Hi. First of all, thanks to the people running this site and contributing to the forums. Reading this site has helped me choose the correct set of components to assemble/rebuild quiet running PC's.
This is documentation and photos on three recently built, torn-down and rebuilt systems I have. My main objective was to get the noise to acceptable levels. Some upgrades were also snuck-in here, there and in-between. Details and photos for each system in next three posts.
Three new builds/rebuilds...
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
First one
The first system is a new build and replaces my ancient, noisy and LED-laden home web/e-mail server. This is the quietest of all three since there were no mechanical components used and cooling is entirely passive.
System details are as follows:
The big heatsink in the middle is for the north/southbridge, the CPU is the one with the small heatsink. On the upper right-center area is the pico-PSU and the SSD is on the lower left corner. It is a mini-ITX form-factor and thus is quite small.
Here's the same system next to a pen and a mouse.
Another one with the case closed.
Pico-PSU DC-DC converter up close.
I had to get a USB-network adapter since the current version of the OS coudn't recognize the built-in ethernet chip
.
Power consumption (measured with a WattsUp power meter):
There's only one LED (on the power button) and it gets shoved behind another box so all is well and good.
System details are as follows:
- MSI-IM945GSE-A motherboard with Intel Atom N270 processor
- 2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM
- 90W Pico-PSU+80w brick
- 16GB RiData SATA SSD (SLC)
- OpenBSD4.4
The big heatsink in the middle is for the north/southbridge, the CPU is the one with the small heatsink. On the upper right-center area is the pico-PSU and the SSD is on the lower left corner. It is a mini-ITX form-factor and thus is quite small.
Here's the same system next to a pen and a mouse.
Another one with the case closed.
Pico-PSU DC-DC converter up close.
I had to get a USB-network adapter since the current version of the OS coudn't recognize the built-in ethernet chip
.Power consumption (measured with a WattsUp power meter):
- "off"
- boot
- idle
There's only one LED (on the power button) and it gets shoved behind another box so all is well and good.
Second system, a P182
The second system is a rebuild swapping several components out to get it running quieter.
System details are as follows:
The case is an Antec P182. It is a very nice case and if I had to build another system AND needed a case, my case of choice would be the P182. That said, I do have some comments.
On the upper left corner, you can see the CPU and exhaust cooling system. Here is a closeup.
The CPU fan (Scythe PWM) sitting on the Big Typhoon is PWM controlled and most of the time runs at around 500RPM. The fan has a very faint ticking sound when held next to the ear but inaudible once held further out or placed in the case. The rear and top exhaust fans run at 800 and 500RPM respectively. The case/cooler/fan combo does a very good job of keeping the CPU cool, on light loads, temps stay at around 31 and at load (prime95) goes up to around 50 (at 22c ambient).
The GPU fan that came with the diamond 3850 was very noisy and was replaced with an 80mm Noctua fan with the LNA adapter attached. The good thing with the diamond card was that the fan was a standard tube-radial and could easily be changed with a few zip-ties.
The most the GPU gets taxed is when playing DVD's. Even then, it stays at a very comfy 34c (at 22c ambient) so I could probably slow down the fan some more. I don't think it matters though since it is not a discernible noise source.
To the lower right of the first photo is some foam where the lower drive cage is located. This is my attempt to quiet down what I believe is the current biggest noise source from the system (drive motor spinning). I don't think the foam is really doing much but I placed it there anyway. I will look for some denser material later to replace the foam (suggestions?). Below is a photo of the mess in the lower drive cage that caused me to break the SATA connector.
I left the default fan in the lower drive cage running at low. Since it is well inside the case, I don't think the fan noise will matter. If it's not going to contribute to the noise, what I'd like to do is to see if I can remove the middle-lower fan and place one in front of the drives instead.
One more thing, while most SPCR builders would remove fan grilles, the lower HD fan cage could readily use one to prevent cables running into the blades. What I really should do is remove the lower cage fan and slice out the metal-plate holding it with a Dremel.
PSU is a 525W Enermax Modu82+. The fan, as most of you are probably aware of, is PWM and on my system spins <500RPM during light loads. It is very quiet and replaced a 500something watt Antec PSU that had developed a buzzing sound.
Power consumption:
There is only a faint-bluish glow from the HDD LED visible when the front cover is closed so life is good. The system is quiet enough that I have to jiggle the mouse or check the top-fan to see if it is on when the house is quiet.
System details are as follows:
- Case Antec P182
- CPU Q9450 running at stock speed
- Graphics ATI 3850, fan replaced with Noctua 80mm fan with 50ohm adapter
- M/B Gigabyte EP35-DS3R
- CPU cooler, Thermaltake Big-Typhoon, fan replaced with Scythe Kama PWM fan
- RAM, 8GB Corsair (4x2GB) DDR2
- exhaust fans, top 500RPM scythe slipstream
- exhaust fans, rear 800RPM Scythe S-Flex (SSF21D)
- PSU, 525W Enermax Modu82+
- Drive, boot 150GB velociraptor (WD1500HFLS)
- Drive, data 1TB WD Green drive (WD10EACS)
- Drive, data, 3x 1.5TB Seagate barracuda in Raid-5 config
- Vista x64
The case is an Antec P182. It is a very nice case and if I had to build another system AND needed a case, my case of choice would be the P182. That said, I do have some comments.
- Fan, the included fans are quite noisy, even slowed down to their minimum settings there is still a discernible difference between the included fans and the scythes.
- The lower hard drive-cage area gets pretty crammed-up when filled with drives. The power and drive connectors have a tendency to run into the lower fan blades and stop it from spinning. I placed four drives in the lower drive bay and broke the SATA connectors in one of the drives while trying to get the cables out of the fan blades. The result was a $140 mistake
.
On the upper left corner, you can see the CPU and exhaust cooling system. Here is a closeup.
The CPU fan (Scythe PWM) sitting on the Big Typhoon is PWM controlled and most of the time runs at around 500RPM. The fan has a very faint ticking sound when held next to the ear but inaudible once held further out or placed in the case. The rear and top exhaust fans run at 800 and 500RPM respectively. The case/cooler/fan combo does a very good job of keeping the CPU cool, on light loads, temps stay at around 31 and at load (prime95) goes up to around 50 (at 22c ambient).
The GPU fan that came with the diamond 3850 was very noisy and was replaced with an 80mm Noctua fan with the LNA adapter attached. The good thing with the diamond card was that the fan was a standard tube-radial and could easily be changed with a few zip-ties.
The most the GPU gets taxed is when playing DVD's. Even then, it stays at a very comfy 34c (at 22c ambient) so I could probably slow down the fan some more. I don't think it matters though since it is not a discernible noise source.
To the lower right of the first photo is some foam where the lower drive cage is located. This is my attempt to quiet down what I believe is the current biggest noise source from the system (drive motor spinning). I don't think the foam is really doing much but I placed it there anyway. I will look for some denser material later to replace the foam (suggestions?). Below is a photo of the mess in the lower drive cage that caused me to break the SATA connector.
I left the default fan in the lower drive cage running at low. Since it is well inside the case, I don't think the fan noise will matter. If it's not going to contribute to the noise, what I'd like to do is to see if I can remove the middle-lower fan and place one in front of the drives instead.
One more thing, while most SPCR builders would remove fan grilles, the lower HD fan cage could readily use one to prevent cables running into the blades. What I really should do is remove the lower cage fan and slice out the metal-plate holding it with a Dremel.
PSU is a 525W Enermax Modu82+. The fan, as most of you are probably aware of, is PWM and on my system spins <500RPM during light loads. It is very quiet and replaced a 500something watt Antec PSU that had developed a buzzing sound.
Power consumption:
- "off"
- boot
- idle
- load
There is only a faint-bluish glow from the HDD LED visible when the front cover is closed so life is good. The system is quiet enough that I have to jiggle the mouse or check the top-fan to see if it is on when the house is quiet.
System three
The last system is also a rebuilt and upgrade. This is the "noisiest" of the three but still quiet considering where it came from. When it is on, I could hear the air flowing through the case.
System details are as follows:
Looking inside the case.
The fans that came with the case were loud, transparent and had red LED's and made the whole case look googley-eyed and spooky. ALL the intake and exhaust fans were replaced with Noctua's with the low noise adapters. Cooling is handled by the popular Xigmatek 1283 with a Noctua fan running at ~1000RPM (50ohm adapter). At full-speed, the system develops a whine which appears to be coming from intake air getting sucked-in from the seams (I closed the seams with blue masking tape and the noise lessened). Here is the xigmatek cooler/fan combo and the exhaust fan.
Hot air should get blown from the center of the M/B and straight out the rear fan and PSU fan. I don't have much plans of doing extensive customization/case modding specially on this case. About the only one was to remove the rear fan grill which I don't even think made any difference.
The case itself looks very nice (in appearance) and is made of very thick aluminum. This probably helps with noise-control and thermal dissipation. There are some downsides. The drives in the cage are held by foam and some springy plastic material which dampens vibrations but the drives are facing the wrong way and the drive cage hinders air inflow.
The intake fans blow directly into the drive cage and most of the air probably don't go too far anywhere. It does, however, cool down the hard drives pretty well since they don't go much beyond a few degrees above ambient.
The other things I don't like with the case are the limited number of drives it can hold (three in the bay, two more in the 5 1/4 bays). I wish I had bought (before) the more senior model with additional drive bays. The other is the presence of silly markings all over the case.
The only other "mod" I've done is to stick a small fan on the RAID controller since it gets quite hot.
Yes, that's a silenx fan. The small one is quite silent, unlike the 120mm one I have that ticks quite audibly that's been relegated to the dustbin (bought pre-SPCR days).
The CPU is not as cool as the P182 case (considering the same 130W TDP). Idle temps are around 38-40c (at 22c ambient) and load temps are 68c. The drives stay cool at 25-27c due to the two 92mm fans blowing directly on it.
The GPU is an NV3800GTS(320MB). GPU is usually running at 62-64. The slot covers below it have holes so in theory air should suck in from there and out through the GPU cooler.
The PSU is a 625W Antec signature. It replaced a 610W PC-power and cooling PSU. I don't think this swap made much of a difference in terms of noise levels since the PC-PowerCooling PSU was just a touch noisier than the antec (fan spins faster?). In hindsight, the best thing to do would have been to do a fan swap on the old PSU.
Power consumption:
System details are as follows:
- Case, Zalman Fatal1ty
- CPU i7-920 running at stock speed
- Graphics nVidia 800GTS-320MB
- M/B Gigabyte EX58-UD4P
- CPU cooler, Xigmatek HDT-S1283 with I7361 adapter
- RAM, 12GB DDR3, Corsair (6x2GB)
- exhaust fans, rear Noctua NF-P12 running at 800RPM (80ohm adapter)
- intake fans, 2x 92MM Noctua NF-B9 with 50ohm adapter
- PSU, 625W Antec Signature
- Drive, boot 300GB velociraptor
- Drive, data 2x1TB WD Green drive (WD10EACS) running in RAID1
- Vista x64
Looking inside the case.
The fans that came with the case were loud, transparent and had red LED's and made the whole case look googley-eyed and spooky. ALL the intake and exhaust fans were replaced with Noctua's with the low noise adapters. Cooling is handled by the popular Xigmatek 1283 with a Noctua fan running at ~1000RPM (50ohm adapter). At full-speed, the system develops a whine which appears to be coming from intake air getting sucked-in from the seams (I closed the seams with blue masking tape and the noise lessened). Here is the xigmatek cooler/fan combo and the exhaust fan.
Hot air should get blown from the center of the M/B and straight out the rear fan and PSU fan. I don't have much plans of doing extensive customization/case modding specially on this case. About the only one was to remove the rear fan grill which I don't even think made any difference.
The case itself looks very nice (in appearance) and is made of very thick aluminum. This probably helps with noise-control and thermal dissipation. There are some downsides. The drives in the cage are held by foam and some springy plastic material which dampens vibrations but the drives are facing the wrong way and the drive cage hinders air inflow.
The intake fans blow directly into the drive cage and most of the air probably don't go too far anywhere. It does, however, cool down the hard drives pretty well since they don't go much beyond a few degrees above ambient.
The other things I don't like with the case are the limited number of drives it can hold (three in the bay, two more in the 5 1/4 bays). I wish I had bought (before) the more senior model with additional drive bays. The other is the presence of silly markings all over the case.
The only other "mod" I've done is to stick a small fan on the RAID controller since it gets quite hot.
Yes, that's a silenx fan. The small one is quite silent, unlike the 120mm one I have that ticks quite audibly that's been relegated to the dustbin (bought pre-SPCR days).
The CPU is not as cool as the P182 case (considering the same 130W TDP). Idle temps are around 38-40c (at 22c ambient) and load temps are 68c. The drives stay cool at 25-27c due to the two 92mm fans blowing directly on it.
The GPU is an NV3800GTS(320MB). GPU is usually running at 62-64. The slot covers below it have holes so in theory air should suck in from there and out through the GPU cooler.
The PSU is a 625W Antec signature. It replaced a 610W PC-power and cooling PSU. I don't think this swap made much of a difference in terms of noise levels since the PC-PowerCooling PSU was just a touch noisier than the antec (fan spins faster?). In hindsight, the best thing to do would have been to do a fan swap on the old PSU.
Power consumption:
- "off"
- boot
- idle
- load
Nice stuff!
Sorry about the hard drive in P182. Could always try it with just the PSU down there. Or maybe split the drives up (some upper/lower chamber) so you definitely wouldn't run too much hot air at the PSU.
What kind of case is that in the mini-ITX system?
Also...nice pictures. Could be in a professional review.
Sorry about the hard drive in P182. Could always try it with just the PSU down there. Or maybe split the drives up (some upper/lower chamber) so you definitely wouldn't run too much hot air at the PSU.
What kind of case is that in the mini-ITX system?
Also...nice pictures. Could be in a professional review.
Thanks. That project actually went over budget due to the case. I wanted to make my own using plexiglass (or similar) but gave up after 30 minutes trying to cut it straight.psiu wrote:Nice stuff!
What kind of case is that in the mini-ITX system?
Also...nice pictures. Could be in a professional review.
Had to lookup my credit card to figure out where I bought the case since there's no markings on it. It's an E-PRO 1345-2USB Mini ITX Case. Took some time to find one I liked since the company selling it did not show up too high on the search engines.
Regarding your MSI Atom PC,
How are the CPU/NB/SB temps inside that case during idle/load ?
Also, here's a link to the Intel 82574L network driver: (select BSD as your OS)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product ... 3&lang=eng
How are the CPU/NB/SB temps inside that case during idle/load ?
Also, here's a link to the Intel 82574L network driver: (select BSD as your OS)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product ... 3&lang=eng
Thanks for the driver link, I will check it out then maybe I can have pf running on the two nics. As for CPU temps, here is what sysctl returns:SteveRCE wrote:Regarding your MSI Atom PC,
How are the CPU/NB/SB temps inside that case during idle/load ?
$ sysctl hw.sensors
hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=58.00 degC
Currently it is sitting under a desk with maybe 1-2inch clearance. Temp stays more or less constant when I send it request for webpages.