Help! My wife is going nuts! (Making an AMD X2 system quiet

Discontinuity · Post by **Discontinuity** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:39 pm

Hi Everyone,

Having browsed and read and browsed, and read some more.......I decided it was time just to take the plunge and ask for help!

I've got a system which my wife has decided is far too loud. I start work at 8am and work from home, and she gets woken up by the hum (not to mention the keyboard).

Current System

* ThermalTake Soprano Case
* ThermalTake 430W XP550 NP PSU
* AMD X2 3800+ CPU
* Zalman Copper Flower Heatpipe Cooler
* ASUS A8N-SLi Deluxe Motherboard
* Samsung SP2004C Hard Disk
* XFX GF 6600 512mb PCI-X Graphics Card

Problem

It's too loud. I live in Sydney, Australia and would prefer to buy parts locally.

Identified problems are:

120mm Case Fan (not major)
Northbridge Fan (loud, sits diagonally on board right next to PCI-X slot so an 'oversized' passive won't fit - any suggestions would be wonderful
PSU - will the Antec Phantom 350 do the job?
Graphics Card fan - has anyone got any experience modding this graphics card? It has a bit of a weird screw attachment.

Will provide pics when I've slapped my camera silly!

thanks in advance,

John[/b]

Candor · Post by **Candor** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:08 pm

I have the same XFX card. No modding necessary. Rivatuner (a free program) can slow down the fan. It's interesting, but at 90% my XFX is now nearly inaudible from inside the case.

Yes, the Antec 350 should have enough power for your system. Though I don't know much about it, 350 should cover most non-SLI systems.

That A8N deluxe northbridge fan is a problem, but I don't know anything off hand that would do the trick. You might be able to cool it passively fairly easily. I'm lucky enough to have the heatpipe version on my premium.

Basically, get Rivatuner to shut your card up. You can set it to load on start, turn down your fan, and unload itself from memory. Nice, in my opinion.

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:33 pm

Zalman has 2 solutions for passive cooling of the northbridge

Isn't it a bit hot in Australia? Possibly a Seasonic might be bether idea than a passive PSU. Just a thought

engwhale · Post by **engwhale** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:00 pm

My first post

If your pc is in a cool room (pref with a/c), then fanless psu is fine - but otherwise a Seasonic psu is a good change. Add a Zalman VF900 vga cooler.

There's a few online retailers in Australia you can look at for prices to compare. PM me i can send you links.

Bobfantastic · Post by **Bobfantastic** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:15 pm

And for the Northbridge, you could try one of these if you can find it.
Should just miss the graphics card.

I'll second the suggestion of a VF900 for the GPU as well, it comes with a FanMate 2 as well so you can make sure it's silent.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:10 pm

A VF700 is enough to cool a 6600GT sufficently.

For the chipset, get a Zalman NB47J and bend a few of the fins if it gets in the way of the card - that's what I'm doing. From the pics I've seen of the A8N-SLI's layout, the chipset is actually further away from the graphics card then on my motherboard.

ozdoc · Post by **ozdoc** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 11:50 pm

My tip would be stay away from the Phantom 350W. I'm not sure if Antec are even selling them anymore. I've been through 2 in 12 months, and on the last failure Antec said they can't fix or replace a 350 anymore - just offer an 'upgrade' to the 500W (a 350W with a fan strapped on). Reports indicate that the fan on the 500W phatom kicks in early and is noisy, so what's the point.
I eventually went for a new batch NeoHE (A4, S0606). It works fine with the Asus A8N, and is quiet.

I would suspect your major culprits are the northbridge fan, VGA fan (deal with as suggested), case fans (undervolt and/or replace with Nexus - try pccasegear.com.au), PSU (try antec Neo HE as mentioned, which is reportedly a seasonic made PSU), or Seasonic (via pccasegear - only upper range ones available now).

Try sorting out the Northbridge fan and VGA first.

Discontinuity · Post by **Discontinuity** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:30 am

I understand following a trek round Broadway/City that Antex Phantom 350W's have been taken out of production and will no longer be sold in Australia.

I picked up a ZM-NB32K for the northbridge - at $9 it seemed like a bit of a steal. Will this do the job or should I look to the 'flower'?

Now looking at the Zalman 460 and NeoHE 430 PSU's - is there much to choose between them? I guess I can't assume all of the ones now being sold in Oz will work with my A8N-SLi Deluxe board!

Thanks for everyone's help - trying to get RivaTuner to work at the moment and the graphics card seems to be ignoring me! Will try again after this post and let you know the results!

ozdoc · Post by **ozdoc** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:04 am

If you consider getting a Neo HE, just ensure that that it is an A4 revision (will be on the back of the box in tiny print above a blue dot, on the serial number sticker). The serial number should be recent (eg S0606... indicating a production run in June 2006). It seems like most of the problem Neo's are those that came preinstalled in the P150 case, which also makes it harder to determine the serial number if purchasing.

Considering the NF4 chipset is one of the hottest ones arounds, I would consider going for the flower. Either way, just make sure there is some airflow passing over the heatsink.

Discontinuity · Post by **Discontinuity** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 5:13 am

Thankyou ozdoc,

Invaluable advice about the HE - I'll order one tomorrow. Having grown totally sick of the cheap plastic XFX fan, I've done the only thing I can think of and unplugged the fan. Instead of 44ÂºC it's now hovering at 60-61ÂºC but apart from that is seems fairly happy. The northbridge will have to wait til I can get to it (means turning my pc off, something that happens only rarely).

On my own motherboard, there's about a 15mm gap between the top corner of the northbridge and the edge of the PCI-X card - it would definitely be impossible to use SLI with a non-stock cooler on here (unless it was an active/slimline) design. It looks like a cap will hit the passive h/s on it so it might actually be necessary to go for the flower anyhow, as the NB34 is considerably less bendy.