DAW noise & temperature

blejden · Post by **blejden** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:02 pm

OK, here it goes. First time posting at SPCR forums, so be gentle. And I DID do a thorough search before posting.

My DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) has gone through a couple of upgrades and has now taken the following form:

Case: Antec P182 w/ stock TriCool fans, all set at lowest possible speed
PSU: Seasonic S12-II 380W w/ stock fan
CPU: C2D E6750 w/ Thermalright U120E carrying a Nexus fan @ roughly 850 RPM
Mobo: MSI P35 Neo-F
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2 2 Gb
HDDs: 2x Spinpoint T166 500 Gb in the upper chamber of the case
Optical Drive: Ye Olde NEC DVD+/-RW
GPU: MSI 7100GS, passively cooled
PCI addons: UAD-1e, firewire card.
Audio Interface: External TC Electronic Konnekt24D, powered through FW.

Now, here's a two-part question...

1. The system is admittedly pretty quiet, but if I could make a few minor upgrades and have a virtually inaudible machine for, say, $50, I'd be happy. My ears tell me the stock case fans should be my first target. I'm thinking of exchanging these with Noctuas, Nexus or S-Flexes. Do I really need all three case fans? Should I go for the expensive fans or should I buy some sort of a fan controller for either cheaper fans or the TriCool ones? 800 or 1200 RPM? Et c. My Mobo doesn't seem to care about SpeedFan, unfortunately.

2. My system seems to run fairly hot, compared to other computers with similar specs: according to CoreTemp, idle is usually between 34-39Â°C and 45 minutes of Orthos torture, 2 instances, brings it up to roughly 60Â°C. Have I applied the thermal paste incorrectly or what's the deal here?

Obviously graphics, overclocking or gaming is not a priority here. I'm just interested in having a really stable and hopefully inaudible DAW. Any input would be dearly appreciated!

Keep up the good work, BTW, I've been leeching information from SPCR and this forum before every one of my upgrade sprees!

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:43 pm

Experiement with fans.

Your temps seem fine, to me (provided you aren't running it in a 20C room or something like that).

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:54 pm

You are correct in that the stock fans even at the lowest setting are too noisy if you are aiming for close to silence.
I have a P182 and use a Nexus and S-Flex 120mm; one on the CPU and the other alongside it exhausting out of the back. The only other fan I have is an internally mounted Nexus 80mm to cool my single hard drive. All the fans are running under 600 RPM and the system is close enough to silent for me even late at night with a very low ambient noise floor.
I donâ€™t think the Antec fans are inherently quiet enough even if you tried lowering the voltage even further.

The other issue will be the hard drives and how you mount them. Try disconnecting all the fans to see how loud the drives are.

blejden · Post by **blejden** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:42 am

OK, I've dropped the fan in the lower compartment and exchanged the other fans with Noctuas at low speed. System idles at 34Â°C and the noise is completely drowned out by the ambient noise from the refrigerator in the adjacent room. In other words, I'm happy!