Another Sonata (minor) modding project

Show off your quiet rig.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
axhind
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:46 am
Location: Belgium

Another Sonata (minor) modding project

Post by axhind » Thu May 13, 2004 7:08 am

My first minor modding is finally a fact . From the outside there's almost no difference, because it's mainly acoustic and airflow modding.

First some pictures of how my Sonata looked before (you are allowed to laugh :D ):

Image

Image

As you can see, the rad is connected backwards to the case so the tubes have to go through a pci-cover to get inside. Not a nice solution, I know, but I was too eager to get it up and running plus that I didn't feel like cutting up my brand new Sonata :D.

Image

Here you can see the fan that blows through the rad from the inside. What's not so clear on this picture is the fact that the water is really dirty, all green and slimy... It was filled with a mixture of demi-water and the product from Asetek though.

Image

My disconnected vga-block and my FX5900XT :D. Since my vga-card has been changed recently, I didn't have the time yet to put the block back on. This has been fixed now, as you can imagine ;).

Image

Image

This is what happens if you use a computer without cleaning it for six months...

So, this was my 'old' Sonata. Is has been working for about half a year like this, but now I thought I had to do something about it urgently.

Target:

-Noise reduction: decoupling of powersupply, fans and rad, plus putting some noise reduction material on the inside of the case:

Image

Image

This is the noise reduction material I used, I had ordered an Acoustipack Deluxe initially, but after 2 months of waiting I was informed that the supplier wouldn't get any of it anymore.

-improved airflow: remove the stamped fangrill, and get rid of the excessive plastic of the front.

Progress:

Most of the things I will do I've learned by browsing this forum and copying other's ideas, so thanks a lot everyone ;).

Image

Stamped fangrill has been cut away.

Image

Airflow restrictive front as you can see.

Image

The same front after removal of excess plastic :).

Image

Front cover with the small inlets.

Image

Front cover after hacking the inlets up :D.

Image

Lower inlet before...

Image

...and after.

Image

The front back in one piece.

Image

Noise reduction stuff on the inside.

Image

Powersupply kinda 'decoupled' with leftovers from the noise reduction material.

Image

5900XT before...

Image

...and after. I still have to put memcooling on the upper memchips, but I wrongly thought this card only had four of them instead of 8...

Image

A nice picture (if I may say so :D) where you can see clearly the layer of noise reduction material between fan-rad and rad-case.

Image

And the case completely finished. As you can see I've put my radiator the other way around so I don't have any excess hoses on the outside. The fan is also outside the case on the rad, sucking instead of blowing through the radiator.

It's completely filled with pure cooling liquid for cars (no more slimy water, at least I hope so ;) ). Plus it's a cool colour and my watercooling is able to withstand minus zero degrees :D.

Image

And to finish another nice overview picture.

Specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton
2*256MB Kingston HyperX PC3500
2*Raptor 36GB in RAID0
1*Maxtor 30GB
Aopen GF FX5900XT
Everything still at stock for the moment, I'm planning on oc-ing if I have the will and time ;).

Temps are 47° sockettemp and 54° diode temp at the moment with a casetemp of 28° approx and the system at full load for an hour.

The most important result is the fact that I've reached my goals: my pc is a whole lot more silent than before, and airflow has improved a lot too. I know that it's not nearly as silent as some of you guys want it to be, but I don't have to shut down my pc anymore at night to have a quiet bedroom, so it's good enough for me.

I'm ready for yer comments now :).

Jordan
Posts: 557
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:21 pm
Location: Scotland, UK

Post by Jordan » Sun May 16, 2004 10:05 am

Nice work! Though temps till seem pretty high, I get lower on air cooling at very low RPM and OCed (although I have a mobile Athlon).

Those HD's must make a bit of moise, you could try elastic susspension or something similar next :)

EDIT: Oh and nice photography work as well!

axhind
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:46 am
Location: Belgium

Post by axhind » Mon May 17, 2004 1:30 am

Thanks for the compliments ;). Pics are taken with my brand new Powershot A80, and I must say I love the quality!

Yeah, I know the temp seems a bit high, but since temp measurement on motherboards differs, I'm not worried. My system is stable as it is, even after several hours of intensive gaming. Actually I don't even know the idle temp because I'm running distributed.net on it whenever it's on.

The noise of those harddisks isn't so bad actually, when idling they're virtually inaudible, seek noises on the other hand give some kind of 'krkr' sound :D. Not disturbing at all imo.

Post Reply