Seasonic Focus V3 GX-750 annoying variable fan

[mwagen]

I've got the Seasonic Focus V3 GX-750, powering an 11700k and 3080ti, 16gb RAM, one nvme drive, 2 case fans. I've only had it for one year, haven't had any stability issues but the variable psu fan is extremely annoying. Regardless of the fan mode, if there is even the slightest load increase, such as navigating to a web page in chrome, the psu fan will whirr faster for a few seconds then stop. I've done everything I can to make sure it's the psu; the rest of my system fans are absolutely silent, and my room is silent, so the constant on/off of the psu fan is extremely annoying. Has anybody else experienced this with this psu or any other psu? Could it be a system error or something that is over-loading the psu and spinning the fan up?

 

I'm seriously thinking about just building a new PC so if anybody has recommendations for an absolutely silent psu without this variable fan speed nonsense I'd really appreciate it.

[Tetras]

23 minutes ago, mwagen said:

I've done everything I can to make sure it's the psu; the rest of my system fans are absolutely silent, and my room is silent, so the constant on/off of the psu fan is extremely annoying. Has anybody else experienced this with this psu or any other psu? Could it be a system error or something that is over-loading the psu and spinning the fan up?

From what I can see, it is fanless up to 30% load on their website, which would be around 200 watts?

 

Seems unlikely that basic browsing would trigger that level of load, what kind of boost behaviour does your CPU have?

 

 

[mwagen]

5 minutes ago, Tetras said:

From what I can see, it is fanless up to 30% load on their website, which would be around 200 watts?

 

Seems unlikely that basic browsing would trigger that level of load, what kind of boost behaviour does your CPU have?

 

 

According to msi afterburner, it looks like my cpu is actually constantly boosting all the way up to 4900mhz even when I'm just browsing. Never thought to look at that before. How can I fix that?

 

[Tetras]

8 minutes ago, mwagen said:

According to msi afterburner, it looks like my cpu is actually constantly boosting all the way up to 4900mhz even when I'm just browsing. Never thought to look at that before. How can I fix that?

If the CPU fan is responsible, you can change the fan curve so that it allows more time for the CPU to heat up, before the fan increases RPM. If the PSU fan is doing it, you can't change the PSU fan curve I'm afraid, so you'd have to curb the CPU's boost behaviour instead.

 

I'm not sure if there's an easy way to do that, you could try changing Windows power plan.

 

Does your motherboard have MCE enabled?

[--SID--]

1 hour ago, mwagen said:

but the variable psu fan is extremely annoying.

That's because the fan regulation of most Seasonic PSUs lacks hysteresis.

[mwagen]

7 minutes ago, Tetras said:

If the CPU fan is responsible, you can change the fan curve so that it allows more time for the CPU to heat up, before the fan increases RPM. If the PSU fan is doing it, you can't change the PSU fan curve I'm afraid, so you'd have to curb the CPU's boost behaviour instead.

 

I'm not sure if there's an easy way to do that, you could try changing Windows power plan.

 

Does your motherboard have MCE enabled?

I've tried everything possible with the cpu fan curve, makes no difference. It looks like I have to figure out why my cpu is boosting so much and how to curb that behavior if it's even possible. I have a msi motherboard and didn't see a MCE setting, only a 'lite' load configuration that I'm not sure I want to mess with. Even so, looks like my cpu power is only maxing out at barely 60w when browsing chrome, usually between 30-50w. GPU power hovers around 40-50w when browsing, sometimes hitting 150w when I click through a 4k youtube video. But if all that's enough to trigger the psu fan then that's just stupid. I got a little money coming back from taxes this year and a little bonus from work that I'm thinking about just putting toward a new PC at this point.

 

3 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

That's because the fan regulation of most Seasonic PSUs lacks hysteresis.

Ah, interesting.

[Tetras]

3 minutes ago, mwagen said:

But if all that's enough to trigger the psu fan then that's just stupid.

It could be, yeah, especially with videos if that's ramping up your GPU too.

 

4 minutes ago, mwagen said:

It looks like I have to figure out why my cpu is boosting so much and how to curb that behavior if it's even possible.

Hmm. You can make changes in the BIOS to curb that, but I think they would also impact your performance. For example: if you turned off the turbo (or the higher turbos), that'd also limit your performance in apps that aren't browsing.

 

Ideally you'd want two profiles or something conveniently switchable, which you could maybe do with something like XTU or Throttlestop.

 

6 minutes ago, mwagen said:

I got a little money coming back from taxes this year and a little bonus from work that I'm thinking about just putting toward a new PC at this point.

Seems a shame to junk it, a 11700K and 3080 Ti is still a great combination, could last you plenty more years yet, if it wasn't annoying.

[mwagen]

7 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Seems a shame to junk it, a 11700K and 3080 Ti is still a great combination, could last you plenty more years yet, if it wasn't annoying.

Yeah, thinking I could probably just try another psu to start with. But, I typically upgrade every ~3 years anyway, and being a gaming enthusiast, the 14700k seems like pretty good value right now, and I can still sell my 11700k for a decent amount, so might be worth it to just move on to a more current platform for a little bump in fps. I really don't feel like messing around with this anymore, trying to tweak bios settings or having multiple profiles, etc. I just want it to work.

[Tetras]

3 minutes ago, mwagen said:

I really don't feel like messing around with this anymore, trying to tweak bios settings or having multiple profiles, etc. I just want it to work.

 

3 minutes ago, mwagen said:

14700k

If you haven't seen the tech news on 13th-14th gen, then let's just say, I wouldn't recommend that option.

 

If you want Intel, I'd go Core Ultra, even though their gaming performance is far from top of the tree.

 

3 minutes ago, mwagen said:

Yeah, thinking I could probably just try another psu to start with.

Certainly cheaper and you could always re-use it if the change is not sufficient.

[DreamCat04]

On 4/21/2025 at 10:36 PM, mwagen said:

Yeah, thinking I could probably just try another psu to start with. But, I typically upgrade every ~3 years anyway, and being a gaming enthusiast, the 14700k seems like pretty good value right now, and I can still sell my 11700k for a decent amount, so might be worth it to just move on to a more current platform for a little bump in fps. I really don't feel like messing around with this anymore, trying to tweak bios settings or having multiple profiles, etc. I just want it to work.

You could try ThrottleStop. You should be able to modify the SpeedShift. The higher the value, the more the CPU will refrain from boosting. The default is 128 where it behaves just like it usually would. At 0, it's always gonna run at max frequency and at 255, it's gonna run at idle clocks. I sometimes use this on my laptop and setting it to 135 results in around 200-300Mhz less frequency, drastically reducing power draw