Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W Noiseless Power Supply

Reviews: Hardware

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Case-Mod.com
Apr. 30, 2004

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Testing

Zalman's power supply was thrown in our testing rig with the following specifications:

Pentium 4 2.4c
ABIT IC7-MAX3
PowerColor Radeon 9800 XT (Catalyst 4.2)
200 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9
2x 160 GB SATA Seagate Barracuda
LiteOn 16X DVD-ROM
4x 80mm fans

In order to test the performance of the power supply, I used a multi-meter to gather the voltages from the 12v, 5v and 3.3v lines. First, the voltage lines were read without being connected to a computer. The lines were also read during idle and load conditions while in the test rig. Load conditions were created by running Prime95 as well as PCMark04 for thirty minutes. The results (+/- 0.05v) are shown in the following table.

	3.3v Rail	5v Rail	12v Rail
Stand-Alone	3.4	5.1 - 5.2	12.1
Idle	3.4	5.1 - 5.2	12.0 - 12.1
Load	3.4	5.1	12.0

As you can see from the table, all voltage lines were well within 5% of their ratings. Even under stressed conditions, Zalman's power supply was able to hold its own.

Now to discuss the issue of noise... As I mentioned earlier, Zalman is well known for producing quiet cooling solutions; be it CPU coolers, heat-sinks or water cooling kits. Zalman claims that their power supplies are "noise free." While technically it is true that anything with moving parts will make some sort of noise, even if it is barely audible, Zalman's claim is closer to the truth than any other "quiet" or "silent" claim I have ever seen.

During operation, even when running by itself (not connected to a computer), the power supply was completely inaudible unless your ear was within 3-5 inches of the exhaust fan. I'm not over-exaggerating either; I am extremely anal when it comes to the noise emitting from my computer. Even though the fan was exceptionally quiet, it was still pushing a decent amount of air. The exhaust wasn't overly warm either. The power supplies solid construction didn't create enough heat to require a huge amount of airflow to keep it cool.

One thing that is worth mentioning though, is that when the power supply is wired to run without a computer, it does emit a slight high pitch hum. However, this noise is non-existent when it is connected to a computer and I would take absolutely no points off because of this.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: A Closer Look
Page 3: Internals
Page 4: Testing
Page 5: Conclusion

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