Finally Finished - Silent (or pretty darned quiet) GMC-X21

kid6o6 · Post by **kid6o6** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:44 pm

I have been a member for perhaps over a year now and this thread is a big thank you/ take a look SPCR.

I've finally conquered my pc's noise.

Specs

northwood p4 2.4ghz
9800pro
2x sata 300gb seagate 7200.7

This is my first silent PC. I started with a GMC-21 case and have to say i'd recomed these cases for build quality over anything else. Very solid (11kgs empty) and well made.

Anyway in it I put Four L1As front and rear, zalman cnps7000, a panaflo modded zalman 400b psu and a HIS IceQ 9800pro. I also modded the hdd cage to accept EAR gromits.

All fans were controlled by a rheobus and the setup was reasonably quiet however it was far from silent.. cooling was also inadequate and i ended up running with the side panel off most of the time.

Second attempt: Changed the cnps for a Ninja and bought four Yate-Loon D12SLs. Cut the front and rear grills to accomidate a 120mm fan. Mounted the Ninja and attempted hdd decoupling. I also setup a psu duct..

Cooling and noise improved dramaticly. With the fans at 5v the only remaing audible noise was coming from the hdds. I'm guessing there was too much tension in the elastic as i could still feel a good bit of vibration in the case and hdd whine was not that much quieter then with gromits.

Third attempt: Reattached the hdds with gromits, and decoupled the whole cage with foam rubber, elastic and cable ties.

Success! The hdd noise has stopped and there is no vibration that can be felt in the chassis. There is still a slight whine that i can't pin down but if i am not concentrating on it i tend to not notice. It does sound like a coil whine though so the prime suspect is the psu.

This is a gaming PC so the objective was always to have enough cooling with fans at 12v and silence at 5v, hence the choice of the yates (nexus fans, if you can find them, are almost $50 each here in NZ).

A huge thank you to MikeC and Ralf et al for all the guides, reviews and hard work this site contains. Yes its a little ghetto but I can now happily sleep in the same room as my pc

Thank you SPCR.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:27 am

Good for you!

(and now that you're finished with your computer you can save up and buy yourself a new pair of blue jeans...)

doudou · Post by **doudou** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:08 am

Gosh !
have you ever come accross the term "Cable Management" ?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 9:59 am

(and now that you're finished with your computer you can save up and buy yourself a new pair of blue jeans...)

Haven't you heard, ripped jeans are the in-thing in New Zealand at the moment

OK, so the cable management isn't perfect but with 3 120mm Nexus it shouldn't negatively impact cooling.

sun.moon · Post by **sun.moon** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:48 am

Congratulations! But I ditto that with the cable. Take your time to rework the cable - it's a good feeling afterwords to look at the results. Careful though, cable work can get as addicting as quietness

kid6o6 · Post by **kid6o6** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:41 pm

jaganath wrote:
(and now that you're finished with your computer you can save up and buy yourself a new pair of blue jeans...)
Haven't you heard, ripped jeans are the in-thing in New Zealand at the moment

OK, so the cable management isn't perfect but with 3 120mm Nexus it shouldn't negatively impact cooling.

shhhh.. You'll be knocking my up turned cap brim next... please excuse my hairy knee

Yes, i dont have any thermal issues. together those fans can move 120 - 130 cfm and i can turn them off individually if i need to.
Temps accross the board are low to mid thirties with the fans up and mid to high thirties with them down. Occasionally the cpu will hit the low forties if its a warm night and the fans are down/off.

I've tried to manage the cables, but the case has no where to stuff them away as the whole motherboard tray is attached to the side. One drawback of this case i guess.

This setup won't last long anyway given the age of the hardware. I'll be buying a new PC sometime this year and am planing on getting a case that is more receptive to silent computing.

Any cable tips are welcome though.

perplex · Post by **perplex** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:49 pm

*Off-topic* Only homosexuals wear ripped jeans. Especially WITH blonde highlights

By the way, very nice looking interior

looks well organised and built.

kid6o6 · Post by **kid6o6** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:04 pm

Maybe in club tropicana...

I think you'll find they're simply an old pair of jeans...

Flying Dutchman · Post by **Flying Dutchman** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:29 pm

kid6o6 wrote:Any cable tips are welcome though.

Duct tape and tie wraps are your best mates!

Consider watching other ppl's cases and get some Ideas from them. Also, plan your cabling well. I've planned mine reasonably and now I need a minimal amount of cable surface in the way of airflow, the rest is either unused or tucked away.