Quiet PC

TheRift

TheRift

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Since most of us here are problem after performance over comfort and noise is sometimes par for the course in that regard, I was wondering if anyone went the route of achieving silence in their rigs.

What are running to quieten down clicky/clacky fans and HDDs, etc?
 
I'm hoping my new case has better quality fans because this current setup has had me up the wall for a while now with it's take-off noise.
 
That is most awesome to hear ...... I just bought that case yesterday :D
 
Mephisto_Helix said:
That is most awesome to hear ...... I just bought that case yesterday :D
Click to expand...

Can't vouch for your CPU and PSU fans though :D

Some of them are also noisy. I have this old PC with a seriously noisy CPU fan (aftermarket), but it's just too much of a hassle to change.
 
It's nice to know that at least the case fans will be quiet ... I can always remedy the CPU fan later. The Gigabyte PSU is pretty quiet.
 
Ah yes the Smilodon. Very nice, however I had to remove the side 80mm fan (I think 80mm, can't remember the size exactly) to be able to fit the TRUE in a friend of mine's Smilodon.

However, can't fault it much beyond that. Quite cool and quiet :)

I'm currently experimenting with my LAN rig (with the run of the mill handle case), it is nearly inaudible right now. I have:
a) Removed all case fans
b) Undervolted the CPU. Lower temperatures = lower RPM on the stock cooler (might switch to passive cooling soon)
c) Installed aftermarket cooling on my 8800GT (Accelero Twin Turbo), running overclocked and cooled passively :D

All I have left to do is to find a passively cooled PSU and perhaps change the CPU cooler then it'll be darn close to inaudible (save for the hard drives, however I'll probably buy an SSD for it soon). However as it stands I believe it is already below ambient noise so I'm happy for now :D
 
Coolermaster HAF 922/932 series run extremely quiet as they have 230mm fans. Plus they push a lot of air, hence the name HAF(High Air Flow). Awesome quiet cases.
 
Tero said:
Coolermaster HAF 922/932 series run extremely quiet as they have 230mm fans. Plus they push a lot of air, hence the name HAF(High Air Flow). Awesome quiet cases.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I'm currently using the HAF932. It's brilliant. :)
 
Water cooling still needs a fan, and with some radiators it needs more than one able to run high pressure. :) I am running "water cooling" as well in the form of a Corsair H50 and I have to admit the somewhat generic fan that comes with the kit is one of the best I've met yet. It puts out one hell of a noise when it needs to @ 1800RPM, but I run it at 700RPM most of the time and it is quiet except for air noise. I'm surprised at that since I was expecting click noises since it is a PWM fan. Downside to this is that of course I won't find this 12cm fan except on the Corsair. It has no original brand markings. :P

I cut the grille off the motherboard tray as well last weekend. This helped alot.

I'm currently running 2x 14cm CM fans on the side and they have that clacking rumble at low speed, but I pretty much sorted that by dropping some 3-in-1 oil into the bearings. Took them off the fan bracket as well and suspended them which made a hell of a difference to case rattle. These will go at some point as I think fans on the bottom of the case blowing up across the motherboard will work better.

The Vantec PSU fan seems to be PWM, I think. It's crap. It's the one thing on this machine that puts out clicking buzzing noises like a mini diesel engine.

I got rid of some extra noise last night by suspending the 3 HDDs, but I'm going to put those back in the drive cage and suspend the drive cage instead. Temps heading for 50C during the day doesn't make me feel good. With the cage I can get a slow moving fan back in.

I have a top 12cm fan as well running at a slow speed just to vent out some air. Found out last week it was part of the noise. All these fans click at low speed since they're just crap. I put in one of those silicone fan silencer pads and forced the fan back into the top housing and the housing got some foam rubber pads to stop it rattling. Very nice, but the fan still needs to go as that low speed rattle is irritating.

Next month I'm going to order a bunch of Scythe S-Flex fans and at some point ditch the Vantec and get a PSU with a proper 12cm fan. This 135mm stuff sux.

All I want to hear is air noise and not rumble. :) Going to get an mCubed as well which will stop the fans completely at night when they really aren't needed.

And yes I've got anal on all this 'cos I'm bored. :D It's at night when the world quietens down that it becomes annoying.
 
Oh, and one bit of advice... if you want quiet then avoid aluminium cases. :) Solid rigid steel resonates less. :)
 
As it turns out, my Q6600 can run on the stock cooler without the fan plugged in as long as I don't play too many demanding games (though normal video playback works indefinitely). Undervolting is to blame for my success :D
 
I still need to do that undervolting on my AMD. The EPU settings run it at 800MHz or so in normal use, which will ramp it up as needed. Just not sure how undervolting at low speed will affect the stability at 3.2GHz full speed. I'll put it up to 3.2 and undervolt and see how it comes down on idle.

I'm sure I can actually turn down the radiator fan to near nothing without any issue. The H50 works like a charm, but will see.
 
Indeed. My Q6600 runs at 1,600MHz under light load. I'll see if I can get around to setting independent voltages for each multiplier setting. I'll probably be able to drop the voltage to close to 0.9V I guess.
 
Well, with the fan unplugged the only noise coming from the PC is generated by the PSU fan and the spinning hard drives. It is now well below ambient. :) Best of all the silence did not cost a thing (I received the GPU cooler for free) :D
 
I need to kill this drive noise. One of the drives powered down now and noise difference is incredible.

Suspending them helped a bit, but they were getting hot. Messed around for an hour or so with different methods and then just popped them back in the drive cage and put the fan back on.

What sort of noise does your PSU fan make? A smooth flowing air noise or a rumbly sort of fan noise?

Would kill off the 2 side 14cm fans, but without them the onboard GPU / northbridge temps go up a bit. Waiting for the Thermaltake heatsink to arrive to sort that out.

Fun and games... :)
 
Both my Corsair HX1000W and Corsair CX400W create the "smooth flowing air noise" that you speak of. However, the CX400W (that I use in my LAN rig) is positively deafened by the sound that the two hard drives generate, to put the amount of noise the PSU generates into perspective :) Which is actually quite good for a 120mm fan.
 
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