SilenX 350W PSU - The PSU
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The PSU
The SilenX PSU itself is very bland, nothing you would want to show off to your buddies. There are no "enhancements" so to speak; it simply resembles an OEM power supply you would expect to see bundled with a cheap case. Perhaps the only physical "feature" it has that other PSUs might not have is an on/off switch. And even then..
That tamper sticker you see in the last pic definitely provoked me to open this PSU open. I probably wouldn't have.. otherwise.
What you see are pics from the left, top, and right of the PSU when opened. The heatsinks used are rather skimpy, although they do have these holes punctured in them at the top to increase surface area, a very fine design. But what does small heatsinks mean? Probably that this PSU doesn't heat up much... thus, why the single PSU fan can operate at just 14dBA. How come this PSU does not need to be cooled as aggressively as others? I'd attribute that to the quality of the capacitors and other parts used to make the whole thing.
One gripe I have with this PSU is that the only ventilation for your computer case into the PSU and out the back of the PSU is the single side opposite the fan and power connector/switch. Here's a pic of it:
I would have liked to seen the same type of grill on the bottom of the PSU, right above the CPU area where most of the heat is trapped. This wouldn't really affect the PSU's noise output either.
The SilenX 350W PSU comes with a total of six molex connectors, two floppy connectors, one ATX connector, one 12V P4, and one AUX server board connector. It comes in two molex/molex lines, two molex/floppy lines, and three separate lines for the ATX, P4, and AUX connectors. These pictures will show you what I mean:
The cable lengths are pretty average for mid sized cases, 50 cm long. Overall, all I can say about this PSU from a visual aspect is that it again, resembles an OEM power supply. If you're like me, and use the PSU in your case as your main method of exhaust, then already I can tell you the SilenX is something you will not want to buy. Lets run through some tests, and wrap this up.
Test Setup
Abit IS7-E (Bios 14, F1 acceleration)
Intel PIV 2.4B @ 1.525V, retail sink and fan
2x512 Kingston HyperX PC3200 RAM @ 2.8V
FIC Radeon 9600 Pro, AGP @ 1.55V
2x Western Digital ATA100 40GB 7200rpm
Samsung 52X CD-ROM
Verbatim 40/12/48X CD-RW
D-Link 10mbps PCI NIC
Creative SB Live! PCI
1x80mm Blue LED fan
12" Blue CCFL
To test the SilenX 350W PSU, I ran the system at completely stock settings, allowed it to idle for a few hours, and then took a few multimeter measurements and looked at MBM high/low records. I then stressed the system by upping the fsb from 133 to 170 without changing any motherboard voltages, thinking that so long as the PSU would deliver steady power, there would not be a problem with system stability; I had used this setup for many months before. I continued to add stress through F@H, a little bit of gaming, and a lot of IO transfers. Here are the results.
Stock
Here's a look at some min/max readings courtesy of MBM 5 in comparison to SilenX specification of ±5%.
The 5V line seems to be the only one right on the money. The system isn't pulling much power at idle and still, the PSU cannot deliver equal to or greater than 12V on the 12V line, and 3.3V on the 3.3V line. Although there's not much fluctuation, I expected better results at stock settings and an idle system. Let's see what my trusty multimeter thinks of the SilenX PSU.
Now here's a different story. The multimeter gives voltage readings consistently higher than MBM average, which probably means the PSU is delivering more power than would be previously expected from those min/max results. Still, the 12V line is sagging just a little bit, but that's very common. Can the SilenX take the heat when I up the FSB to 170 and actually start using my computer?
Next: Overclocked and Stressed >>
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