My new ultra quiet rig / need advice and comments

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:39 am

Hi all! I'm planning to build a new rig and I want it to be quieter than my Sonata w. Papst modified PSU, Acoustipack, Zalman 7000 cpu cooler, suspended Seagate 7200.7 SATA, Radeon 9200SE, P4 2,8E.
I'm considering these parts:

CASE: Antec SLK3000B w. removed drive cage and Acoustipack Deluxe, case fan @ low

PSU: Antec Phantom 350

MOBO: Asus A8V-E Deluxe w. Zalman heatsink (passive) and Cool n' Quiet enabled (of course).

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 939

CPU Cooler: Thermalright XP-120 w. Papst 120mm fan (55.3 CFM)

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 160GB SATA (Nidec motor) on foam on case floor

GFX: ATI Radeon x800pro PCI-E w. Arctic Cooling VGA silencer @ lowest speed possible.

Also, I have a few questions:

*Are there any motherboards with passively cooled chipsets that support Cool n' Quiet?

*Will one 120mm case fan be sufficient for cooling this rig, or will I have to add an intake fan as well?

*Does the Papst fan fit the XP-120?

*Is the Acoustipack Deluxe suitable for the 3000b?

Feel free to put forward comments and advice.

Regards / Mattias

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:54 am

No comments, huh? Guess it's the perfect silent rig then

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:34 pm

Well, it does look quite all right

You might consider drive suspension (I feel it's better than foam - unless it's sorbothane?)

Yes, I think it'll run with one 120mm exhaust fan - if you keep your intakes clear.

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:25 pm

I was planning on using the foamy things for the hdd bays that come with the Acoustipack Deluxe, worked quite well in my former setup.
I want to keep the hdd near the air intake of the case, this is why I won't use a regular suspension in an optical drive bay. As mentioned earlier, I will remove the drive cage to ensure maximum airflow.
Maybe there is a way to suspend the hdd near the air intake, any ideas?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts burcab!

velvet45 · Post by **velvet45** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:13 pm

Matte,
Great system there. I would consider a different video card or cooler. That card is plenty powerful but a passively cooled GeForce 6800 would be much quieter -or possibly one cooled with a quiet fan like the Zalman VF-700 CU. I am not aware of any current generation boards (PCI-E) that have a passive cooler for the NB that also support Cool n Quiet. It seems that boards with the Nvidia based chipsets do not really fully support this feature -opting more for all out performance and speed instead.

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:06 am

Thanks for your response velvet45.
I understand that the VGA Silencer 2 is, sadly, more noisy than its predecessor. I guess a Zalman model could be used but I really like that the Arctic Cooling model exhausts the heat out of the case.
I'm having trouble finding a passively cooled 6800, perhaps someone could help me?

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:21 am

The Asus A8N-E (deluxe and non-deluxe) has passive chipset cooling and, like all decent S939 boards, supports Cool'n'Quiet. It's also the board I'm getting for my new build.

One hitch: Unfortunately it's not yet available!
It should hit the market sometime in feb...

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:34 am

Matte wrote:Maybe there is a way to suspend the hdd near the air intake, any ideas?

My sig?

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:53 am

meglamaniac wrote:The Asus A8N-E (deluxe and non-deluxe) has passive chipset cooling and, like all decent S939 boards, supports Cool'n'Quiet. It's also the board I'm getting for my new build.

One hitch: Unfortunately it's not yet available!
It should hit the market sometime in feb...

Sounds nice! Will this board have enough room for a XP-120?

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:55 am

burcakb wrote:
Matte wrote:Maybe there is a way to suspend the hdd near the air intake, any ideas?
My sig?

Cool! Very nice way to suspend the drives without sacrificing any room for more drives! I will definately try this mod!

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 2:36 am

Unfortunately there's no real way to tell yet, although we can guess.

A8N-SLI

A8N-E

As you can see, the processor area is very similar, and thermalright's website says the XP120 fits the "SLI" version fine, which looks hopeful for the "E" version.

Matte · Post by **Matte** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 3:40 am

I've been doing some reading lately and have decided to go with the precut Acoustipack for the 3700BQE.
The Asus A8N-E looks very promising, I'll get it if it's on the market in the near future.
Basically the only problem is now the video card. As I've said earlier I really like the VGA cooler since it exhausts the heat out of the case, but if it's too noisy I guess I'll have to forget about it.
I've tried to find a video card with good performance that is passively cooled, but I haven't found any card that is actually for sale anywhere. I'm leaning towards the x800pro with a Zalman VF 700 CU if I can't find anything else

meglamaniac · Post by **meglamaniac** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:01 am

What sort of performance do you require?

My plan is to get a GeForce 6600GT. You can get them from Gigabyte with factory fitted passive cooling, although I won't be doing that as I require two DVI-I ports which Gigabyte don't do. I will be fitting a ZM80D-HP to mine.

I have a plan for dealing with the heat, although I don't know how well it will work, which goes like this:
I'm already committed to using the XP-120 - I was confident enough of the similarities from the board photos to order it a while ago. So, I plan to put a fan on in the pull config (so it's pulling air up through the heatsink) and then have a sort of half-duct, that has a top and a side but no bottom, running from the heatsink over to the fan at the back of the case.
The reason for not having a bottom to it is that it will hopefully "catch" heat from the graphics card and take it to that rear fan before it gets to the PSU, so the fan in there should stay nice and slow.

Whether it will work or not remains to be seen...