[dougmwpsu]

I'm at the point where I consider my pc based audio setup nearly complete. the Chaintech card that you guys all helped reccomend to me works like a charm, and the Superdual i just got is just wahat i was looking for. However i have one nagging problem that keeps me from experienceing auditory bliss... My Computer's Too Darn Loud! after a little mucking around in the case i've figured that my PSU is the main source of the fan whirr that i can clearly hear when listening to my grado's and that the fan on the cpu is quieter but still plainly audible. i've had this computer for about 3 years, and i've upgraded it about as far as i'm really willing to. Once i finally break down and buy a new machine i'll proablly transition this one into perminant jukebox duty. What I'd really like is a cheap and simple way to get my computer noise down to about 10-20 DB's. I don't see much of a point in getting rid of fans altoghter or getting supersilent components, as i'm going to still be stuck with drive noise from 2 harddrives. i have a gateway minitower, so i have no idea what sort of compatability i have as far as sticking the old components into a new case or sticking new components into an old case. i assume that all of you using computers as a source have run into this problem at one time or another, so i'm hoping you guys can give me some reccomendations. thanks for all the help!
Doug

 

[stiben]

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

 

[bangraman]

For what it's worth, I think it's more cost-effective to build a new computer around the Athlon64. It's somewhat unlikely for you to get the silence you want without everything being new... including the drives.

 

[ya8282]

I would recommend the Antec Phantom 350 to get rid of your PSU fan noise as an initial step, since it features a fanless design. I have been happy with mine, despite the current price tag (~$140 street). It is a few mm taller and wider than the average PSU, so make sure it will fit your case before buying.

I think your goal for a "20dB" system is a bit difficult; you would probably start by looking for cpus that don't require much cooling, put a massive heatsink on it, and make sure there is some method of pushing the hot air out of the case that is under 20dB. You might also consider getting one or two 2.5" HD's rather than 3.5" since they are slightly quieter.

Whatever modifications you make to reduce the noise, always monitor the temperature sensors inside while putting the CPU and HD under heavy stress to make sure everything is running cool enough.

 

[sgrossklass]

I would not recommend a fanless PSU for the average vomit box of a few years back - you have to have fairly good case ventilation when using one (which pretty much negates the fanlessness of the PSU), and these typically don't. (That's why the PSU has to shovel out all the hot air by itself which *is* noisy. My second comp has this problem, with a 5-year-old POS bigtower case not providing any fan mounts under the PSU. The PSU does get fairly noisy when there's significant load for some time, and there's just an 800EB in there.) However, as far as I'm aware Gateway does not use overly special parts so it shouldn't be too difficult to transplant everything into a more ventilation-friendly case, such as a Yeong Yang 560x, in which you can use big and slowly turning 120 mm fans. Depending on the CPU (Athlon or P4 socket 478 I guess), it shouldn't be too hard and expensive to find a decent yet quiet CPU cooler. A not-too-noisy PSU isn't that expensive either. Whether to keep the hard drives will depend on what models they are. 'Cuda ATA IVs or such should be fine, while WDs or generally everything else with ball bearings should be replaced. bangraman has a point, when you've arrived here you've exchanged pretty much everything except for mainboard, CPU and memory (which, however, aren't the cheapest components when buying new).

My personal funky (btw, that thread title sure is) audio-and-everything-else comp is based on an old Siemens midtower case with the original 110 watt PSU (fan replaced with quieter YS-Tech model) with an Asus P2B-D mamaboard running two PIII-667EB as 500Es at 1.40 V core with passive cooling on modded MSI 6905 Masters. The only case fan is an Arctic Cooling Fan Pro TC. Current hard drives are a Seagate ST318406LW (Cheetah 36ES, the quietest 10,000rpm drive until the Raptors arrived) on an Advance 2941U2W and a Samsung SV0802N on a Promise Ultra100 TX2. I'm currently in dire need of a storage upgrade, the 80 gigger is bordering on full and with 6 gigs of FLAC'd radio recordings each week this didn't even take very long. *sigh*

 

[fewtch]

Just upgrading to a quiet case can make an amazing difference, without touching anything else. Here's a suggestion:

http://www2.newegg.com/product/produ...82E16811129140

 

[dougmwpsu]

Well I was thinking that I could go about this quiet computer thing by a slightly different strategy. I have an old 350mhz amd processor+motherboard and a 600 mhz celeron computer. I have a fairly quiet PSU in the Celeron computer, probably for all intents and purposes inaudible. I was thinking that rather than fiddle with my main computer to make it quiet, it might be easier to put together a machine with no internal moving parts, and then pull all the music off a network connection. The 350mhz processor has just a heatsink, and the 600 mhz celron has a fairly loud fan on top of the heatsink.

....sooooo, I’m thinking that if I figure out a way to do a harddriveless boot up, I could pull all the necessary music files off my main computer over a network connection and play the resulting audio through a chaintech av-710.

So what I need to know…
Can I safely take the processor fan off my celeron processor? According to silentpcreview, some of the celerons are extremely cool running. Will I be able to do the necessary upsampling and decoding through foobar for ogg, flac and mp3 files with a 350mhz processor? A 600 mhz processor? Do any of you know a way I could forgo having to have a hard drive at all and just booting off a usb thumb drive or some other similarly tricky method? If a linux distribution is able to do that, would the chaintech work on high quality mode?

I’d appreciate any insights anyone may be able to offer... additionally, maybe some people could share what sort of things they have done to cheaply and effectively silence their own computers.

btw.. the thread title is pig latin, in case anyone was wondering

 

[ya8282]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougmwpsu Well I was thinking that I could go about this quiet computer thing by a slightly different strategy. I have an old 350mhz amd processor+motherboard and a 600 mhz celeron computer. I have a fairly quiet PSU in the Celeron computer, probably for all intents and purposes inaudible. I was thinking that rather than fiddle with my main computer to make it quiet, it might be easier to put together a machine with no internal moving parts, and then pull all the music off a network connection. The 350mhz processor has just a heatsink, and the 600 mhz celron has a fairly loud fan on top of the heatsink.

In order to go fanless, you'll want a fast and cool processor that you can underclock if required. The reason for this is that your 600MHz celeron is less capable than an Athlon64 running at the same temperature. It has been a while since I've used cpus in that speed range, so I'm not sure it could play level 8 FLACs while copying files over the network; to me, it would be a nuisance, and the upgrade to a faster processor would be well worth the money.

The system you are talking about building sounds a little like a network music player to me -- I think you may be looking down the wrong path if you want to build this with your spare parts. Starting from about $150, you can get a network media player. I think there are several of them mentioned and reviewed in this forum. Hope this helps.

 

[bangraman]

I've found that quiet PC's are a 'holistic' thing. The cases I've bought recently run into the double digits and so do the coolers. Many hard disks, processors, fans, etc. Taking an old PC which doesn't need as much cooling and using it as a network client is not a bad option, but I've found that while simply replacing the case for example does cut noise, it actually draws attention thereafter to the components you haven't silenced. This may or may not bother you. It did in my case.


I like the Antec minitower ATX cases... in fact, the Sonata with the damping mats is what I've decided to standardise on for my HTPC's. But it's only part of a silenced PC solution.


As ya8282 points out, if all you want is a music player, then there are better options. I wanted something a little more. From first attemting to re-task my existing PC's I've ended up building from scratch. 2.5" drives, fanless display adaptors, quiet cases and whineless CPU coolers all figure in the answer.

 

[lini]

The new mCubed hFX (http://www.mcubed-tech.com/eng/product_hfx.htm) could be a nice base - I've only seen prototypes so far, but it seems very promising...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

P.S.: Just producing another pc case review, btw. Most fun so far: Mistreating the power supplies with a 2 kV surge test - a really funky experience!