Tired of my noisy computer

introstand · Post by **introstand** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:13 am

Hello I'm new here but been building computers for years. I've normally been more concerned about performance when it comes to cooling and also been doing some overclocking. But the last couple of months I've grown really tired of listening to my noisy computer. Something has to change!

My components:
Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi
e8400
Crucial Ballistix 8500
8800GTS 320MB (Stock cooling)
Tagan 420W (I think)
Samsung T166 500GB
Samsung T166 400GB
Lian-Li V1000
Ultra-120 Extreme

What I'm planing to do is switching case and psu to a Antec Solo and Corsair VX 450W and to buy 2 x Nexus 120mm fans (same as yate loon i think).

What do you experts think about these components? Are there better ones? Should I change anything else? Should I change the gfx?

I really want to get a quite computer!

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:50 am

What's causing the noise?

introstand · Post by **introstand** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:55 am

The Lian Li case is really great and good looking but I get a lot of resonance.
It also seems as a lot of the noise is coming from the gfx fan after all...

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:10 am

First of all, suspend the drives. There's surely some way of doing it.

Then change the fans for something in the range of 500-1000 rpm, depending on how much you can tolerate.

Only after that should you consider changing other things inside the computer.

tuz · Post by **tuz** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:15 am

Yeah I'd try isolate the noisiest components first before changing any hardware inside. Usually I'd just shut down the system, start unplugging things and seeing what difference it made to the overall volume of sound coming from the system. Just start up the computer and enter your BIOS and it shouldn't stress the system too much that something starts to overheat, don't keep the system on for too long and you should be ok. Also, to be safe, its probably best to plug/unplug things while the computer is shut down. Safe for both your components and also your fingers, flesh doesn't usually win in the war against spinning fans, lol.

The easiest (and safest) components to unplug would be the case fans and then the hard drives, then I'd probably try taking out the video card if you have onboard graphics on your mobo, and finally the CPU fan. Though with the CPU fan unplugged (heatsink still on, of course) I wouldn't go further than just sitting in BIOS, and I'd be keeping an eye on the temps as reported by your BIOS. With case fans, hard drives, the graphics card and the CPU fan unplugged, you can tell how noisy your PSU really is.

Just remember to plug in all the components again! Once I left the CPU fan unplugged and wondered why the CPU was getting so hot, even when sitting idly at the desktop