Hi all, I've been researching for a few days trying to figure out how to make my system a little quieter without spending a lot of money.

I plan on buying quieter 80mm case fans, and a quieter 120mm power supply fan. The only thing I can't really figure out is the CPU heatsink/fan. I'd like to limit spending on that to 30 or 40 dollars if possible. I'm currently using the stock Intel cooler that comes with my E6300.

Here are some options that are available to me (in Canada) at my budget
#1) Scythe Shuriken Rev B
#2) Scythe Katana 3000
#3) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7
#4) Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (since it has a $10 rebate right now)
#5) Find a fan that I can mount to the stock Intel HS somehow.

To summarize, I'm not really trying to make this any cooler, I just want something that works at least as good as the stock intel cooler for cooling, but is less noisy.

Currently, I'm leaning toward the Shuriken for the following reasons:

-It's lightweight, and comes with the pushpins for LGA775 (I don't want to have to take the board out and install a bracket - although I realize this can be a better approach)
-it comes with what appears to be a quieter fan than the stock intel one and it is also PWM, so I think that means I can just plug it in to the 4-pin thing on my board, and the speed will be regulated just like the stock cooler, except it will just be quieter across the board.
-from the few reviews I found, it cools better than the stock intel HS and makes somewhat less noise.

Any suggestions?

I own a freezer 7 pro. Its extremely lightweight, easy to install, dirt cheap, and very effective. I'm not sure if anything else beats it in the cooling/price ratio. Sure there are better coolers out there, but this thing gets the job done, and for very very cheap.

It is hush quiet, even when i'm gaming. I have my mobo set to quiet mode, so its usually never above 1000rpm..even while gaming. Also, this is with my cpu overclocked from 3.0 to 3.6ghz.

The fan is softmounted to the heatsink, so there is no vibration that is transfered to the motherboard and case.

Overall, its pretty hard to beat it for 30 bucks in the USA

also consider the cooler master hyper tx3 - 92mm fan, direct touch heatpipes, extra fan clips, universal, funky looking pwm fan, rubber fan dampers, cheap too!

Looks like I can get the cooler master one for cheaper than the freezer 7. Can't really find any direct comparisons for performance though.
Good information either way; I think I'm leaning away from the scythe cooler now.

The best review I can find that includes most of these cheapo coolers is here: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... 247&page=5

I am not sure of the reliability of this source, but the article tells me that the Hyper TX2 (not TX3 but very similar) and the shuriken both perform better than the stock cooler. The scythe cooler is almost the same for performance (under load) but is much quieter than the coolermaster solution.

I suppose I could just buy a better fan with the coolermaster tower, given that it's about 10 or 15 dollars cheaper.

I recently used a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ in an i5 build for a friend and it was the cheapest big 120mm fan based tower cooler I could find. The build quality was good and the mounting mechanism was excellent and really versatille (fits all modern intel sockets; but with backplate). I can't say anything about the fan yet, as it's running semi-passive (oriented to work in tandem with the top exhaust fan in an Antec 300), but a 120mm fan should be quieter than a 80mm. I'll probably get the chance in a week or so after win7 comes out and i get to spend some more time with the system, so i'll post back if you're still on the fence by then.

Well....

You have not told us about your mainboard or if this is the old or new E6300 or this case with 80mm fans or your other components....

The challenge is to get the system reasonably quiet and non-annoying at idle during the quiet evenings.

But, to answer your "Any suggestions?":
=> Close all acoustic leaks.
=> A 2.5 cm (1 inch) duct made out of a junk fan with the guts cut out will allow the turbulent air from the chassis fan time to moderate before hitting that nasty cheap steel stammping rear grill.
=> The Scythe Gentle Typhoon has the most non-annoying noise signature that I know of.
=> From your list I would recommend the Scythe Katana, but it would be much better to use a Scythe cooler with a 120mm fan.
=> I've found that the CPU can run 3' hotter and 3 dB quieter with a less annoying noise character with the fan sucking from the heatsink.
=> The PWM fan control can be used to operate the chassis fan which is often more audible than the CPU fan which is inside the chassis.
=> The PWM fan control can operate more than one fan with a Y-adapter.

give the cooler master fan a chance- my experience with them has been very good, a very quiet 80mm sleeve and a very smooth 92mm pwm. it's a high speed fan, i think 2500rpm, but it has pwm control so it will run <1000rpm which should be pretty quiet, if it can run <800rpm then it should be pretty much silent, providing its a good fan of course.

i've actually ordered a xigmatek apache myself, mainly because i wanted a super cheap(16.50, tx3 is about 25.00) top down cooler. from what i've read its about as good as stock but a bit quieter, perfect for me since i like to underclock/volt.

Lots of difficult stuff for me to find out actually. If it were 5 years ago, I'd be able to rhyme off all that stuff right away. I've dug up what I could, based on leftover boxes and receipts:

Motherboard: passively cooled. It's an ASUS board... and I think even the VRMs have their own sink on em. (could be wrong)
CPU: E6300 (conroe or allendale - can't say for sure, definitely not wolfdale)
Case: coolermaster wavemaster - the three 80mm fans that contribute some to the noise have this serial number "A8025-51CB-3BN-PI"; they spin at about 2250 rpm at 12V. I'd like to just replace them with something like this: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=29201

Power supply: coolermaster iGreen 500W. It has a 120x25mm fan right above the CPU and lots of perforations at the back. The airflow design therefore seems relatively good vs those stamped out grille things. But the fan is not very quiet.

I was considering this replacement because it comes close to the 90cfm of the existing fan (from what I can tell) and is similar to fans used in more silent antec power supplies: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18432

Then once I figure out a CPU cooler, I should be set. I may have to get something to dampen vibrations from the two harddrives - but I'll wait and see where things are after the fan upgrades. I can always hack something together out of spare household junk before buying anything special. Unless someone has a specific recommendation.



I agree. I'd like to use a 120mm cooler, but I am finding it difficult to find one that does not weight or cost a lot. Does such a thing exist?



I may look into this but I think just having a slower, quieter set of 80mm fans would be best. In my opinion, they don't really have to move as much air as they do now - I'm willing to sacrifice a slightly higher internal temp for more silence, but I'll bet that lowering the chassis fan speeds a bit will not make any significant difference in temperature.

PS: as I type this my hardware reports 44C for the CPU while the stock intel fan spins at 2200 rpm. Seems like there's lots of room for improvement there.

Start with the free stuff:

=> ASUS mainboards have had CPU fan control options for at least the last 8 years.
=> The 2 fans on the front have Disk Drive style power connectors which can be tinkered to supply 5 or 7 volts instead of the usual 12 volts.

Some thoughts:

Consider going with the 1500rpm version of the 80mm Kama Flex if you aren't going to be using some sort of fan control.

For the PSU fan replacement, a Scythe S-Flex F 1600rpm fan would be my choice if you are going to wire the replacement fan up to the PSU fan header. If that's a little too costly, a Scythe Slipstream 1200rpm or 1600rpm fan would be good.

I would buy some rubber grommets to allow you to soft-mount all of your fans.

A few Zalman Fanmate 2's would be pretty cheap and would allow you to vary the noise levels of the fans in your case to suit your comfort levels.

The Xigmatek S1283 would be my first choice from that list of heatsinks you're considering, otherwise the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7.

Also, look at suspending your hard drives. This thread will give you some ideas, but basically you should be able to suspend a couple of HDDs in your case vertically, perhaps by using some stretch magic or clothing elastic and some nylon p-clips to secure your hdds to this.

Finally, if you are comfortable doing it, I would cut out some more intake areas (it looks pretty restrictive from what I can tell from the pics of your case that I could find) around the intake fan grills on your case, to help with airflow.

I recommend Xigmatek 1283 since it's the best in your list. Good fan, best heatsink, lightweight (600g), and pushpins for 775 socket. It seems a best fit for you. That said, 1283 is poor guy's Thermalright TRUE.

1 Kg is heavy.

600g isn't heavy.

After working on a lot of custom built PC's I can personally recommend all Scythe products. The Xigmatek 1283 is the one of the best from your list. Remember to do the free things first and have fun.

I think I'll buy a coolermaster 212 instead of the Xigmatek 1283, given they're almost the same ignoring the fan, but the 212 is so cheap I can buy whatever fan I want with the savings if it doesn't turn out to be quiet enough for me.

I've got lots of interesting free experiments planned especially now that I've seen the harddrive thread that was posted. I still want to settle on some equipment first, because I would rather get the parts first and do it all in one go while the PC has its guts hanging out.

Thanks for all the help so far everyone.

The conclusion to the story is that I screwed up my measurements, and if you believe it, the coolermaster wavemaster is not big enough to fit a 212+ cooler. The good news is that after replacing the noisy PSU, case fans and stock intel cooler, the machine is quieter with the side panel off (because it doesn't fit on anymore) than it used to be while the panel was on.

If I stop the video card fan (temporarily) I wouldn't be able to tell if the PC was on when I walk into the room. Or at least I'd have to listen carefully to know. It seems my harddrives aren't really a major source of noise, so I didn't do anything to suspend them or isolate vibrations.

I ordered 3 scythe kama flex 1500rpm fans to replace the case fans, one S-Flex fan to replace the PSU fan and of course the 212+ that doesn't fit.

Oh well. So now I have to either make a big dent from the inside of my side panel, or send the cooler back (at a loss) and get something else smaller. In any case, I am happy that the only thing that makes any significant noise is the video card. But for a machine I use for gaming, that's acceptable to me. All of the advice was very much appreciated.

Oh, even better. I've been pegging the CPU at 100% now with the side of the PC covered up as best as possible (to simulate actually having the panel attached) And the PWM CPU fan is still running at near minimum speed 800 - 900 rpm

Not to keep flogging this thread, but I thought I'd post the success story now that I solved the problem with the 212+ being too tall.

Today I figured I'd buy a smaller cooler, but first I thought that since it wasn't really worth sending the 212 back, I'd try squishing it a little bit. So I put it between two flat pieces of wood and squished it with a big C-clamp. It turned out a little lop-sided and I was worried about the heat pipes being too kinked, but it cools just the same as it used to.

I did have a bit of a problem the first time I mounted it after squishing it - the base was no longer flat due to the pressure exerted bending the cooler - the pipes at the base got a little warped. The solution was simply to re-sand the base. I used various bits of sandpaper I had lying around. 200 then 400, then 800 then 2000. I had to keep checking for flatness with a razor blade while sanding with the 200.

So here it is again, pegged at 100% cpu and running only 800rpm with the pwm fan.