Advice for totally silent system

roo · Post by **roo** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:25 pm

hi guys,
I have a challenge for you all; Let me introduce my situation and reasoning first.

I have two computers in my bedroom currently and I'm fed up with the noise generated by these machines. They litteraly warm up my room in winter

So to attain an excellent work environment (and sleep time), I seek to acquire an absolutly silent computer. Yes that's right, no fans. They generated noise and limit the life of components.

What are my performance requirements? Not that much. General office work. As a gauge, I'm happy with my XP1800+. (but the HSF is noisy!!)

So which components will meet this goal?

I already have my fanless video card, the PNY Nvidia Quadro NVS 280 AGP.

I thought of having a brick powersupply like:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=17547
scroll to bottom: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/c.ACCT1272 ... gory.13/.f

OR a phantom

And as the CPU, the famous Athlon64 3000+ 939 90nm.

I believe the only issue here is the CPU. I think this CPU can run @ idle fanless with a good heatsink below 50 celcius, am I wrong?
Alternatively, is there some sort of solution whereas a fan would be triggered on if the temperature rises above 50 celsius?

I've only had Antec cases up to now, although I found Lian-Li interesting. Which case do you suggest?

thanks
marc

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:39 pm

Only office work and real silent

Get a Mini-ITX system. Then the only thing you have to silence is the HD.

roo · Post by **roo** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:11 pm

Well, I'm alone in my office most of the time and my office happens to be my bedroom also

(it's a big room)

I'm confused as to which CPUs I should be looking at in mini-itx. I've only been in the realm of AMD and Intel up to now.

Via C3?

Post by **Rusty075** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:02 pm

Roo,

There's a couple comments you make in your initial post that should be clarified:

-Making the machines quieter isn't going to make them, or the room cooler. They will still be producing the same amount of heat into the room.
-You don't have to have zero noise to be "silent" all you need to do is drop the noise below the ambient in your room, which is probably 18-25dBa anyway.
-You don't need to go fanless to be quiet.

With your relatively low heat hardware, it would be really easy to get a very quiet system.

Strap an Si-97 with a 92mm Nexus fan to your CPU, slide in any PSU off the top of the recommended list, suspend your HDD, and throw in an undervolted case fan, and you'll have a system you can sleep with.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 5:13 am

The only affordable Mini-ITX motherboards come with a VIA C3 processor soldered on the motherboard. The Epia ME-6000 is a good basis for a fanless office system. There are some very expensive mini-ITX solutions for Pentium-M too, but I don't think that is very good value for the money.

If your office isn't exceptionally quiet, then the solution Rusty075 gives is probably even less expensive and equally quiet.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 5:32 am

Due to a need to transport (and lend) my not-so-quiet PC, I had to rescrew the hdd and the PSU back onto the case. I CANNOT believe how much the noise level jumped.

So unless you're suspending your harddisks, I see no reason to go VIA or fanless even. ie, heed Rusty