck?

[PVC]

lack of space or the closer a fan is to case sides increases noise turbulence and makes it more difficult for the fan to pull air in.

Oh okay. It's back together with the Noctua NH-L9x65. The metal cooling fins of the Noctua NH-L9x65 are much bigger than the ThermalRight AXP90-X53 Full Copper. I just like the Noctua NH-L9x65 much better. My Temps seem to stay in the low 50's (see below). Every few hours the power supply fan does a ten-second fast speed cycle, even though the computer is sitting idle. I'm not sure what that is about? Though, it's only a minor annoyance. I did a better job of cable management allowing me to put that front I/O piece back in and zip-tie the cables to that.

Now waiting a couple/few weeks for the slightly bigger (TAMOSH A09P Black Itx Case).

 

[PVC]

Every few hours the power supply fan does a ten-second fast speed cycle

It does this more often (every 15 or 20 minutes) when running as HTPC/watching movies. That's not acceptable!

Are there any good (AND Quiet) modular Flex power supplies? I was reading reviews for some Flex PSUs that said they are noisy. I don't want that.

 

[vinnyoflegend]

It does this more often (every 15 or 20 minutes) when running as HTPC/watching movies. That's not acceptable!

Very strange. Are you monitoring power draw with hwinfo64? I wonder if it’s bursting high enough draw to kick the fan on. (180w or so is where I remember it started spinning in tests)

Regarding quiet flex PSUs, I haven’t found any of the ones I’ve tried to be noisy (besides this delta if loaded and sustained to where the fan starts) but I haven’t had any modular ones either. Most expensive one I’ve had is the Silverstone’s FX600 which is based off of Enhance 600w. I’ve also used the Seasonic 300w gold and the FSP500-30AS modded. I suspect the FSP modular ones would be similar quietness. They have it in 300w and 500w on Amazon.

@Overtek carries a modular 450w from the Enhance line on his site. That might fit your criteria too. He even offers alternate fans.

 

[PVC]

Thanks for that! I never paid much attention to power supply requirements because I only build APU computers (no Graphics card). Nothing appears to be over consuming power today;

• CPU Package Power 6 W
• CPU EDC 58 A
• GPU ASIC Power 8 W

But the PSU fan is not turning on high today (even with extra HTTP duty/playing movie) in the background??
I will continue to monitor this. Thanks again for your help.

 

[ignsvn]

Because I'm a dummy when it comes to estimating power requirements, And it was a false alarm because my 350 Watt power supply is working okay, therefore there is no need for me to buy another. The initial problem (InWin Chopin Max) doesn't have enough power has been solved by returning the InWin Chopin Max which comes with its own power supply.

I see.. anw for context & comparison, my APU build here Goodisory A01 Review – SFF.Network | SFF.Network runs on a 150 watt shady AliExpress PSU & adapter (Granted, it's using a much weaker Athlon 3000G).

Edit: your motherboard is capable & might need to deliver around 80 watt of power, yes, but IIRC most of that goes to the GPU slot (by PCIE spec is 75 watt). If you don't use dedicated GPU, then the mobo power usage should be much smaller.

 

[PVC]

Thanks @ignsvn for your helpful posts (and links). I wholeheartedly agree with you about external power supplies when you say; "Many forum members know that I’m never a big fan of external AC-DC brick. I see them as something that adds more wire on my already cluttered, fully-wired PC setup, regardless whether you put the brick on top of the desk, or on the floor".

But for the same reasons I have a similar dislike for a (Pico Power Supply) solution. Sorry, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And, I have built similar to your three linked Ryzen 3 builds. Perhaps even better because I used Ryzen 5?

But now I'm tryna move on to Ryzen 7 - 8700G. I think that I am almost there. But I have a power supply heat problem. I think my power supply heat problem is related to three issues. And all three heat sources are sitting at the bottom of my case.

• The front Gen5 1TB M2 NVMe slot is at the bottom of my case
• The rear Gen4 4TB M2 NVMe slot (with addon heatsink) is also at the bottom of my case
• The power supply is also at the bottom of my case

My problem is that the power supply fan (which can be very loud) because it's a server power supply, namely (Delta Electronics DPS-350AB-12 350W Server Switching Power Supply). I have been using HWiNFO to look at the power consumption of this build and I can't find any power consumption issues. So I am zeroing in on exhausting the three heat sources at the bottom/front of my case using cable management (which is a separate/long story), or maybe using a case exhaust fan at the source of heat concentration.

The reason I say that I am almost there is because the fan kicks into fast-fan mode only every few hours of normal computer use, and maybe every 15-20 minutes when the (HTPC/home theater PC) component of this build is being used.

Reference link to → PSU Temperature.

 

[PVC]

Okay, here's that separate (power supply cable routing discussion). It seems that the (Delta Electronics DPS-350AB-12 350W Server Switching Power Supply) may come with different cable connections, and my version had extra addon cables that were spliced/added!! It was not a hack job. I think maybe they were factory spliced? Bottom line, all those extra cables are not needed. Because my storage (NVMe) connects directly to the motherboard, all I need are two cables (24-Pin Power Connector, and 8-Pin CPU cables) aka the two white connectors at the front of this picture.

So I ordered another $10 power supply without the additional extra spliced cables. This should enhance cable routing near the power supply exhaust, which is located at the bottom/front of my case. The power supply air intake is pictured below with exhaust out the back-end where the cables are located.

 

[vinnyoflegend]

What are the spliced cables you see on yours? I don't recall any from your original thread about the PSU. I'm definitely curious about the fan behavior you're seeing as I wasn't able to see temperature related fan triggers in actual use (even in a hotbox like the A09 with added NVME drives (though I only had one on a PCIE card facing the PSU).

If you do a simple Cinebench run does it trigger the fan behavior and does the power draw spike at all?

 

[PVC]

What are the spliced cables you see on yours?

 

[PVC]

I'm definitely curious about the fan behavior you're seeing as I wasn't able to see temperature related fan triggers in actual use (even in a hotbox like the A09 with added NVME drives (though I only had one on a PCIE card facing the PSU).

If you do a simple Cinebench run does it trigger the fan behavior and does the power draw spike at al

This is another/different/previous build (and it's IBM). But it's the A09 case and the "hot spot" psu exhaust is located at the upper right of this picture which equates to the bottom/front of the A09 case. After several hours of use today the fan has not come on high.

Oh, I will try a Cinebench run. Thanks.

 

[vinnyoflegend]

Ok, those are the same cables I had on mine as well. AFAIK they're stock cables, the additional 8p being meant for some Intel retail rackmount server to power drive bays.

 

[PVC]

Cinebench simply increases the fan speed for a fast workload. Kinda like an image backup will have intermittent high fan speeds. But the Cinebench has a steady sustained workload at a steady increased fan speed.

But that is NOT what is happening with this occasional full-speed fan howl, which is the same as the power supply full-speed fan howl that you will hear at startup!

 

[PVC]

Ok, those are the same cables I had on mine as well. AFAIK they're stock cables

Yep, I also thought they were stock. Until I found a seller who said "Mine are standard. No splicing" as a reply to my inquiry about why his (Delta Electronics DPS-350AB-12 350W Server Switching Power Supply) had less cables?

 

[PVC]

Still on EBay if you want to have a look;

 

[vinnyoflegend]

Cinebench simply increases the fan speed for a fast workload. Kinda like an image backup will have intermittent high fan speeds. But the Cinebench has a steady sustained workload at a steady increased fan speed.

But that is NOT what is happening with this occasional full-speed fan howl, which is the same as the power supply full-speed fan howl that you will hear at startup!

Are you saying Cinebench is increasing the CPU fan speed (which we expect), or that it's ALSO increasing the PSU fan speed but in a ramp up -> sustained way?

The sudden howls you've been getting go direct to 100% or also have a minor ramp up?

 

[vinnyoflegend]

Yep, I also thought they were stock. Until I found a seller who said "Mine are standard. No splicing" as a reply to my inquiry about why his (Delta Electronics DPS-350AB-12 350W Server Switching Power Supply) had less cables?

It's entirely possible Delta offered ones with only standard connectors meant for generic use. But you can see all the ones with additional cabling by searching for the Intel server. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=SR1630GPRX+psu

 

[PVC]

Are you saying Cinebench is increasing the CPU fan speed (which we expect), or that it's ALSO increasing the PSU fan speed but in a ramp up -> sustained way?

Yes. Both ramp up.

The sudden howls you've been getting go direct to 100% or also have a minor ramp up?

Yes, PSU fan goes direct to 100% for several seconds and then slowly calms back down to the default very slow idle speed.

It's entirely possible Delta offered ones with only standard connectors meant for generic use. But you can see all the ones with additional cabling by searching for the Intel server. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=SR1630GPRX+psu

Yes, I was surprised to find the "fewer cables" version! But fewer cables may help with my cable management problems. Currently I have this wire-birds-nest problem blocking my power supply exhaust (upper right corner) in this image below which is the current state of my build. That wire-birds-nest problem can't be good!

I only have 1-and-1/4" (inch) of space to work with. Having a power supply with fewer wires (new PSU on order) may help. The slightly bigger A09P case (on-order) may help too.

Perhaps? → Light duty and/or HTPC duty is not enough of a power draw to trigger an increase for the mild airflow through the power supply. Perhaps again? → If that mild airflow gets blocked, then the power supply heats up enough to trigger that short-duration full-speed fan burst as a remedy for the overheating-when-idle problem.

Though, I could be wrong

 

[PVC]

Sorry, for this extra post. Content moved to previous post.

 

[vinnyoflegend]

Did you end up collecting any PPT/TDC/EDC stats from hwinfo64 during cinebench? Sounds like it is somehow hitting a power level that starts the fan

according to this STH review of the 8700G they were able to see a system draw 150w.

AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Review More TDP and NPU

The AMD Ryzen 7 8700G brings Zen 4, RDNA 3 Radeon 780M graphics, and a new AMD XDNA AI NPU together into a new APU

www.servethehome.com

That and higher temps/restricted airflow I could see causing the fan spikes to max speed. Assuming there’s some other background activity causing full CPU load. Maybe some of kind of indexing or other activity by the HT/LG+windows scheduled tasks