[comabereni]

Since I enjoy listening to music ripped on my PC, I finally silenced the box in my home office this evening. The noise was driving me nuts.

Here's what I did (and what I have):

CPU: P4 Celeron - 2.7Ghz
PSU: Generic/Unknown 350W PSU
Case: IBM NetVista workstation case
GPU: nVidia Quadro 4 (fanless cards) (2 cards running 3 CRT monitors)

I bought two of the highly recommended 80mm Panaflo fans (~$17.00 shipped) and this monster CPU heatpipe radiator from SilverStone ($42 shipped):

Total: ~$60.00

I swapped my loud 80mm PSU fan for one of the Panaflo's and installed the other Panaflo in the rear of the case, blowing on the Silverstone CPU cooler.

All I can say is my refrigerator in another room is louder than my case now, as is the hum from the 3 monitors in front of me. I scrounged up a couple potentiometers to control fan speed--very helpful, but I am finding I only really need to run the PSU fan, at significantly reduced speed, to keep everything within safe operating temp range (typically 38 C case temp, 48 C CPU temp). This may seem a wee bit on the warm side, but an evening's worth of research indicated I'm well within safe margins--I'd need to be at least 10 C warmer (for either the case or CPU) before I'd even start to worry.

Note that this is with around 20% average CPU usage (Office apps, music, browser), so I'm not really stressing it much. When I need to do something more processor intensive (scan for viruses, archive my drive--I don't game much any more), I can either turn up the PSU fan or kick in the case fan that blows across the CPU cooler. Even with both fans running at around half-speed, it is barely audible from my seated position and my case temp drops to around 33 C. CPU drops to around 44-45 C. That's as good as it ever did with my big "Ultra" brand CPU heatsink and fan, PSU fan and case fan--the combo that made my PC sound like I was in a wind-tunnel.

Bottom-line: I feel no need to make my PC quieter or cooler, and it was only $60.

-coma

 

[byronyu]

Congratulations on ur quieting successes, but you know ur really getting into quiet territory when ur fans are so quiet that ur harddrive noise is getting to be a problem.

If you haven't already, you should look at www.silentpcreview.com.

 

[vbmechanic]

Nice job and a good price! I assumed most of the head-fi'ers already did PC silencing since it is a necessity for an enjoyable listening room. Here is my current main rig using Nexus 120mm/92mm fans. The CPU is an Intel 3.2 cooled by a Thermalright XP90. The hard drives (SATA 500 Gigs total) are suspended to reduce vibration transfer. The 6600GT video card is passively cooled.

 

[jpr703]

Sweet!

 

[comabereni]

Quote:

Originally Posted by byronyu Congratulations on ur quieting successes, but you know ur really getting into quiet territory when ur fans are so quiet that ur harddrive noise is getting to be a problem. If you haven't already, you should look at www.silentpcreview.com.

It's a success, I think, when the fridge is at the other end of the house. Before the modifications, I couldn't hear the central air conditioning system or anything outside my office door except for the television or family members talking. It was truly yucky, but I had gotten kind of used to hearing wooshing fans after all these years.

The hard drives are next--I've got 360 Gigs spread over 3 drives--the 200Gb Maxtor drive is the loudest of the three and I've got it screwed directly to the bottom of my case--I can now hear it whining, clicking and chirping every once in awhile. Not a recommended drive if you're seeking total silence, but I'm going to work with it and see what I can do.

Yes, Silentpcreview.com is a great resource. I've read lots of articles there to help with my component decisions. I'm now thinking I could probably run my system full-time off just one low-speed case fan blowing on the CPU cooler if I switched to a fanless PSU. I'm thinking about it...

I expect PC silencing to grow in popularity, perhaps even overtaking overclocking at some point, since processing speed is adequate for many users and other concerns like energy usage, heat, and noise are becoming more prevalent. I suppose I wouldn't mind flashing my M/B to 800Mhz and swapping the 2.7 Celeron for a 3Ghz P4, but I seldom experience any noticeable delays in my daily computing as is. Ergonomics has become far more important.

vbmechanic: Very clean job you've done there. I still have my standard IDE ribbon cables sprawling everywhere, but I did gather up all my PSU cables using zip strips. I'm going to suspend my drives pretty soon. I'm also going to look into RAM coolers/heatsinks/spreaders. I switched off my case fan and slowed the PSU fan down to a crawl, letting my case temp drift to around 44 C and had a memory address error that crashed Outlook. I am assuming it was heat-related, but perhaps not.

-coma

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by comabereni Before the modifications, I couldn't hear the central air conditioning system or anything outside my office door except for the television or family members talking. It was truly yucky, but I had gotten kind of used to hearing wooshing fans after all these years. ... I expect PC silencing to grow in popularity, perhaps even overtaking overclocking at some point, since processing speed is adequate for many users and other concerns like energy usage, heat, and noise are becoming more prevalent. I suppose I wouldn't mind flashing my M/B to 800Mhz and swapping the 2.7 Celeron for a 3Ghz P4, but I seldom experience any noticeable delays in my daily computing as is. Ergonomics has become far more important.

Agreed. Silencing could be a huge trend. It almost felt like a revelation to me when I swapped out my old noisy PC for the quiet Mac Mini and could finally hear soft raindrops on the roof while using the computer. I had gotten so used to the noise, and when it's gone, it just feels great, like a subtle source of stress has been lifted.

 

[comabereni]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wodgy and could finally hear soft raindrops on the roof while using the computer. I had gotten so used to the noise, and when it's gone, it just feels great, like a subtle source of stress has been lifted.

Actually being able to hear things happening outside again after all these years is giving me childhood flashbacks--back before central air and the humming of a dozen household appliances. I really want to replace my refrigerator

. I notice I can turn my music way down--it's great.

If we could just do something about combustion engines and light pollution...

 

[tsplash75]

good work on the silent pc.

i have my own running right now within an Antec Sonata case. running two 120mm fans at low speed controlled by inline resistors and a zalman cnps7000-al/cu heatsink. i also have a vga cooler on my AIW 9600xt running at low, but am considering passive cooling for it as well as a larger northbridge passive cooler (heatsink).

at the moment, it's sitting in a corner, so the hum is reflected and amplified, but it's whisper quiet otherwise.

 

[Shift]

Quote:

Originally Posted by comabereni The hard drives are next--I've got 360 Gigs spread over 3 drives--the 200Gb Maxtor drive is the loudest of the three and I've got it screwed directly to the bottom of my case--I can now hear it whining, clicking and chirping every once in awhile. Not a recommended drive if you're seeking total silence, but I'm going to work with it and see what I can do.

I recently bought a new Seagate, it's one of the quietest drives on the market. My case isn't sound proofed at all and I cannot hear the Seagate when it's working. The Maxtor, on the other hand, even with settings set to Acoustic Performance, it's still 20x louder and I can hear the clicks from across the room.

This case is impressive, but it's a bit expensive. I'd rather just tuck the PC away somewhere and spend the money on audio equipment.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cases/6132/

 

[comabereni]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsplash75 good work on the silent pc. i have my own running right now within an Antec Sonata case. running two 120mm fans at low speed controlled by inline resistors and a zalman cnps7000-al/cu heatsink. i also have a vga cooler on my AIW 9600xt running at low, but am considering passive cooling for it as well as a larger northbridge passive cooler (heatsink). at the moment, it's sitting in a corner, so the hum is reflected and amplified, but it's whisper quiet otherwise.

You might consider lining your walls in that corner with a sound damping material?

I have that 9600XT (Visiontek version), but pulled it months ago and stuck it on a shelf--the fan drove me nuts. I only used it to play Thief III anyway. Can you run that card fanless safely without resorting to a water-cooling system?

I get the overall impression it's pretty much next-to-impossible to run your PC totally fanless without getting into exotic and expensive (usually liquid-cooled) solutions. But you can pretty easily get down to a single speed-controlled fan with the right heatsinks (and maybe a compromise or two, like higher than optimal temperatures/underclocking/settling for a slower CPU, etc.). It's mostly a matter of where you want that one fan and how fast to run it. Having gone with the SilverStone CPU radiator, I think it makes sense for me personally to keep a quiet, low-RPM case fan blowing on those copper fins while possibly looking into a high-efficiency heatpipe PSU design.

-coma

P.S. Tsplash--your avatar is my favorite scene from Napolean Dynamite. "Hey Napolean, can you pull me into town?" Next favorite is: "Tina, get some ham!"

 

[comabereni]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shift I recently bought a new Seagate, it's one of the quietest drives on the market. My case isn't sound proofed at all and I cannot hear the Seagate when it's working. The Maxtor, on the other hand, even with settings set to Acoustic Performance, it's still 20x louder and I can hear the clicks from across the room. This case is impressive, but it's a bit expensive. I'd rather just tuck the PC away somewhere and spend the money on audio equipment. http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cases/6132/

Check out this 100% passively cooled Zalman case

:

[size=small]Only[/size] $1,199.00. (While supplies last).

 

[AdamWill]

there's the Hush one which comes in just a bit under $1,000, as well

nice job, man, and good pick on the Panaflos, I've been preaching that gospel for a while

. Yep, definitely go for hard disks next - Seagate is a great pick, the best compromise between noise, performance and size. Samsung drives are even quieter (you can still just about hear a Seagate drive clicking when seeking in a very quiet case, not so with Samsungs), but they're slower and don't go up to the same capacities as Seagate. The classic Seagate IV series drives were the absolute quietest I know of, quieter than their current 7200.7s, but they're discontinued nowadays :\

 

[Shift]

Seagate 7200.7 120GB with 8MB buffer is what I have. Seagate are of better quality than Samsungs, imo. When I bought mine, it also came with a 5 year warranty, impressive compared to the 1-3 year warranties of other brands. I do expect drives to become faulty after 5, my Quantum is still going after 6, but my Maxtor became sketch within 4...

 

[boodi]

My samsung 120gb it's not so quiet when is supposed too , really ..
I assume it probably depends also on the case is mounted on ...
what i notice the most though is that it's alot slower then the equivalent maxtor 120

anyhow I'm silencing my pc too , I've some Zalman and Artic Cooler fans mounted at the moment , and waiting for an lc power super silent 550w to come .
It's not very loud but man I've come hating every zzz my pc can do in the last 2 years so....

I'm also about picking up one of those pana fan to cool the northbridge.

 

[aos]

My Samsung 160G also isn't as quiet as my Seagate Barracuda V (or IV) 80G that it was supposed to replace. There's a high pitched whine, granted noweher near my Maxtors in another PC but much louder than Seagate. Yeah, so they say to get the version that DOESN'T have JVC motor - which is what I got - but I find that kind of shopping advice fairly useless. What are you, going to do around town and ask for salesman to look at the back of their hard drives? Never mind online (I rarely shop for hardware online as we have great selection and good prices in many small shops here in Vancouver). A certain model of drive is either noisy or it's not. Reviewers should go forward and slap the drive with the review that reflects the WORST or at least average condition of a drive, not the best case. Faced with unfavourable reviews, next time the manufacturer will at least consider giving a different model number to a drive with different source of parts. Same goes for newer Seagates, some of which have that periodical maintenance whine every few minutes which makes them louder than most other drives including fairly old ones. It's really great, build up a name on having quiet drives and then start sneaking in drives that are not quiet at all and mislead customers into buying it.

So as far as I know there's not a single quiet drive on the market now - meaning if you buy a certain drive model it MAY or MAY NOT be quiet - luck of the draw. Or is there?