Quieting shopping list

[rouseindahouse]

I've made a few various posts lately but I've pretty much come to this conclusion on the shopping list for my quietening upgrade. I'd prefer not to spend this much but I need to leave my PC on overnight in a few weeks (video editing) and as it stands it's impossible to get to sleep with the PC on (it's in my bedroom and about 45dba I'd guess).

So anyway, my shopping list is as follows

Seasonic S12-430w - £45 - to replace my Q-tec (I had no idea it was one of these until the other day, shoot me now) 400w PSU
Zalman Fan Controller - £15
Artic Silver 5 and Cleaning Kit - £10 - my current cpu has been on the heatsink for over 2 years on budget 50p thermal paste, hopefully this should make a difference and allow me to slow down my 120mm fan. Not entirely sure whether to get the cleaning kit - how would I go about cleaning thermal paste off otherwise?
Vantec Vibration Dampening Kit for PSU - £2 - I know this won't make any difference but it comes with a load of washers to stick on the normal fans and is only a few quid
Aerocool VM-102 - £22 - Should hopefully make the world of difference to my incredibly whiney 50mm or something stupid cooler at the moment
Vantec PSU Sleeving Kit - £6 - Unsure about this as the PSU comes with the Dr. Cable thingy and it'll take sooo long to do. Worth it?


Then if this still isn't good I'm going to replace my 120mm and 80mm fans with Yate Loons. I've included a few pics and my specs below. I'm generally just wondering whether this set up is a good one, whether you'd get anything else and whether there is anything there that wouldn't help. I know it doesn't cover the hard drives but they'll only be at idle and this isn't too bad - I plan to replace them with spinpoints eventually.

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AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Leadtek GeForce FX 5600 VIVO
768mb ram
1x 80gb hdd 1x 120gb hdd - IBM and Hitachi
Q-tec 400w PSU (2x80mm fan)
2x80mm fans - 1 turned off, both located at the back
1x120mm fan at front of case
Zalman Flower Cooler - CNPS6000-ALCU + 120mm acoustifan

Front of PC - Side
Side Open - Side Open (front angle)
Underside of current gfx card on fan - Close up on the fan

*changed a few things since those pics - moved the bottom hdd down one notch, nothing blocks that 120mm fan now, removed the bottom 80mm fan

[rouseindahouse]

I've also decided to throw onto that list some stretch magic although the 1mm diameter stuff they have over on ebay seems slightly thin. Should this do or is it worth getting some 4mm or so bungee cord?

Just to throw that on as an extra query

[rouseindahouse]

70 views, no replies

[QuietOC]

Not entirely sure whether to get the cleaning kit - how would I go about cleaning thermal paste off otherwise?

Rubbing alcohol on toilet paper works good. Recently I've been using finger nail polish remover, but only because I am out of the rubbing alcohol. I'm sure there are other solvents that would also work (paint thinner,) but of course it depends on what you are trying to remove.

[jaganath]

70 views, no replies

We're all just waiting for you to do it and tell us how it went!

I don't think there's any point to getting the sleeving kit, to be honest, but it is only £6, so it's up to you...

[rouseindahouse]

Well, all ordered now (minus the sleeving) and I've thrown in some of that Stretch-Magic as well. Hopefully it'll be worth the cost - I'll give you some piccies once it's all installed.

[Trunks]

Rather than use the washers from the PSU kit, I would use some type of soft mount pull through thing.
No one seems to think the fan gaskets do much “but” they do help aluminum cases with metal fans.

[Shadowknight]

Not entirely sure whether to get the cleaning kit - how would I go about cleaning thermal paste off otherwise?

Rubbing alcohol on toilet paper works good. Recently I've been using finger nail polish remover, but only because I am out of the rubbing alcohol. I'm sure there are other solvents that would also work (paint thinner,) but of course it depends on what you are trying to remove.

You want to use a lint-free cloth to prevent any debri from being left on the CPU die/heatspreader. Use a lint-free cloth; usually costs less than 2 bucks for 2 at Wal-Mart in the eyeglass section.

[JJ]

Q-tips in a high purity rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol seem to work well. The Q-tips help in getting the paste off from around heat spreaders and other irregular surfaces. Acetone, or (I imagine) finger nail polish remover, which is usually near 100% acetone, would also work very well. If the q-tips leave any lint, blow off the surface with compressed air.

[Kevinn]

when I installed my Zalman 7700AlCu, I just cleaned off the thermal paste with some toilet paper, even without alcohol. It went off fine. Or was it just totally stupid of me to do that?

[HiFi]

when I installed my Zalman 7700AlCu, I just cleaned off the thermal paste with some toilet paper, even without alcohol. It went off fine. Or was it just totally stupid of me to do that?

you can always remove it again.. this time cleaning with 90% rubbing alcohol. make sure surface is dry and reapply AS5.

[rouseindahouse]

Got everything today, and we've just finished the 4 hour install of all of that.

It's incredibly quiet compared to what it was, there's now just a 120mm default fan (probs replace that with a Yate Loon soonish), a 120mm acoustifan and the 120mm fan on the psu. The graphics card heatsink was incredibly hard to install, especially as we had to slot the pci fan bracket through it - luckily temps there have been quite good - roughly the same as with the fan as I speak. The CPU temps are about 10 degrees lower and the AS5 hasn't even had time to settle in yet.

That said, I couldn't use the stretch magic due to my drive bay layout and I've really realised just how ridiculously loud my IBM hard drive is - it's incredibly high pitched compared to everything else at idle and easily heard - luckily the case padding helps there a bit. Something to work on there I guess.

But yeah, really happy with the way everything went, a Yate Loon fan and the hard disks are on my todo list.


(pics tomorrow)

[rouseindahouse]

Well, sorry for taking ridiculously long to update you on this. Since my last post, I've received 2 yate loons (80mm & 120mm) but they're not yet installed. Should hopefully make some difference to the temps. HDD is still a huge problem but I don't have enough funds to solve it.

Since then I've also removed the front acrylic panel and that made a huge difference. Before (just after the upgrade, before I removed the acrylic) I was really worried about my hdds - 41 degrees without any mounting whatsoever. Removing the acrylic has reduced them to about 28. Noise has gone up slightly though but I'd say only by a few decibels and only hdd noise.

Elsewhere temps are hugely improved. I'll post before and after temps below with before everything, before acrylic removal and then now.

Component - Before everything - Before Acrylic removal - Now
*load temps in brackets if applicable)

HDD - 35 - 41 - 28
CPU - 47 (55) - 41 (47) - 38 (45)
Case - 31 - 38 - 33
GPU - 60 (77) - 70 (77) - 60 (70) - very good as it's now a passive cooler


As noted before noise levels are incredibly low and it's only really a bother if I ramp up all the fans to 12v. The values quoted above are with the psu doing it's own thing, the cpu fan (120mm) at 12v (inaudible to me with the hard drives) and the intake fan at 5v.

I've included some pics below, as you can see installing that bracket through the vm-102 was incredibly hard.

[Chris Chan]

If you want to quiet your HDDs, buy a synthetic icepack like Rubbermaid Blue Ice (make sure it's in a bag tho). Set the HDD on that. Made a world of difference for my box.

[rouseindahouse]

How much difference would that make to the motor noise though - the problem isn't so much the vibration it generates, just the noise the motor makes when it's up and running - very high pitched.