My SPCR-inspired quiet workstation

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:36 am

After a couple of weeks reading hardware reviews & looking for the right silent component, my workstation is finally running.
I didn't have time to make some pics when I was building the rig, but now I did:

overview of my desk:

internals:

On the 2nd picture it seems like the 2 Nexus 120mm fans aren't moving, but the are! They're just spinning that slow, when taking a picture at 1/60s the movement of the blades isn't captured

Hardware details:
Case: Antec Solo
PSU: Antec NeoHE 380W
Mobo: Asus P5B-E
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6600 2400MHz
HSF: Scythe Ninja + Nexus 120mm @ 800RPM
RAM: 2x 1024 Apacer DDR2-800MHz CL5-5-5-18
HDD: WD Caviar SE16 500GB SataII
Audio: Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum
Speakers: Logitech Z-2300 2.1
VGA: MSI NX7600GS 512MB passive
Screens: 2x Samsung 930BF 4ms
DVD+RW: NEC ND-4551A
DVD-ROM: HP 16x
Cardreader: Apacer 15-in-1
Keyboard: Logitech Cordless desktop LX700
Mouse: Logitech Cordless click! plus optical
Intake: Nexus 92mm @ 800RPM
Exhaust: Nexus 120mm @ 900RPM
Fan control: 3x Zalman FanMate 2

Temps idle:
Ambiant: 22Â°C
Cores: 37Â°C / 36Â°C
Mobo: 38Â°C
GPU: 65Â°C
HDD: 36Â°C

Temps stressed:
Ambiant: 22Â°C
Cores: 63Â°C / 60Â°C
Mobo: 38Â°C
GPU: 81Â°C
HDD: 36Â°C

All cables have been routed to the bottom or stuffed away behind the drive cages to optimize airflow. Some cables weren't that flexible, so it wasn't that easy to do, but I'm pretty happy about the result.
The rig isn't dead silent, but comes pretty close. There's some noise from HD activity (but not ennoying at all) and airflow through the fins. The fans themselves aren't audible though.

Anything I've overlooked or could have done better?

Modmaven · Post by **Modmaven** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:06 am

Nice job there. Are you getting any vibrations from those metal pieces you used to mount the fan on the ninja? Is that back fan mounted with silicone grommets or the like?

Nice sheep

UK-Bob · Post by **UK-Bob** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 8:26 am

very Very noce

Antec cases look so good dont they.............

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:02 am

Modmaven wrote:Are you getting any vibrations from those metal pieces you used to mount the fan on the ninja? Is that back fan mounted with silicone grommets or the like?

I have no vibrations at all, not from the Ninja nor the fan at the back.
The one at the back is mounted with regular metal screws. I couldn't find any affordable silicone/rubber mounts over here...

s_xero · Post by **s_xero** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:17 am

Nice station dude...

Those sheep are on a back I once downed from devianart.com

Nice going, and Antec cases own (Me = P180-owner

)

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:47 am

s_xero wrote:Those sheep are on a back I once downed from devianart.com

yep, me too

neerlent · Post by **neerlent** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:40 pm

Looks like a great setup. My planned build is almost identical to yours. Do Suspend and Hibernate modes work in your system? I want to be sure that any system I build has these working.

Also, I'd love to know what the power draw of this system is in Suspend mode. Have you done any power draw measurements?

treker · Post by **treker** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:14 pm

I have the same system. I use hibernation all the time which I have found to be a good compromise with having quick access to system without using electricity all the time. It quickly wakes up from hibernation with all systems GO.

I had some issues with Internet not waking up (LAN woke up fine, just could not "access server" problems) when I first went into standby and then 5mins later going into hibernation. So, I just disabled standby and go directly to hibernate.

I mounted my rear and front case fans (YL) with velcro. No vibration! My Seagate 320 HD (a fairly noisy hot drive) used to have audible seek noises in Antec P160 case (also a very quiet system but not as quiet as Solo!!). But using the suspension in the sound proofed Solo...no HD noise at all and cooler with the front fan directly on it.

Antec Solo system pulls 99 watts surfing and 4 watts hibernating according to KillAWatt.

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:09 pm

neerlent wrote:Looks like a great setup. My planned build is almost identical to yours. Do Suspend and Hibernate modes work in your system? I want to be sure that any system I build has these working.
Also, I'd love to know what the power draw of this system is in Suspend mode. Have you done any power draw measurements?

I don't use standby/hibernation. My PC is always on when I'm home, and if I know that I won't need it for a longer period, I just shut it down completely. Anyhow, the system starts up in about 40 seconds, so I don't mind waiting. I'm still surprised how much faster it is compared to my previous PC (Ahtlon64+ 3000).

And I don't have the tools to measure power draw...

speedlever · Post by **speedlever** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:10 pm

Nice build, Freeco.

I'm glad to see how that P5B-E looks in a Solo.

I was led to believe the Scythe 1100P wouldn't fit on the P5B-E. Did you have to do any mods to make it fit?

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:00 am

no mods were necessary to install the Scythe on my P5B-E board

the Scythe blocks the 4pin 12V connector which is located above the CPU at the upper edge of the P5B-E board, but using a long screwdriver I was able to secure the connector.

Whatlarks · Post by **Whatlarks** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:23 am

This is also very much like my planned build Freeco and yours looks very neat.

Just wondering how you are getting on with the passive MSI GeForce 7600GS? Any temperature problems?

Since I am not really interested in OC do you think I will still need the intake fan ... is this there to cool the passive graphics card?

Many thanks,
Ian

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:05 am

I haven't had any temp problems from the passive 7600GS, but it doesn't get stressed frequently as I don't play any games.
I installed Vista last week, so a dualscreen with Aero enabled will be the only stress factor it'll have to handle. I'd say it performs very well (+5 according to Vista).

The 92mm intake is intended for some extra airflow to the GPU and harddisk. Idle the GPU is 65Â°C, which is pretty OK I guess. Stressed the temp rises to 81Â°C. I guess that's still OK, as I've seen a review of a passive Asus card that's +100Â°C when stressed, without visible problems.

I haven't tested the GPU without the intake, but I think there's still some headroom left in order to leave it out. Mine is only running at about 800RPM, so it's only a small breeze.
I can't tell you for sure how things will go without the intake, so be careful and check your temps regularly

Whatlarks · Post by **Whatlarks** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:02 am

Thanks for the swift reply Freeco. My system would be used for my work, programming and photo editing mostly, with just the occasionally game of Flight Simulator x or Call of Duty

How do you find the quality of 2D display? A sharp image with good colour rendition is quite important for my work.

Many thanks,
Ian

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:11 am

Greetings Ian & welcome to SPCR!

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:00 am

I used a Matrox G450 and G550 before, and I didn't notice any loss of quality after upgrading to the 7600GS.
As Matrox is know for it's 2D quality and I have a pretty good eye for detail, I don't you'll complain about the 2D quality.

Though, if you're gonna play Flight simulator and COD, the GS will be a bit low-end I guess. But faster cards always have a fan (except for that 1 Asus card).

Whatlarks · Post by **Whatlarks** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:31 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Greetings Ian & welcome to SPCR!

That's very kind of you Neil, thanks.
Ian

Whatlarks · Post by **Whatlarks** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:52 pm

That has been a great help Freeco. I also used Matrox cards before I bought the Radeon 9700 pro I currently have, so I can appreciate the comparison.

There is such a extensive array of graphics cards on the market that trying to select one for quality 2d work, that will also run Flight Simulator X reasonably well and doesn't require a power supply the size of a small sub-station, is looking beyond my meagre abilities.

I think I will go for the 7600GS and hope that FSX is usable.

Many thanks,
Ian

_MarcoM_ · Post by **_MarcoM_** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 6:17 am

Great config, i love it

I see a shiny new Club3D HD5750 passive in your signature... what about temperatures of this puppy? Is it a front 92mm fan@800rpm enough for cooling?

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:11 am

it's even cooler than the old card

The GPU is now 45Â°C idle and goes up to 75Â°C when stressed. And that's with ATiTool, which isn't really a realistic stress tool. With real 3D stuff I've checked with the temp doesn't even go that far up.

Here's an update picture:

average_joe · Post by **average_joe** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:26 pm

Nice build. And great case

_MarcoM_ · Post by **_MarcoM_** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:44 pm

Wow, 75Â° when stressed would be ok for my rig, silence is priceless. I'm wondering what brand is better, Club 3d or powercolor. Is your card all solid caps? How many thumbs up?

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:52 am

I didn't really take a good look at the caps, sorry

But for what I inquired on a Dutch forum Club3D is the better card builder, however it's actually a daughter firm of PowerColor. But it builds no-nonsense cards, without any extra's like games etc...
And I read on the forum here some Powercolor HD5750's have a higher power consumption than the reference card.
As I haven't got any personal experience with either of these 2 brands I followed the advice that I read and went for a Club3D.

Fayd · Post by **Fayd** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:19 pm

wish i could find the cooler for that 5750 by itself.

_MarcoM_ · Post by **_MarcoM_** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 6:50 am

Thank you for the mini-review Freeco!

This card is a temptation to me, i'm wondering what happen in italy's summer

colm · Post by **colm** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 7:58 pm

nice setup...

I saw the start date for post, I did something similar here. It seems the finale is:

passive large vid cooler
fill all dimms (that is an efficient move believe it or not)
the true copper memory heat spreaders (amazing, I must say it)
reverse cooling, on large thin finned cpu heatsink.
taking care of wires path...

seems so simple to read...

as worksation is it a ECC memory controller hub? if not, it really cannot be called a workstation. Regardless, nice setup.
SPCR got to me long before I posted anything as a first glimpse of bieng ok to challenge components and talk about it.

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Fri Jan 22, 2010 1:11 am

yes indeed, this topic dates back 3 years already, but the PC is still running with some minor adjustments along the way.
I'm thinking of upgrading to an Intel i5 btw: so change mobo, cpu, ram & maybe add an SSD.

I don't fully understand what you mean what that finale story. Is that something you suggest to do?

And to answer the ECC question: let's call my system a low-end workstation. It's a workstation in the way of: I use it daily for business & pleasure. No it doesn't have ECC memory capabilities, doesn't have a Xeon/Opteron CPU, have a pro-class GPU or any of that stuff, but I don't need that.
Performance is relative: 3 years ago this was quite the machine! I was stunned how fast it was compared to my previous Athlon64+.

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 6:48 am

small update for MarcoM (and others that are interested): I just figured out why only the core clock throttles down when idle, while the memory clock stays at the default 1150MHz. It's due to my dual monitor setup!

With only 1 monitor enabled the core clock goes down to 157MHz and the memory clock to 300MHz. This also results in an idle temp of 37Â°C! That's a huge difference to my previous 7600GS which idled at 65Â°C!!
But I'm so used to working with 2 monitors over the last 10 years, single monitor is not an option for me. I guess the GPU will have to burn some more electricity then

Luckily there's no extra noise generated by this

BTW: last week I ordered 2 Samsung 2443BW 1920x1200 monitors. I hope the higher resolution doesn't further increase the clock timings...

theycallmebruce · Post by **theycallmebruce** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:28 am

Not to jack your thread too much, but I too am a lover of two monitors. However, now that I have a 24 inch monitor with 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920 pixels across, and more importantly Win 7 with the brilliant *windows key + left and right arrows* feature, I actually prefer having one big monitor, and fit my two windows on the screen that way.

Freeco · Post by **Freeco** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:43 am

well, I'll find that out for myself when my new monitors arive, won't I

But I don't think I'll go back to a single monitor setup, even with a 16:10 screen. I just love the ease of drag and dropping stuff from 1 app to the other. And when using really big GUIs like Photoshop, doing this on a single monitor is just inpractical.

My SPCR-inspired quiet workstation

My SPCR-inspired quiet workstation

How about Suspend/Hibernate?

Re: How about Suspend/Hibernate?