playing tones with your fan

[ronniemonda9]

if my psu fan keeps changin tone when I do somethin important (cpu intensive), does this mean that the power unit is too small for the demands? Home build unit, running some expensive addons (350W psu with big gigabyte mobo, 2.6 northwoood, 128mb graphics gef 4, 512mb dram).

many thanks

[fo3nix]

what extra things like DVD re-writer etc. do you ahve going?

I think you are correct though, a 500W power unit would be better, I would have thought.

[Mobius1]

500W? That's a bit over the top for a system like that. For a system with one of the best desktop CPUs (3Ghz+), 1GB of RAM and two GeForce 7800GTX cards in SLI configuration, one optical drive etc, a 550W is recommended. A 400W one is recommended when using a 6800, which is one of Nvidia's most power hungry cards on it's own.

Since he's nowhere near that (having a GeForce 4 and half the RAM), I really wouldn't think the problem he's having is because his power supply is being strained. If anything, it might just be a dodgy unit and need replacing. It needn't be replaced with anything rated above 400W though as far as I can see.

[dodgyshirt]

Are you sure it is the PSU fan that is changing and not the CPU cooler fan adjusting speed according to the demands being made upon the CPU.

[fo3nix]

yes, the 500 may be a bit much, but they dont range in price that much, so if it is that, its worth going for a more powerful one maybe.

if he has a couple of optical drives too though, the 500 may be more of a requirement than an option (i would have thought, no experment and nt sat down to work it out)

[ronniemonda9]

it may be the CPU cooler fan, yeah

[dodgyshirt]

Then don't worry.If you think back to when you built it, the CPU Cooler fan would have had an additional yellow cable through which mobos such as better Gigabyte models can sense and control the CPU fan speed according to need.

This has the effect of making the PC quieter when the CPU is not working hard.