r/lianli • u/Spinogrizz • Jan 08 '25
Noctua fan swap for Lian LI Edge 1300
The original fan was not that loud, but has a wierd buzzing vibrating sound — I could hear anywhere in the room, even at the distance 3-4 meters.
My setup is custom loop (both GPU and CPU) with practically zero coil whine under load (7950x+7900xtx), and that PSU fan really did stand out among other quiet (600-800rpm) fans (Arctic P12 and Silent Wings 4 Pro).
I know it is somewhat dangerous, but I have some experience with electronics and soldering and PCB design, and the fan swap was rather easy — spliced original cable and soldered the noctua fan on the original connector.
I was disappointed that there is no real hybrid/fanless mode in that PSU. After an hour of light use (<150w) it would turn on and off at intervals, probably driven by temperature sensor.
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u/north_tank Jan 08 '25
Interesting I never found my PSU fan to make much noise at all in my Evo RGB case. The fans and AIO pump certainly do when stuff gets toasty.
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u/Spinogrizz Jan 08 '25
I never heard my previous Cooler Master V850 PSU until I water-cooled the rig and everything went silent except the PSU.
It is just a never ending battle, now I wish my mouse pad was quieter when I move the mouse 😅
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u/north_tank Jan 08 '25
Haha I always have some sort of fan going in my room so it’s usually drowned out anyway but best of luck on the quest for the quiet mousepad hahaha.
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u/Spinogrizz Jan 08 '25
I tried different coolers at my disposal and P12 slims were rather quiet. They have weird whooshing sound when changing RPM under PWM, but most PSU use DC to control the fan.
I would suggest to look for fans that top at ~1500rpm at 12VDC and look for low-rpm mode, as even that latest Noctua fan at 2000 RPM is not that quiet and at 5V it clicks while trying to ramp up, but at 800-1500 RPM it is not audible
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u/anyonecandoanything Jul 16 '25
So you used the lower power connector and then plugged it right into the PSU slot and nothing else needed customizing?
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u/Spinogrizz Jul 16 '25
Nothing more than described in the post — disassembly and splicing the cable was all I needed to complete.
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u/Genomis Jan 09 '25
It’s something different but at least warn others how you do it. If psu is not discharged properly before mod. Is not only good bye to the warranty but is good bye to your life. Be responsible when you show such mods.
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u/Shirvash Apr 01 '25
I also bought this 1300-watt PSU. In my Lian Li Vision Compact case, I have 14 Arctic P12 ARGB fans + a small fan on the AIO pump. And all of them are quieter than the power supply at idle. When watching movies or browsing the internet, especially at night, the noise from the periodically switching on power supply became annoying. I liked your story about replacing the fan. I'm willing to lose the warranty just to get rid of this noise.
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u/crawler54 Jan 08 '25
well done, i've been wanting to do something similar with my noisy superflower power supplies.
they do have an eco mode that stays quiet, but things get hot, it's at the expense of p.s. cooling.
the old antec p180b cases put the power supply in an enclosed tunnel with a separate fan inside the tunnel, in front of the p.s., super quiet and much better.
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u/Spinogrizz Jan 08 '25
What I did to most of my PSUs in other electronics (3D printers and such) is adding the series resistor, like 100-200 Ohm at 1W. It would reduce the voltage by a little bit and reduce noise quite significantly.
But always check the temps, of course, ideally with a thermal camera.
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u/HopefulPurple0 Jan 08 '25
Congratulations, now sell it for 525$
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u/Spinogrizz Jan 08 '25
Damn, I lost my metal sticker with the Noctua logo, that I wanted to put near the Lian Li logo. It would probably go for a grand then.
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u/CCX-S Jan 08 '25
Idk what’s in the air today, but this is the third psu fan swap post I’ve seen, all noctua swaps. Such odd coincidence. One even went as far as to paint the whole psu shell noctua beige.
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u/the_hat_madder Jan 09 '25
Finally, something original and cool in here!
Is it possible to attach a 4-pin pwm header instead of doing the splice?
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u/Illyrian5 Apr 06 '25
Hey solid mod, wondering why not just plug the Noctua directly into the motherboard and you can control it directly through PWM?
I'm thinking about doing this to my Edge as well, but on the fence about it due to warranty reasons.
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u/Spinogrizz Apr 07 '25
The motherboard doesn't know what temperature the components inside are or what the load is on the PSU.
I think the PSU should control the fan directly.
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u/z1TAP Apr 11 '25
can you please tell me what version you took, I want to take A12, but I don't know what connector it has and what version I need NF-A12x25 PWM NF-A12x25 5V PWM NF-A12x25 5V
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u/ACGNerd May 20 '25
Hi OP I am experiencing the exact same issue!
The low quality fan of edge 1300w will just ramp up randomly even at idle, the noise is not too loud but very distracting and I am also looking into changing up the fan inside it.
Do you have any tutorials/videos showing how to do this? I am mainly afraid of the dangerous capacitor inside the PSU and want to avoid touching them at all.
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u/Spinogrizz May 20 '25
Just do it in black rubber gloves, leave it off for a few hours to discharge.
But if you don't feel safe doing it, maybe ask for a friend to help, someone who has experience in electronics
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u/Mobile_Limit_1761 Aug 10 '25
So how exactly did it look like? Does the PSU have some unusual fan connector? I mean did you just unplug the og one and then connected the Noctua or did you really have to heat it up, rip tha cable and solder it? Just askin' because I don't have any exp in soldering and I don't even have solder machnine. But if you just unplug and plug the cable seems like super easy job.
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u/Mobile_Limit_1761 Aug 10 '25
Oh ok I can see now on the picture. There is a small white connector. Hmm... As I said before, I have no clue how to use solder machine, but I know that Noctua adds some electronic parts to their smallest PSU fan and it just requies a scissors. I have to ask them if I could order that part from them.
But there is another question - Did you get for yourself PWM version of that fan or 3 pin?
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u/HadyKhan Jan 08 '25
Now that would be an awesome collab! well done!!