Two options for even less noise

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:49 am

Hi,

Super site. This must be a good forum for a couple of questions from a beginner in PC-silencing who wants the last hiss to disappear.

My homemade PC consists of:

M/B: Gigabyte passively cooled
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6500 with Ninja sink and no fan
GPX: NVIDIA 8600 GT something, passively cooled
HD: Seagate 500GB suspended in NoVibes elastic bands - just the slightest mechanical noise
PSU: Tagan 2Force (which hisses a little and also has a little mechanical noise)
Case: miditower with Arctic 8 cm. fan with rubber decoupling - this also hisses a little

Max. temp. (using test tools) are: CPU: 60C, GPU: 80C, case 40C

I'm considering either:

- Passively cooled PSU e.g. Antec Phantom AND a super-quiet case-fan mounted with rubber screws

or:

- Quiet actively cooled PSU with the fan on the underside and NO case fan hoping the PSU fan would suffice for case airflow.

Which option would be most quiet and best or are there other options that I should consider? In general my PC is pretty quiet and only audible when there's no other ambient noise but I'd still like it even more quite.

Best regards
Rolf

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:35 am

Welcome To SPCR

Neither of your options are ideal.

Passive PSU's just like passive CPU's, GPU's and chipset coolers need some form of airflow - passive PSU's work their magic in cases such as the P180/P182 with a fan to cool it and HDD(s) at the same time, this reduces the need for 2 fans down to just 1. In most instances a passive PSU is not a wise choice, especially when such quiet PSU's are available now

Likewise using a very quiet PSU to cool a whole system is a badly flawed idea. A quiet PSU will get louder as it gets hotter, ideally you would want the PSU to not get hot at all so it never creates more than the minimum amount of noise, and having large amounts of heat generated by the components will make the PSU hotter, and louder.

You really need to keep a case fan for removing the heat from the system, and your ultimate choice might not be the components or indeed the fans, but the case itself - What case are you using ? and can the case be fitted with a 120mm fan, a 120mm fan will remove about 2x as much air at the same noise level as an 80mm fan.

Buing an Antec Solo + a quiet PSU from SPCR's reccommended list could make a large difference to your systems noise level.

Andy

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:37 am

It would be best to have case with 120mm fan. 80mm fan doesn't move that much air, considering how much passively cooled things you have. If you want aboslute quietness, you should consider changing a case that has 120mm fans, remove grills and use quiet 120mm fan exhausting. Then PSU fan would not ramp up.

If you get passive PSU in that case, you'll end up frying something. All that heat releasing into case and small 80mm fan responsible for thermal exhausting? That's gamble... Like Russian Roulette...

xan_user · Post by **xan_user** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:02 am

Why wouldn't a pico or similar dc-dc psu work?

Or is there over clocking involved?

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:44 am

Thanks for the quick responses.

I see your points that my initial options are pushing things a little too much. I did initially consider an Antec case but instead got a nice looking OEM-thing from the store where I got most of the bits. It has some provision for improving air-flow and has room for a 120mm fan. So I guess that should be on the list. The PSU sits in the top of the case and I don't overclock.

The comment about removing the grille does that mean sawing out the fan area from the back of the case and allowing the exhaust fan to blow air directly out of the case. I guess that might reduce hiss a little also.

Regards
Rolf

AuraAllan · Post by **AuraAllan** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:17 am

rolfez wrote:The comment about removing the grille does that mean sawing out the fan area from the back of the case and allowing the exhaust fan to blow air directly out of the case. I guess that might reduce hiss a little also.

Hello

Yes and no. Dont saw it out.
Cut out the grill with tin-snips and file down the sharp edges.
That will improve airflow a bit and give you less turbulence, reducing whoosh or hiss as you call it.

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:02 am

Thanks again for the responses. I'll definetely get a 120mm case fan and also try the clip out the grille tip. I've decided to replace my PSU. The Tagan is just too noisy with its little fans.

Rolf

CyberDog · Post by **CyberDog** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:54 am

Try to get fans and power supply from recommended site. And remember that you'll probably have to lower the fan voltage. If your motherboard support it, great. But if not you'll have to consider other methods. Like wire trick or fan controller.

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:17 pm

Some cases have the power supply in the bottom and 1-2 large fans on the top of the case. Since hot air moves upwards, this can work very well. The con of course is that the fans are facing the top of the machine, so you can hear them a lot more. Of course, a proper fan or two at 5V is essentially silent...

The "trick" to silent computing is to make it quieter than the rest of the room and to keep every fan on the system from powering up to higher speeds. the fans other than the power supply can be controlled, of course. I usually set them all to 5v and always on, but YMMV.

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:15 pm

Thanks again for the input. I've ordered a 120mm Noctua 800 rpm. fan to replace my current 80mm Arctic. It has a higher CFM and should be more quiet.

I'd like to get the Enermax Modu PSU but it seems tricky to find in Europe. But through my company I'm able to buy stuff and ditch what I don't like so I'm willing to take some chances

Regards
Rolf

AuraAllan · Post by **AuraAllan** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:58 am

rolfez wrote:But through my company I'm able to buy stuff and ditch what I don't like so I'm willing to take some chances

Im listening

Hopefully youll end up with a build has just has a (very) faint whoosh from the fan(s).

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:53 am

I'll keep you posted

And you're right btw, it's more of a whoosh than a hiss and it's mostly late at night when cruising around on the web that I notice it. At that time system temps hover around 40 on the CPU, 40 on HD, 50 on GPU and 35 in the case. Temperatures only rise when gaming which I don't do much. I can recommend my sons Lego StarWars though for getting the GPU working

Big cheers
Rolf

kittle · Post by **kittle** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:53 am

rolfez wrote:I'll keep you posted

And you're right btw, it's more of a whoosh than a hiss and it's mostly late at night when cruising around on the web that I notice it. At that time system temps hover around 40 on the CPU, 40 on HD, 50 on GPU and 35 in the case. Temperatures only rise when gaming which I don't do much. I can recommend my sons Lego StarWars though for getting the GPU working

Lego starWars FTW =)

Your 40C HD temps worry me. Ive had more than 1 HD die over the years due to overheating. See what you can do with cable management, moving fans around or just making a duct so your HD stays in the 30-35C range.

Also ponder what will happen to temps during the summer when its warmer in your computer room.

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:31 am

My trick was to disable the intake fan and open the covers in front of the drives. The exhaust fans will pull in just as much air as the intake fan was blowing in, or close to it, but right over the drives. I have two Maxtor 300gigs in my old system(IDE raid) and while it's not quiet, it is maybe 85 degrees - merely warm to the touch. Even a few fps of air blowing over the drives is enough. Tad more noise, though.

3 years 0 problems. Keeping drives under 100F or extends their life until the bearings wear out. those Maxtors were known as the hottest drives at the time in a closed case. 150F+ and burn your fingers hot. No wonder so many died after a few months.

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:38 am

You're right again. Currently I am in fact worried about HD temperature which sometimes reaches 50C. The NoVibes cradle it hangs in actually has provisions for installing a fan for cooling and since there's no significant air-flow around the disk I just might (have to) get such a fan. And being inside the case I don't think it should be intrusive noisewise. And with summer (hopefully) around the corner case temp. is not going down.

A crashed HD is no laughing matter unless you back up daily which I don't do.

Cheers
Rolf

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 11:00 am

I just bought two of these drives for my boot drive. Raid 1:

W1601ABYS. These are their enterprise level RE2 drives and have special programming to keep from dropping the drives from the array.(raid only - won't work well as a single drive)

$65 each and a total no-brainer. No need for daily backups and fairly quiet. Its an enormous cost savings over data recovery.(plus the 5 year warranty is nice)

The enormous 750 Gig WD GP is going to be set to low noise and used as the data/swap drive. Basically all mp3s and avis and such - I use the thing as a server to stream stuff to my PS3.

rolfez · Post by **rolfez** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 7:28 am

Hi again.

Air blown out by the PSU fan sitting in the top of the case is warm whereas air blown out by the case fan a little below is cooler. Is the PSU fan doing the majority of the case cooling or is it just a s*** PSU with bad efficiency? The PC uses between 100 and 130 W depending on load.

Would some holes in the top cover and a case fan mounted there instead blowing air directly upwards be a good idea? Why ain't there any cases like that? Sorry for the silly questions

Regards
Rolf

Two options for even less noise

Two options for even less noise

Thanks for the responses

Re: Thanks for the responses

Big fan

Getting there

Re: Getting there

HD temp

Air-temp