fit-IoT Users Forum

I second the motion that the circuit design should be changed to remove the humming/ticking sounds.

This is unwarranted, given that previous generations (fitpc2/2i, fitpc original, slim, etc) did not have this issue. Sitting close (<1m) away, this becomes very annoying and defeats the true purpose of a completely silent pc.

I look forward to ordering soon, once new production run is released (with sound issues fixed).

I totally agree.

I have to agree that if the Fit-PC 3 has continuous noise, it's not as suitable
for my use. Currently my old Fit-PC 1, Full Height is about 1 meter away
from my home entertainment center. For practical purposes, it's totally
silent even with a spinning IDE hard drive.

Please consider selling a version that does not include hum or ticking noise.

We appreciate the feedback. There is a trade-off between being audible at maximum power saving and being silent at a slightly higher power consumption. This is determined by implementing skip-mode in the switching power supply. fit-PC3 was designed with skip-mode enabled to minimize power consumption. We will check whether skip-mode can be optionally disabled for users who appreciate silence over power saving.

Yes, please do consider adding such an option. Power saving is not that important to me.

Is the power supply that generates the noise internal to the box?
Or external?

This may make a difference for some of us who can place the CPU unit
where noise would be a problem. But can relocate the power supply part
further away.

Arwen wrote:Is the power supply that generates the noise internal to the box?
Or external?

According to this post it's internal.

Arwen wrote:Is the power supply that generates the noise internal to the box?
Or external?

This may make a difference for some of us who can place the CPU unit
where noise would be a problem. But can relocate the power supply part
further away.

Sorry for the confusion. There is an external power supply, but I can't say I've heard any noise from it. The ticking noises described come from the Fit-PC3 itself.

To put things in perspective I can't hear the noise at all from about 2 meters away in a near silent room. So yes, if you can relocate it somewhere a bit further away from your ears then this noise would not be a problem at all. Also if there is anything else making noise in the room then you won't hear the Fit-PC3 noise. Almost anything else will drown the noise out. The noise will only really be an issue in a silent room, and if you're close to the unit.

I also just wanted to thank irads for looking into this further. It's a shame there's a trade-off involved, but anything that can be done is welcome.

Thanks bugger and mirumu for the clarification.

irads wrote:We appreciate the feedback. There is a trade-off between being audible at maximum power saving and being silent at a slightly higher power consumption.

I do not understand this tradeoff, but I care about minimizing power usage when idle and minimizing noise when idle as well, even if this comes at the expense of a slightly higher power usage when active, or some minor noise when active.
FWIW, my fit-pc2's idle consumption is probably higher than it should be since I had to disable the extra sleep states in the BIOS (since they cause the fit-pc2 to occasionally fail to wake up for about 5minutes, which is usually seen in the OS's time drifting). So maybe a slightly higher idle consumption is not that terrible.
If the tradeoff could be quantified (at least on the power-consumption side but ideally also on the dB side) it would help.