I'm in the process of building a new computer to replace the aging Celly 500 I'm typing on right now, plus I have some spare parts to use up, like a Skt A mobo that has been sitting on my shelf for about 6 months now. The Duron will be mine free, so no complaints there...just gotta wait for it to get here. My main goal is to make it quiet enough to sleep while it's on. I've never really given pc noise much thought, until put this one in my bedroom and I had trouble sleeping when I left it on overnight. I normally can sleep through a thunderstorm, but for some reason, fan noise really gets to me (maybe cuz it's continuous?).
Projected specs
ECS K7VZA Motherboard
Duron 900 @ 850Mhz (highest supported speed @ 200Mhz FSB)
512Mb PC133 RAM
32Mb Savage4 video card
Right now I have a 13-gig Seagate hard drive and it's pretty quiet. If I get a new HD, it will be either a 60 or 80 gig. Can anyone suggest something of comparable quietness and that's not too expensive?
I have a Coolermaster heatsink laying around that's rated for an XP 2000+ that I'd like to use on here. It came with an awefully noisy 60mm fan that supposedly pushes 23cfm, so my idea was to get a 60mm-80mm adapter and a Vantec Stealth fan, which has the same CFM rating.
I decided on an Antec SLK2600AMB case to stuff it all in. Since I'm dubbing this my "Stealthy Duron", and my motherboard PCB is black, what better to house it than a black case? Plus it has a door so I can use my beige DVD and CD-RW drives without it looking cheap.
I'm not sure how good the Antec PSUs are. The PSU in this case is near-silent, but it's only 185W. The fan is made by a company called Quietec, but I can't seem to find anything about them online. The 300W PSU in the family computer is pretty quiet too. If I have problems with the Antec unit I'm gonna order the same one as that. The case fan in there is near-silent too, but I'm too lazy to pull it out and look at the brand right not. It's an OEM company, but if they sold retail, they'd have big profits I'm sure.
Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated.
And thanks for your time, everyone.
Good action plan for Duron 900 system?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Getting the 60 to 80mm adapter is definitely the way to go. I haven't personally used an 80mm Vantec Stealth, but Panaflo FBA0812L fans are supposedly quieter, and they are definitely cheaper. The scant difference in CFM (if it is real) probably won't make much difference.
The site for the Antec case you have says that the PSU is 300W. 185W power supplies are usually only found in small form factor systems. Are you sure that's the right value? Note that many PSUs list the wattage available on the 3.3V and 5V rails separately from that of the 12V. If you find that PSU too noisy, you may want to consider undervolting or replacing (or both) the fan rather than replacing the whole PSU.
As for hard drives, the only way to go for true quietness is with a Seagate Barracuda IV or (if they're available by then) Barracuda V. 80GB models are a little over $100.
The site for the Antec case you have says that the PSU is 300W. 185W power supplies are usually only found in small form factor systems. Are you sure that's the right value? Note that many PSUs list the wattage available on the 3.3V and 5V rails separately from that of the 12V. If you find that PSU too noisy, you may want to consider undervolting or replacing (or both) the fan rather than replacing the whole PSU.
As for hard drives, the only way to go for true quietness is with a Seagate Barracuda IV or (if they're available by then) Barracuda V. 80GB models are a little over $100.
fan adapters in my experience are good in faster case fans but not in quiet case fans like the panaflow L1A, an I managed to get better performance by just directly strapping the 80MM fan to the Heatsink without a adapter to block it u could mount it this way as well http://www.overclockers.com/tips1012/