My Solo Project! [Pics]
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My Solo Project! [Pics]
Hey. Im kinda new here. Have been reading the forum for a long time but hasnt been making any noise
So here whats up. I bought some new fans and a Ninja. Thinking this will make my computer more silent.
And this is my story
The Setup:
Antec Solo
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
K8N Neo4-F (NFORCE4-A939)
Sapphire Radeon X1600PRO 512MB DDRII, PCI-E
NorthQ 4775-400BULK, ATX 400W
New silencing gear:
Noctua NF-S12-800 8dB(A) 59m3/h 800RPM
Nexus Real Silent 92mm, 19,2 dBa
Scythe Ninja PLUS
Arctic Silver 5
This is the new shit I got me some RAM too.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6504.jpg
This is the "before picture". I had no fans in the front and a standard AMD cooler. (The new RAM in place!)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6507.jpg
I replaced the Northbridge fan with a passive cooler a long time ago, at once when I bought the motherboard.
I knew that the ninja was big but I were still surprised how BIG it was (next to the right is the standard AMD cooler i used)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6515.jpg
I also knew when I bought the ninja that it was a gamble if it would fit or not on my MB. I had done some ruff measuring and I knew it would be a tight fit.
But I got a good deal on it so I took the chance.
And it DID NOT FIT!
These black towers got in the way for the Heatpipes
Not willing to bend the towers too much I released my fury on the Ninja and this where the result (mod/original):
I dont think it affected the cooling-effect that much and now it fits like a glove
Then on with some Arctic silver 5 coolingpaste
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6533.jpg
And TaDA! Both ninja and Nocuta in place The rubber fan holders where hard to get on especially the ones closest to the motherboard.
Both nexus fans in place
Hidden cables
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6550.jpg
Done for the day Arrows shows how fans shuld blow the air.
So whats left? Well it isnt yet as silent as I want it.
-The graphiccards fan sound too much. I am planing some kind of passive cooling there too.
-The Fan in the powersupply have to be changed, it is not as quiet as promised. - DONE
-I want to close off the the area between powesupply and dvd-player somehow. to mimizie airflow area. - DONE
-I had problem with the Nocuta. Sometimes it sounds ALOT like an 5 year old broken fan "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a". - DONE
I have sent it back to my retailer to get it changed to a new one. And for now I have the Antec-fan back in there. Where NOT the Nocuta as I thought but The NorthQ power supplys fan that makes the noise!!
-All fans are still at 12v. Waiting to get the Nocuta back to optimize fanspeeds.
-Rearange IDE-cable setup. - DONE
-I am thinking in removing some of the pci-slots covers to get better airflow, what do you think, will it help?
As you see I also have two harddrives hanging one "slot" away from each other, beeing cooled by one nexus each.
Shuld i maybe put them closer together to get colder air from the upper nexus?
Temperatures?
Before this I had these (using speedfan and atitool):
IN CELSIUS!
Stress Idle
Core: 50 30
Case: 50 32
Temp3: 33 10
HD0: 34 33
HD1: 38 37
GPU: 76 56
Chip: 55 42
After this:
Core: 42 28
Case: 43 32
Temp3: 22 9
HD0: 28 28
HD1: 32 31
GPU: 70 55
Chip: 50 42
As you can see the result is a cooler computer
/R
So here whats up. I bought some new fans and a Ninja. Thinking this will make my computer more silent.
And this is my story
The Setup:
Antec Solo
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
K8N Neo4-F (NFORCE4-A939)
Sapphire Radeon X1600PRO 512MB DDRII, PCI-E
NorthQ 4775-400BULK, ATX 400W
New silencing gear:
Noctua NF-S12-800 8dB(A) 59m3/h 800RPM
Nexus Real Silent 92mm, 19,2 dBa
Scythe Ninja PLUS
Arctic Silver 5
This is the new shit I got me some RAM too.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6504.jpg
This is the "before picture". I had no fans in the front and a standard AMD cooler. (The new RAM in place!)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6507.jpg
I replaced the Northbridge fan with a passive cooler a long time ago, at once when I bought the motherboard.
I knew that the ninja was big but I were still surprised how BIG it was (next to the right is the standard AMD cooler i used)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6515.jpg
I also knew when I bought the ninja that it was a gamble if it would fit or not on my MB. I had done some ruff measuring and I knew it would be a tight fit.
But I got a good deal on it so I took the chance.
And it DID NOT FIT!
These black towers got in the way for the Heatpipes
Not willing to bend the towers too much I released my fury on the Ninja and this where the result (mod/original):
I dont think it affected the cooling-effect that much and now it fits like a glove
Then on with some Arctic silver 5 coolingpaste
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6533.jpg
And TaDA! Both ninja and Nocuta in place The rubber fan holders where hard to get on especially the ones closest to the motherboard.
Both nexus fans in place
Hidden cables
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6550.jpg
Done for the day Arrows shows how fans shuld blow the air.
So whats left? Well it isnt yet as silent as I want it.
-The graphiccards fan sound too much. I am planing some kind of passive cooling there too.
-The Fan in the powersupply have to be changed, it is not as quiet as promised. - DONE
-I want to close off the the area between powesupply and dvd-player somehow. to mimizie airflow area. - DONE
-I had problem with the Nocuta. Sometimes it sounds ALOT like an 5 year old broken fan "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a". - DONE
I have sent it back to my retailer to get it changed to a new one. And for now I have the Antec-fan back in there. Where NOT the Nocuta as I thought but The NorthQ power supplys fan that makes the noise!!
-All fans are still at 12v. Waiting to get the Nocuta back to optimize fanspeeds.
-Rearange IDE-cable setup. - DONE
-I am thinking in removing some of the pci-slots covers to get better airflow, what do you think, will it help?
As you see I also have two harddrives hanging one "slot" away from each other, beeing cooled by one nexus each.
Shuld i maybe put them closer together to get colder air from the upper nexus?
Temperatures?
Before this I had these (using speedfan and atitool):
IN CELSIUS!
Stress Idle
Core: 50 30
Case: 50 32
Temp3: 33 10
HD0: 34 33
HD1: 38 37
GPU: 76 56
Chip: 55 42
After this:
Core: 42 28
Case: 43 32
Temp3: 22 9
HD0: 28 28
HD1: 32 31
GPU: 70 55
Chip: 50 42
As you can see the result is a cooler computer
/R
Last edited by Rackafella on Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:26 am, edited 3 times in total.
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- Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:08 am
- Location: The Netherlands
question for a Solo owner
Nice post, but personally I doubt if it's useful to have two fans at the front for a system like yours to improve the temperatures slightly, if the temperatures are already ok, 50 °C for a CPU isn't too much. Those fans will create more noise than just an outtake and a PSU fan. That optical drive looks a bit odd, I'd get a black one. SATA DVD Rewriters cost less than € 25 ($ 36) where I live.
There is a thing I've wanted to ask to a Solo owner, because I intend to buy a Solo as well for my new system. I intend to buy a GeForce 8800 GT and cool it passively with Arctic Cooling Accelero S1. Possibly I could use some extra airflow, but I don't want to use 92mm fans at the front, I want to use a 120mm fan. In this picture I saw in another thread on the SPCR forums, a 120mm fan on the back of the hard drive cage can be seen, cooling an Accelero S1. Even though the enclosure on the photo is an Antec P182, I want to do something similar with my Solo.
So, could you please take a look at your Solo, and tell me if there are any holes in the hard drive cage which I could use to mount a 120mm fan, or if there is any other way to improvise, maybe tie a fan to the elastic suspension of the hard drives?
There is a thing I've wanted to ask to a Solo owner, because I intend to buy a Solo as well for my new system. I intend to buy a GeForce 8800 GT and cool it passively with Arctic Cooling Accelero S1. Possibly I could use some extra airflow, but I don't want to use 92mm fans at the front, I want to use a 120mm fan. In this picture I saw in another thread on the SPCR forums, a 120mm fan on the back of the hard drive cage can be seen, cooling an Accelero S1. Even though the enclosure on the photo is an Antec P182, I want to do something similar with my Solo.
So, could you please take a look at your Solo, and tell me if there are any holes in the hard drive cage which I could use to mount a 120mm fan, or if there is any other way to improvise, maybe tie a fan to the elastic suspension of the hard drives?
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i like the way you suspended that hitachi "deathstar"...i've got 3 of them here, two 40gb models, one 80gb model...one of them vibrates like you've never heard before...i have it resting on top of foam to make it better.
but you could knock out the lower of the two front fans in that system, the lower one is not in a direct path with anything that i can see. if you had a passive gfx card down there, i'd say keep it, but it really doesn't do anything but add more air to the case, which is just pulling in dust. airflow from a fan is not directly straight forward, so you wont be reducing the cool air to the graphics card by removing the lower fan.
i also noticed the DVD drive on the same IDE channel as the HD. what you should do is get an 80 wire conductor cable for the hard drive, and have the DVD drive on the existing cable on the secondary IDE channel, as the board clearly has two. it'll do two things for you 1) 80 wire conductors have a faster transfer speed than 40 wire and 2) isolating the DVD drive will decrease burn/read times, as well as increase the reliability of burning something. i see that you're running the OS on a separate SATA drive, however data will bulk up because read/write on a PATA cable is limited to one device at a time, putting them on the same cable wont make it more reliable if you're burning something from that drive.
hope that helps you out some...it'll do wonders to that system [which already looks nice].
but you could knock out the lower of the two front fans in that system, the lower one is not in a direct path with anything that i can see. if you had a passive gfx card down there, i'd say keep it, but it really doesn't do anything but add more air to the case, which is just pulling in dust. airflow from a fan is not directly straight forward, so you wont be reducing the cool air to the graphics card by removing the lower fan.
i also noticed the DVD drive on the same IDE channel as the HD. what you should do is get an 80 wire conductor cable for the hard drive, and have the DVD drive on the existing cable on the secondary IDE channel, as the board clearly has two. it'll do two things for you 1) 80 wire conductors have a faster transfer speed than 40 wire and 2) isolating the DVD drive will decrease burn/read times, as well as increase the reliability of burning something. i see that you're running the OS on a separate SATA drive, however data will bulk up because read/write on a PATA cable is limited to one device at a time, putting them on the same cable wont make it more reliable if you're burning something from that drive.
hope that helps you out some...it'll do wonders to that system [which already looks nice].
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- Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
- Location: Sweden
F for Fragging
Ok
I will not start experimenting with fanspeeds/removing fans until I get the Nocuta back but thanks for the tip.
The DVD+/-r was a gift and it works fine. So it will not be replaced as long as it still works. That would be a waste of good money.
Will check my case tomorrow for possible 120mm setup.
amjedm
yes it is!
The NorthQ does well. But I dont think im stressing it that much. I have not overclocked anything and I only have two harddrives.
BUT it is not as silent as I hoped. And I have found out that it was not the Nocuta-fan that did the "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a" but the NorthQ-fan.
So im waiting to get the Nocuta back and then im gonna replace the NorthQ-fan with my Antec Solo-bulk-fan for the time beeing.
I have the 120mm-fan version of NorthQ 4775-400 (there is also an 140mm-fan version).
bonestonne
Both HDs hangs fine cant hear them at all. Except at start when the Hitachi make a very high pitch sound for like a minute.
But it is a very old disk so I can live with that for now
The plan is a passivecooled gfx card but I will test both with and without the lower fan.
The reason I have both DVD and Hitachi (150Gb) on the same IDE are to minimize the IDEs. Large ugly cables thats just in the way!
Both the HD and DVD works fine as it is and I dont use the DVD that much so it is not that big of at problem.
I will look at geting a 80wire IDE for the HD but it is really not a priority right now. Thanks for the tip
Techno Pride
Yep, no cracks
/R
Ok
I will not start experimenting with fanspeeds/removing fans until I get the Nocuta back but thanks for the tip.
The DVD+/-r was a gift and it works fine. So it will not be replaced as long as it still works. That would be a waste of good money.
Will check my case tomorrow for possible 120mm setup.
amjedm
yes it is!
The NorthQ does well. But I dont think im stressing it that much. I have not overclocked anything and I only have two harddrives.
BUT it is not as silent as I hoped. And I have found out that it was not the Nocuta-fan that did the "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a" but the NorthQ-fan.
So im waiting to get the Nocuta back and then im gonna replace the NorthQ-fan with my Antec Solo-bulk-fan for the time beeing.
I have the 120mm-fan version of NorthQ 4775-400 (there is also an 140mm-fan version).
bonestonne
Both HDs hangs fine cant hear them at all. Except at start when the Hitachi make a very high pitch sound for like a minute.
But it is a very old disk so I can live with that for now
The plan is a passivecooled gfx card but I will test both with and without the lower fan.
The reason I have both DVD and Hitachi (150Gb) on the same IDE are to minimize the IDEs. Large ugly cables thats just in the way!
Both the HD and DVD works fine as it is and I dont use the DVD that much so it is not that big of at problem.
I will look at geting a 80wire IDE for the HD but it is really not a priority right now. Thanks for the tip
Techno Pride
Yep, no cracks
/R
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^flat ribbon cables aren't a hassle when you run them right. i have an 80wire conductor in a G3 case, lemme tell you, i didn't know they made them ~36" long until i pulled it out. works great too.
i have a passive graphics card myself, and it gets really toasty just running linux, so i have a 92mm fan in the 3.5" drive bays blowing at it, but you don't need a lot half as much as just a constant supply, as well as room for hot air to get pushed out.
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- Location: Sweden
OK, so I checked my boxes with old cables and found no less then three 80 wire IDE cables.
And opening the case I noticed that the cable already in the system where also a 80 wire cable.
The red one are the one I used alone first and I had two of theese blue cables (+ a black but it where too long)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6705.jpg
I connected the Red cable (shortest) at IDE1 direct to the HD and the Blue cable (a little longer) at IDE2 to the DVD-R.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6719.jpg
I hide the blue cable in the slot under the dvd-r and the red on the back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6721.jpg
Dont know if theres any real differens (that I have noticed yet) but it always feels good to optimize
F for Fragging
What I can see it shuld be no problem mounting a 120mm fan there if you remove some rubberbands holders.
This is how it looks like:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6709.jpg
From right to left its almost exactly 120mm measuing on the inside.
But it is higer so is wont be as much as a air duct as the picture you showed me.
Removing rubberbands holder gives these holes:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6712.jpg
But you will loose one slot to mount harddrives (you can still "hardmount" the drives without rubberbands there.).
Notice also that the cage is not that deep. The hard drives stick out like 4mm from the case while using 92mm fan in the front.
But if not using the fans you can easy fit the whole drive in there.
Hope it helped
This are the result after todays work. Not that much a differens, mostly recableing.
As you can see I still havent got the Noctua back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6716.jpg
And this is my Solo in its natural habitat
It got some space underneath and on the sides for the air intake. And it is a bit over floorlevel so it does not intake that much dust
/r
And opening the case I noticed that the cable already in the system where also a 80 wire cable.
The red one are the one I used alone first and I had two of theese blue cables (+ a black but it where too long)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6705.jpg
I connected the Red cable (shortest) at IDE1 direct to the HD and the Blue cable (a little longer) at IDE2 to the DVD-R.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6719.jpg
I hide the blue cable in the slot under the dvd-r and the red on the back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6721.jpg
Dont know if theres any real differens (that I have noticed yet) but it always feels good to optimize
F for Fragging
What I can see it shuld be no problem mounting a 120mm fan there if you remove some rubberbands holders.
This is how it looks like:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6709.jpg
From right to left its almost exactly 120mm measuing on the inside.
But it is higer so is wont be as much as a air duct as the picture you showed me.
Removing rubberbands holder gives these holes:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6712.jpg
But you will loose one slot to mount harddrives (you can still "hardmount" the drives without rubberbands there.).
Notice also that the cage is not that deep. The hard drives stick out like 4mm from the case while using 92mm fan in the front.
But if not using the fans you can easy fit the whole drive in there.
Hope it helped
This are the result after todays work. Not that much a differens, mostly recableing.
As you can see I still havent got the Noctua back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6716.jpg
And this is my Solo in its natural habitat
It got some space underneath and on the sides for the air intake. And it is a bit over floorlevel so it does not intake that much dust
/r
Last edited by Rackafella on Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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That's K8-system, it doesn't allow rotating. Just 180 degree rotations.chahahc wrote:Errm.....Couldn't you just rotate the ninja 90 degrees instead of taking out your fury on the wider spaced heatpipes? Maybe I missed something but just rotating the heatsink would probably have allowed the ninja to fit without hitting the capacitors.
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chahahc and thejamppa: Thats right, only 180 degree rotations are possible
So its been a while... I had alot of trouble with this computer, not silence related. Turns out the new RAMs are corrupted...
I have gotten my Noctua back now. I put it in the case today And at the same time I modified the power supply a little:
Original and Opened:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6902-03.jpg
I did some cutting in the back to open for better airflow but dont know if it does any real difference
I replaced the original fan with the Antec 3-speed fan. And at the same time removed the inside fan grills (Whats the point of those?)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6907-8.jpg
Then I cut open the front fan grills. Cant see the point of those either.
The Noctua in place
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6915.jpg
Then I Had to rearrange the cables Again in the case I am very pleased with the result.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6910.jpg
The new-cut non-fan grills
I got some volt-adaptors with the Noctuas. Does anyone know how strong the resistors are in those?
The box only say "Ultra-low-noise adaptor".
/R
So its been a while... I had alot of trouble with this computer, not silence related. Turns out the new RAMs are corrupted...
I have gotten my Noctua back now. I put it in the case today And at the same time I modified the power supply a little:
Original and Opened:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6902-03.jpg
I did some cutting in the back to open for better airflow but dont know if it does any real difference
I replaced the original fan with the Antec 3-speed fan. And at the same time removed the inside fan grills (Whats the point of those?)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6907-8.jpg
Then I cut open the front fan grills. Cant see the point of those either.
The Noctua in place
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6915.jpg
Then I Had to rearrange the cables Again in the case I am very pleased with the result.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6910.jpg
The new-cut non-fan grills
I got some volt-adaptors with the Noctuas. Does anyone know how strong the resistors are in those?
The box only say "Ultra-low-noise adaptor".
/R
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- Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
- Location: Sweden
I have tidy up the thread a little bit, making some images to links instead so it wont take forever to load
They still work thou.
I have also done another thread about silencing your mouse that is a great mod
viewtopic.php?t=46390
But to the real update:
Now I have finally separated the area above the DVD in the case. I think this will slightly increase
the airflow in the case, maybe if not its given me a nice cable pocket!
I did this by slaughtering an old broken cd-rom.
Like this one, but not this one, this one works
I removed all insides just keeping the bottom with sides and the top.
I did cut out a part from the top to run cables through. This I now know where unnecessary because I could just have run the cables on the back of it. And the hole did get all to big.
Then I used double sided tape to put the two parts together.
It where placed just above the DVD to serve its purpose: close of that area!
A great place to put unused cables
The 3-speed-changer for the fan in the power supply
The hole that where unnecessary:
The whole thing! I have redone the cabling again, as usual and swapped places on the two HDDs.
I still haven't been able to do anything about my graphic card witch are the most noisiest part in the case now.
They still work thou.
I have also done another thread about silencing your mouse that is a great mod
viewtopic.php?t=46390
But to the real update:
Now I have finally separated the area above the DVD in the case. I think this will slightly increase
the airflow in the case, maybe if not its given me a nice cable pocket!
I did this by slaughtering an old broken cd-rom.
Like this one, but not this one, this one works
I removed all insides just keeping the bottom with sides and the top.
I did cut out a part from the top to run cables through. This I now know where unnecessary because I could just have run the cables on the back of it. And the hole did get all to big.
Then I used double sided tape to put the two parts together.
It where placed just above the DVD to serve its purpose: close of that area!
A great place to put unused cables
The 3-speed-changer for the fan in the power supply
The hole that where unnecessary:
The whole thing! I have redone the cabling again, as usual and swapped places on the two HDDs.
I still haven't been able to do anything about my graphic card witch are the most noisiest part in the case now.
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