Gigabyte 3D Aurora 'silent' build

[deksawyer]

Well, I only put it together last week after doing away with my Thermaltake Xaser III/A7N8X/Athlon XP3200 Barton combo which has served me well over the last 2 years.

CPU temps in that were impressive, @ 29°C Diode/30°c Socket at idle 40-44°c under stress, with a Thermaltake Volcano turned all the way down. It was however, slightly noise with 7 fans in the case (all turned down to min. as well).

With this new build I was looking for a bit more performance and a lot less noise.

The Gigabyte is an impressive case, although it does have its faults. The Aluminium is too thin to cope with the slow 120mm fans and can let of a distinct low end hum - I'm not sure if this is the fans or the hard drives.

Cooling is excellent though - 120mm pulling air in from the front with the 2 rear 120mm's exhausting. They spin VERY slowly and are actually quite pretty if you like blue lights. I added some fan isolation in the form of those Vantec rubbery dampeners, and that's taken the edge off the hum.

My case came with a side window which is OK, but at the time of ordering, I didn't know this. Maybe the version with the vent is a few °c cooler......I'll never know.

The Thermaltake Big Typhoon I've had for a months after discovering it didn't fit in my HTPC case and I find I can run it with the fan off (via Speedfan) with no ill effects. I've fiitted an Aerocool Amber 120mm fan mainly because I borrowed the original as an exhaust fan for my media server which sits in the livingroom and needs to be silent. The Aerocool is definitely audible at full speed.

Overall I'm happy, although the performance isn't as mind blowing as I would have hoped for, considering it's an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with 4x512mb Geil Value DDR in d/channel mode.

Here's some pics;









Overall, I like the layout of the Aurora, it's very quiet as std and with a bit of tweaking, I think can be made as near to silent as possible.

The Big Typhoon is excellent, although I know Thermaltake are much maligned around these parts. It is huge and does fit the MSI K8n Neo2 Platinum, although my one is a bit twisted and is very close to the gfx card - I've placed a bit of paper between them, and all if OK.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler/Aerocool 120mm Amber fan
4x512mb PC3200 Geil Value DDR ram in d/channel mode (forced @400 - the manual says you can't do this, but you can)
WDCaviar 160gb sata
Maxtor 120gb sata

Current CPU temp with fan off - 32°c. It goes up to mid 40's when stressed, with the fans ramping up to full tilt; which is still quieter than my last rig.

Have to do something about that NB fan though, but it could be problematic due to its placement on the board.

Any advice/comments most welcomed.

D.

[sanse]

Well, I only put it together last week after doing away with my Thermaltake Xaser III/A7N8X/Athlon XP3200 Barton combo which has served me well over the last 2 years.

nice build and good temps too.

why is there so much empty space above the mobo? it seems inviting to use it as a place to attach a heatpipe-heatsink to cool the cpu. with a nice bow over the ram-modules to the case.

[Weldingheart]

Wow,didn't expect to see a 3D Aurora case here!
Is that Tagan PSU up there?
How about noise characteristic of those Gigabyte fans?
I thought that the Yate Loon fan in Big Typhoon might be quiet enugh if undervolted (rather than changing it with Aerocool/Akasa(?) fan)
With those dual 120mm exhaust I would go fanless for all cooling and PSU and throw out the front 120mm fan.

[Krazy Kommando]

nice looking case. what gfx card is that tho?

[spolitta]

nice build deksawyer,

SPCR is a great place to start silencing your rig.

Welcome to SPCR!!!

[deksawyer]

Weldingheart: Tagan 480W TG480-U01 PSU. The Gigabyte fans are very quiet - they spin at under 1000rpm after all. The only reason I have the Akasa fitted is because I removed the TT/Yate Loon fan for my media server a few months ago, which needs to be silent. The Akasa was all I had lying around. I may go fanless - i'll experiment when the hotter weather gets here (I'm hoping!!).

And why do you say "Wow,didn't expect to see a 3D Aurora case here!" Is it because it's not a P180 ??
I bought the Aurora because I thought it was a better looking case than the Antec, plus everybody has one of those....don't get me wrong the P180 is nice and I like Antec - I still have an old 1080AMG (which needs a new door).

Krazy Kommando: It's an el cheapo Gigabyte Radeon 9200SE I had spare as I couldn't face putting my GeForce back in as it has a fan! I'm planning an upgrade. I have a Sapphire 9600 Pro Atlantis with the factory passive cooling in my HTPC and might swap that for the Gigabyte.

spolitta: Thanks! I plan on learning a lot!!

Thanks to all!

D.

[Weldingheart]

i'll experiment when the hotter weather gets here (I'm hoping!!).
.

Living in highland and hoping for some hot weather?hehe bet you've never stay some long in tropical regions.

And why do you say "Wow,didn't expect to see a 3D Aurora case here!" Is it because it's not a P180 ??
I bought the Aurora because I thought it was a better looking case than the Antec, plus everybody has one of those....don't get me wrong the P180 is nice and I like Antec - I still have an old 1080AMG (which needs a new door).
.

Yeah,it quite refreshing to see other than Antecs, I like that Gigabyte design, solid, and nice-not too flashy, though the lower hard drive cage is not designed with quiet in mind. (someday you'll be cursed to hear the hard drives sound along with disturbing chipset whine)

Nice cabling too,though that Tagan have excessive cables and 'left hand' cable route.

[deksawyer]

Well, I live in Fife, which technically is not the Highlands. Looking forward to a nice break in Portugal in a month or so.............

I've now suspended the hard drives from some elastic and that has made a huge difference. I can't hear them at all now and strangely, temps have gone down a few °C.

I've now also fitted a new Gigabyte GeForce 6600 - the Silent Pipe version, which means I had to loose the Big T.

I'd hoped the Zalman 9500 LED would have fitted this board, to blow out the back, but it doesn't. Poor board layout. Currently the 9500 is blowing down towards the GFX/Northbridge (which now has a Zalman ZM-NB47J).

Temps are up 3 or 4 °C during idle but they're fairly similar under load, but noise is now a factor. Who said the 9500 was silent......

I'm trying to work out if a Thermalright SI-120 will fit, according to them it will but I'm not so sure due to the board layout.

My next tasks are silencing my Girlfriends PC which sits right next to the Gigabyte. It's an Athlon XP2500 on an MSI board housed in a Cheiftec case - I have Pabst fans in there now but it's not quiet...

D.

[roadie]

I have an Aurora too. I really like the case but I do have 3 hard drives and the vibration that they produce compounded with the very thin and light alminium panels means that there is an annoying resonance being produced. I have ordered some Acoustipack to try to dampen this.

Here are a few other issues with the case. I too have the windowed version and in a way it is slightly flawed when it comes to cooling. With a PSU and a graphics card present I have 3x120mm fans and the small, yet powerful stock ATI fan on my x1900 exhausting air from the case. However, there is only 1x120mm fan bringing fresh air into the case and this is situated behind a pretty restricive air filter so air is coming through every nook and cranny it can. To aleviate this I have opened up the 3.5" bays and stuck an air filter over them from the inside. It's pretty ghetto but it forms a direct path from the front of the case, through the CPU HSF to the fans at the rear. This works even when the door is closed, as there is a gap between the bottom of the door and the rest of the case.

It is also a shame the way the HDD's are mounted. My previous case was an Antec SLK3000B and how the drives were orientated and dampened was a much, much better way of doing things.

That's about it really. The 120mm fans are rebranded Evercools and are silent. However, I am not a big fan of the blue LED's so I have some GlobalWin NCB fans on the way to replace them.

[Lerun]

I also have the Aurora case. I know what you mean about 3 HD roadie.

What I did / doing is:

First I rescued the HD cooler / dampening from my old Artic Cooling T1 case. Managed to fit that behind the PSU, so now one drive is silent.

Next I'm trying to make someting to suspend the other two HD. I'll try some clothing elastic bands. Dunno if this will work, cause there is not much room in the HD cage.

I also like the case, as i could install my water cooling kit without much modding (just a few rounds with the dremell ). The radiator fits nicly outside the case with pre made holes for the tubes.

Also fittet rubber gromits to all the fans and vibration dampening pannels in in the cabinet door and the floor.

[deksawyer]

Yes, you need to do something about the HDD noise.

I modded mine by adding some round elastic (around 4 or 5mm) to suspend the drives inside the cage. It was actually a cargo net I used to use on my motorbike; I just unraveled that to have an almost unlimited supply of black, round elastic!

I was going to rip out the cage but really couldn't be bothered dis-assembling the whole thing. The elastic works well enough.

Also there's not enough air drawn in from the front intake - I'm going to look at a way round this sometime - that's why I have a 120mm fan pointing at the gfx card and the NB.

I've changed the CPU cooler since my original build as the Gigabyte 6600's passive cooler got in the way of the Big T. I have to say though, that the Aerocool with an 80mm Arctic Cooling fan is one of the quietest combos I've 'heard'. I run a similar set up in my HTPC.

Pics of my susspension mods;




Show us your 3D pics guys......

D.

[roadie]

That looks really, really good. I have put as much Acoustipack as possible in my Aurora and that combined with the removal of the stock x1900 HSF has done wonders in terms of reducing vibrations and fan/motor noise. I also receieved an Antec NeoHE 550W PSU today, which should be quieter than the Hiper and Enermax ones I am running at the moment. It was a bargain at £52.50 too!

I will post some pics as soon as my home computer is operational again. I am receiving my 4th replacement monitor tomorrow from Viewsonic and am praying that this one is trouble free. They are actually upgrading me from a VX912 to a VX924, which will hopefully actually work.

[Lerun]

Here are some of my pics, not the best quality but you'll get the general idea.



The whole case, bit messy because I had to rip out the whole shebang to RMA my defective GFX card.



Here you can see the HD dampening device I ripped out of my old T1



A bit closer



Here are the HD's. Just using some elastic cloth bands to hold em up.

I'm using two fans to get air into the case, one at the usual place (ADA) and the gigabyte one blowing towards the GFX card.

[Brodel]

sorry to bump a fairly old post but I was wondering if anyone had done any other mods to their aurora?

I got my aurora yesterday and whilst happy with the case overall I really think something needs to be done about air intakes, especially around the chipset as it was literally too hot to touch yesterday and I've stuck an 80mm Nexus right next to it which has helped somewhat. I'm going to get 3 Yate Loons at 1650rpm and mount them with rubber grommets in place of the gigabyte fans.

I also want to suspend my HD's with stretch magic but before that I was looking into rotating the HD cage. I've never modded any of my cases before and was wondering if anyone had already done this and had some advice or steps to follow?

[roadie]

I felt the same as you about air intakes into the case. My solution was to open up both of the 3.5" bays and place a dust filter behind them. This is quite good, as there is a nice "tunnel" from there, through my Freezer 64 Pro and back to the lower case fan.

It is difficult to rely upon the single intake fan, which is behind quite a restrictive dust filter. What I really really want to know is how on earth you are supposed to remove the front dust filter? I have tried but it seems impossible to get out...

[Brodel]

I felt the same as you about air intakes into the case. My solution was to open up both of the 3.5" bays and place a dust filter behind them. This is quite good, as there is a nice "tunnel" from there, through my Freezer 64 Pro and back to the lower case fan.

It is difficult to rely upon the single intake fan, which is behind quite a restrictive dust filter. What I really really want to know is how on earth you are supposed to remove the front dust filter? I have tried but it seems impossible to get out...

Yea, I have the same open bays as you, I also put a Nexus 80mm in there to get a bit more air through to the CPU.

The filter is quite simple to get out but you need to remove the plastic stencil (that creates the 3D Aurora logo light) first and then tug the filter a bit to get it free from the clips around the edge.
If you hold your hand in the HD bay you'll notice next to no air at all gets through, its quite a bit better for the HD's once you remove it.

[Brodel]

ok, Ive set up my own suspended HD's with stretch magic and made recordings so you can compare the difference and decide if you think it's worth it. This is 1.0mm Stretch Magic BTW.

It took about 25mins because the HD cage being close to the fan makes it a bit fiddly but I used some tweasers to get pull the elastic back through the holes which made it fairly easy.






I made recordings with my MP3 player of booting up, the first without stretch magic and the second with. I held the player right next to the cage with the side panel off.

Before

After

I'm sorry the recording isn't that great, you can tell the difference best towards the end of the recordings. To be honest I notice it even more when starting the computer up as I usually would with it under the desk and when loading programs or browsing files. I've you find the HD noise annoying or are obsessed with silence then I think it's a good mod, plus it's very cheap.

[roadie]

I felt the same as you about air intakes into the case. My solution was to open up both of the 3.5" bays and place a dust filter behind them. This is quite good, as there is a nice "tunnel" from there, through my Freezer 64 Pro and back to the lower case fan.

It is difficult to rely upon the single intake fan, which is behind quite a restrictive dust filter. What I really really want to know is how on earth you are supposed to remove the front dust filter? I have tried but it seems impossible to get out...

Yeah, I have the same open bays as you, I also put a Nexus 80mm in there to get a bit more air through to the CPU.

The filter is quite simple to get out but you need to remove the plastic stencil (that creates the 3D Aurora logo light) first and then tug the filter a bit to get it free from the clips around the edge.
If you hold your hand in the HD bay you'll notice next to no air at all gets through, its quite a bit better for the HD's once you remove it.

Right, I will have a go at that when I am installing my new motherboard and stuff when it arrives. I do need a dust filter in there though, as my room does get quite dusty. I guess I will have to remember to clean it out every couple of weeks.

The Stretch Magic must have been horribly to install so that's a great job you have done. I don't think I am going to attempt that, as the resonance from my hard drives has been much reduced by the Acoustipack I have in my case and in the hard drive bay.