Post
by whiic » Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:57 am
elec999: "First of my silence is a big FAILURE. System loud as it can be."
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope we'll find ways to further improve it, preferably without too much investments on hardware. Ducting, fan placement, suspension, etc. are cheap or even free to make.
In fact I'm still fairly optimistic on the possibilities of making it a quiet system with the hardware you now have.
elec999: "My power supply is quiet now since mod."
That's good to hear. New PSU would have cost something.
elec999: "The Noctua fan is not SILENT at all at stock speed. The Zalman fanmate does help alot, but at all speed is makes a buzzing sound."
ewww... sounds like a bad sample. My Noctua undervolts without buzzing. Or maybe it's Zalman Fanmate to blame? Don't some Fanmates use rpm signal to regulate voltage to fans? Do they use PWM? It may be the pulsating drive current that causes the buzzing noise.
Does you motherboard have PWM capable fan headers? Have you tried to use Noctua from one of those? If they use higher frequency of PWM, buzzing/clicking should be reduced (but in worst case scenario, it may cause a whining noise to replace the clicking).
Have you tried using ULNA (Ultra Low Noise Adapter)? Did one come with your Noctua fan? That adapter is just series resistor or series diode(s), so there's no pulsating ON/OFF drive current and it shouldn't add buzzing to noise profile like using PWM does.
As for being quiet at full rpm, no Noctua is silent at that speed. Also mounting method may cause variation in results. While Ninja is relatively freely flowing heatsink, it will create some back pressure and that back pressure is bigger at full rpm. If there's too much back pressure, airflow will become turbulent and noise will increase.
Mounting the fan to "pull" instead of "push" could also have contributed to why it was so noisy (at full rpm). Noctua recommend using "push" configuration with Noctua fan on Noctua heatsink so the same recommendation might also apply to other heatsinks. At least it's worth a try.
Also, since you don't have an exhaust fan, you could reconsider whether to "push" (or "pull") air upward toward PSU fan or towards the back. There's at least four configurations worthwhile considering (and another four that you shouldn't consider: push/pull downward and push/pull toward the front).
If you want to keep fan pushing/pulling toward the back, you could consider ducting it to exhaust openings in the computer case.
elec999: "The Scythe HDD silencer does get rid of the hard drive buzzing sound, but the hard drive seek noises are still as loud as before. The Scythe barely makes a difference. Makes my case vibrate alot now (cheap case)."
Rubber band decoupling is much more efficient than commercial silencers. Much much more. Relatively hard rubber grommets do next to nothing in decoupling.
mellon's suggestion of decoupling the box is good. Decoupled box is even better than decoupled bare HDD. You're investment on the box wouldn't go completely waste even though you might have obtained decent results with just decoupling bare HDD. Very good is better than good.
elec999: "Should this get rid of the seek noises too."
Not all of it. Some acoustic frequencies remain, but constant vibration induced noise should disappear (humming type of noise) and also you'd get rid of that "hollow" sounding seek noise and all that would be left is higher frequency ticking when seeking that wouldn't be completely eliminated.
elec999: "For my KS that Scythe makes no difference, hard drive still has loud. Only sound gone is the loud whining is makes. But seek and sound it makes when its running its still there. So barely made a difference. Just good for cooling the drive."
Not exactly so. If you have decoupled a whining HDD, you could have got rid of majority of vibration induced noise, but whining would have remained. With both the box and some better DIY decoupling you can make good sound insulation for your HDD.
elec999: "I tried the undervolting test today, and system gives me big warning cpu overvolt error."
I get "overvoltage" warning when undervolting too. It's a "feature" of P5B related Asus mobos (incl. Commando). I can't make BIOS ignore it even if I tell it to ignore voltage warnings. But I can make it not wait for F1 on error. I do get the annoying beeps for "overvoltage" every time I reboot undervolted.
elec999: "I set the voltage 1.365 in bios and boots fine."
What kind of frequency are you running it at? I believe at least something above 3 GHz, possibly around 3.2, but that's just my guess. If you are running lower freq and need that high voltages, you either have a bad CPU sample or a motherboard that's incapable to run reasonably well at selected FSB freq. (Do note that there might be inconsistencies in usable FSB range and increasing FSB might actually make your system more stable at lower voltage.)
You could also do the VRM pencil mod to get rid of vdroop, allowing to use lower voltage setting in BIOS without reducing load vcore (thus not increasing risk of instability) and obtain lower vcore on idle and partial load. You might also be able to run at lower vcore if you disable Spread Spectrum clocking feature in your BIOS setup.
Warning! If you intend to do the pencil mod, reduce your voltage before doing it because eliminating vdroop will increase you load vcore and thus increase risk of overheat.
