SPCR

Ok, here's the deal. I bought a new computer for my studio four months ago and didn't really have the money to go quiet at the time and admittedly I didn't do as much research as I should have. I now have a VERY noisy PC in my studio and my mixes are suffering for it. Now, however, I have a boatload of money available to silence this beast. While I won't change the hard drive, MB, or CPU, everything else in the system is up for replacement.

So, if money were absolutely no object (and I mean no object) which off the shelf parts would you, the silencing pros, purchase to silence this beast?

Shuttle AB60N Motherboard (800 MHz FSB)
P4 - 3.06 GHz
WD 160GB 1600JB
ATI Xpert 98
Lite On LDW811S 8X DVD Rewritable Drive (not used when silence is necesary)

Thanks!

There are many many individual options and choices, so this post could turn into a super-long thread. But there are only a few basic approaches.

If you want to keep it simple, just read through a few of the Homebrew PC articles on the main site, and Ralf Hutter's and a few others' systems in the General Gallery Forum, and copy one you like.

If you want to forge ahead on your own, pick the best items in the Recommended lists and go for it.

Just remember these rules of thumb:

1) A sturdy (steel preferred!) case with excellent unrestricted airflow in & out. This means low resistance vents! Plus room for HDD suspension!
2) Use fewer fans if possible, but always undervolt; a larger number of undervolted fans will be quieter and move air more efficiently than a single higher speed fan.
3) Elastic-cord-suspend the HDD.
4) Use a PSU fresh air duct to keep PSU cool and its fan from ramping up
5) Use the best HS you can get -- and combine it with an undervolted fan -- or go Zalman 7000 (really it is the king right now, and with some voltage manipulation, at 4V, about as quiet as the very quietest fan cooled HS)

And since I have started to get specific, Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer for your VGA.

You could buy the Zalman heatpipe case if you don't care about money .

Thanks for the responses, guys. I'd looked at the Recommend lists but quite honestly was somewhat confused by which products were up to handling a 3.0 GHz processor and what I would need for cooling and whatnot.

I know "what's the best stuff to buy" is a vague question but your responses have helped.

I couldn't find a Zalman heatpipe case anywhere. Have a link?

ii would get a A-64 instead of pentuim, i am partial to amd BUT if you look at reivew's A64's cream p4's and when A-64 windows comes out it will be even better....u should get a better and future proof system, for a couple bux less too!

boardsportsrule....

While I won't change the hard drive, MB, or CPU, everything else in the system is up for replacement

Lysdeix (or is it dyslexic?), you're more than welcome to follow MikeC's advice and look at different sections of the web site for the best components, but are you just using you computer for studio work? Are you doing any video editing or gaming? How much RAM do you have? And, are you wanting to buy everything ready-to-go out of the box, or are you willing to do some minor case-modding?

oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh didnt' see that, shoulda read more carefully but get a big lian li case( i know it's not steel, but they are very nice ) then take a jigsaw and cut out the vents in back so there are no grills, VERY easy to do, just 4 little cuts.... then get a zalman 7000a-CU for a heatysink and a zalman 80-HP heatpipe vcard cooler, then get the zalman hdd coolers/silencers and use them... not sure if ur motherboard has a passive or active northbridge cooler( fan?) and if it's active then get the 47j zalman passive nb cooler( not sure if thats teh correct model number..) and then get a couple of panaflo La1 80mm fans for airflow, then get a zalman 400watt PSU....that will be damn silent:)

1. Antec Sonata
2. 1 Panaflo L1a 120mm
3. Fortron FSP350-60N
4. Asus K8v
5. Athlon64 3400+
6. 1GB OCZ Performance DC-Kit
7. ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
8. Zalman ZM80C-HP
9. Viewsonic VP201b 20" 16ms LCD
10. Klpish ProMedia 4.1

Here's a review of the Zalman "noiseless" case

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/

icancam wrote:Here's a review of the Zalman "noiseless" case

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040115/

I am looking into buying one of these cases for my home recording studio. However it's only just been released in Korea this week. So it could take some time to reach the other parts of the world.

I could have a few problems though. Creamware's Pulsar 2 is a very large pci sound card! I'm not sure weather it will fit in. Also will 300 watts run 3 hard drives, 2 large sound cards (one with brake out box, drawing power from PC), 1gb corsair ram, 2.6C, CD burner, DVD rom, KVM switch. That's a lot of power needed! ATM a 350 watt emermax psu is in there but I'm thinking of buying a 400 watt one soon. I hope they make a 400 watt model!

Update: I just heard a 400 watt PSU is listed as an option! YAY...

If money is real no problem get your design hat out and then go talk a machine shop into building you everything.

Or one thing that is not so complicated but really cool is to water cool your system using buried copper pipe.

Built an addition to your studio and put all your computer equipment in another room, a server room. Run a KVM switch through the wall and only have monitor, keyboard and mouse in your actual working room. I haven't figured out how to get easy access to CD drives and such unless you buy all firewire drives.

A USB 2.0 or firewire CD-R/RW/DVD should be no problem. Plextor makes a good one. SoundBlaster even has a pretty good USB soundcard. A basement (instead of an adjacent room) would also work for some people.

I defintively agree with PiOsan that the Zalman heappipe case is the best solution for noise You the have noiseless computer and that rules
Be sure to replace the standard drive screwing to case by silencing solutions witch basicaly hang the drive in air on rubber straps Works great and silence will be total
Trust me, it's great case!
This link is also interesting:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/news/2003/20031125_1.htm

...and in case the PSU is not enought, i recommen adding another FANLESS PSU to support the Zalman one, like this one:
http://silentmaxx.net/catalog/ps_prosilence_420cpcs.php

Cool one, is not it?
http://www.silentmaxx.de/pics/fanlesspr ... _gross.jpg

So for 300 bucks you have silence. Now only call Zalman, if they can delived for your the case - i bet they should do it - and if they don't have ready 110V PSU, then they hapilly can trash it, because you will use this one to ensure you getting enought power

I will almost guarantee your hapinnes Make sure you employ enought good technician, to do the computer reasembling into the Zalman case extremly well, and use lot's of Arctic Silver 3 for the heatpipe contacts and so on Failure to do so can cause overheating problems¨witch may even leat to instability of the whole system

Shadowknight wrote:boardsportsrule....

While I won't change the hard drive, MB, or CPU, everything else in the system is up for replacement

Lysdeix (or is it dyslexic?), you're more than welcome to follow MikeC's advice and look at different sections of the web site for the best components, but are you just using you computer for studio work? Are you doing any video editing or gaming? How much RAM do you have? And, are you wanting to buy everything ready-to-go out of the box, or are you willing to do some minor case-modding?

I do mostly use it for studio work. No gaming (not even solitaire). I have 1 GB of PC3200 400MHZ NON-ECC DDR. I'd prefer to do everything out of the box, but I'd be willing to do very minor modding.

Sorry I've been absent for a bit... Thanks everyone for the responses. Some people have been recommending CPU's and such. Thanks, but I've already spent that money and I'm happy in that department.

Oh, and unfortunately, moving the PC is not an option giving my current space situation.

The ones recommending diferent CPUs/mobos probably missed your note about that you are not willing to exchange them - however my solution with falness Zalman case and fanless SilentMaxx 420W PSU give you perfect silence w/o much work (well, puting the case together could be a little bit harder, as i mention in PM ) and no modding need