Lessons learned: keep the RPM's low!

[AllergicToNoise]

I had a case of noise pollution.

I started with a Nexus "Real Silent" 120 mm case fan and an Intel stock CPU cooler with an Intel E1260 processor, OC'd to 2.88 GHz on a Asus P5K board (FSB 320 MHz & Kingston 2 Gb memory running on 800 MHz) in an Antec Solo case, with an Corsair 450VX PSU. By the way; the elastic strings in the Antec Solo really eliminate noise of my HD drives (WD 80 Gb and WD 500 Gb)

Well, except from the HD's, the whole setup initially was loud!! I was in shock! Sick of it!
Then I found out that the Asus motherboard had two fan controllers: one for the CPU fan and one for the chassis fans.
I put all the fan controllers to "silent" mode and the noise dropped immediately!
But the remaining noise was still too much for me (I'm allergic to noise) and the temps were also a bit high: CPU idle 37 Celsius, the motherboard also.
So, in an attempt to lower the noise and temperatures, I purchased the Noctua NF-S12 case fan and the Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler, which includes the NF-P12 fan.
The result was that the temperatures dropped, but the noise remained!

By the way: Noctua states that the NF-PF12 is louder then the NF-S12.
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=nf_s ... son&lng=en

After a lot fiddling around with various Noctua U.L.N.A. (70% reduction) and L.N.A. (85% reduction) adapters (the Ultra Low Noise Adapter is just a 147 Ohm resistor) and various settings of the Q-Fan controller on the Asus motherboard, I finally reached an acceptable noise state;

1) as back chassis fan, I'm using the Noctua NF-S12 fan (max. 1200 rpm), connected with the blue (U.L.N.A) adapter to the first chassis fan connector.
2) as CPU fan, I'm using the Nexus 120 mm fan (max. 1000 rpm), connected with black (L.N.A.) adapter to the second chassis fan connector.
I'm not using the 4-pin CPU fan connector because with the 3-pin connector from the Nexus fan I don't have the possibility to use the motherboard 4-pin CPU (PWM) fan controller.
3) all motherboard fan controllers (CPU and chassis) are now disabled.
4) the original Noctua CPU fan: NF-P12 is now in effect obsolete.

The result is an acceptable level of noise. Not nearly absolute silent, but still acceptable.
And I still have the motherboard chassis fan controller in reserve, in case I want to reduce the rotation speed of both fans to 90, 80, 70 or 60% of the current level.

My current readings are:

1) Chassis fan - Noctua S12 with blue adapter (70% reduction) : 825 rpm.
2) CPU fan - Nexus 120mm with black adapter (85% reduction) : 875 rpm.
3) CPU temp - idle: 26 Celsius.
4) Motherboard temp - idle: 34 Celsius.

Conclusions:

1) When you really detest noise: use a good CPU cooler, quality fans and then: Lower the RPM on all fan's!
2) Try to get all fans rotating around 800 rpm.
3) Heavy load on the CPU gives higher core temperatures; needs higher cooling ability; needs higher rotation speeds on all fans (1000+ rpm), yields more noise and thus excludes silent operation.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

You obviously have good info to contribute, but please don't double post. I added the link to your first post:

viewtopic.php?p=410244&highlight=#410244