Quiet Comp builders: Post your builds!

[spike33]

Let's say my comp isn't as quiet as you guys, would the dampening stuff be worthwhile? I figure if it can cut the noise in half, it'd be very nice improvement.

 

[skudmunky]

Just built my new computer, specs are as follows.

Athlon 64 3000+ (in a month or two I'll start overclocking it, but I'm leaving it stock for a while to break it in)
Chaintech VNF4
Corsair Value Select 2x512
Sound Blaster Live! 24 bit
ATI x600 (Temporary, I'm using the eVGA step up program to turn my AGP 6800 into a PCI-Express 6800GS)
Western Digital 40 and 80 gig hard drives (I was going to use a 160 gb Seagate drive, but it made an extremely annoying idling high pitched whiny noise, so that went into another pc)
Fortron Source FSP group 400 watt PSU.
Thermaltake Tsunami, with 2 five dollar 120mm fans and a good 92mm side fan. Its very noisy right now, I need a fan controller and better 120mm fans.

 

[Zorander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Let's say my comp isn't as quiet as you guys, would the dampening stuff be worthwhile? I figure if it can cut the noise in half, it'd be very nice improvement.

What is your computer's configuration?

 

[cire]

its fairly quiet, though not very fast (anymore).

XP-M 2400+ 35 watt 2.6ghz @ 1.9v (230x11)
NF7 2.0 w/ vdimm, VTB mods
HyperX 2-2-2-7 @ 3.3v
Powercolor 9600pro (475/350) w/ FDD mod

watercooling:
DD Maze 4
DD heatercore
Dtek Customs procore
Danner Mag3 pump

 

[Mr.Sneis]

Athlon XP 64 3700+ OC'd to 2.7 GHz
Thermaltake Bigwater Cooling kit for GPU + CPU
DFI NF4 SLI-DR board, replaced stock NBridge cooler with a passive sink
Evga Geforce 7800GT with an embarassingly bad overclock
2 Gigs OCZ Gold
Antec 550 watt truepower
250 gig Seagate SATA
Antec Sonata I Case with blue LED's
Neon + 2 antec 120mm adjustable fans set to LOW
E-MU 0404 (the only thing holding me back from 2.8 GHz)

 

[spike33]

Ok, forget dampening. My soon to be setup:
Asus A8N SLI
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Western Digital 200Gb SATA II
Geforce 6600GT
ESI Juli@
Fortran AX450 PSU (soon)
Panaflo L1A fans (soon)

I figure the culprit for all the noise is the generic psu and the Adda ultra speed fans (40db!). Should my setup be alot quieter now?

 

[Zorander]

You might also want to get a drive enclosure (or at least some decoupling methods) for that WD drive. They are generally not as quiet as, say, Seagate & Samsung units.

 

[spike33]

Yeah, there's a periodic high pitch sound. I'll look into it, thanks.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Sneis

Lol, thats brilliant. My PC is tucked away, otherwise I'd consider that!


I will post my specs, it stopped working so I've had to send it back to be fixed.

AMD 64 3700+
ASUS A8N-SLI
Western Digital 250GB 16MB Cache
Crucial PC3200 2048MB in dual channel
Tagan 480W dual-fan
CoolerMaster Wavemaster(silver)
GFX Crap2000GT

Pretty damn quiet, I guess its because theres no crappy generic stuff. I purposely avoided that.

 

[riffer]

Here is mine:

Coolermaster ATC-110 SX1 - 2xNexus 80mm fans on front intake.
Seasonic Super Tornado 400 - Stock fan replaced by Nexus 120mm fan
Abit AS8 - spins CPU and Northbridge fans up and down depending on temperature
Intel P4 3.4 (#650) - Stock cooler.
Corsair TwinX2048-3200C2
ATI All in Wonder 9000 Pro - Fan replace by Zalman ZM17-CU and 80mm Nexus blowing on it from side.
Adaptec 19160
Adaptec Fireconnect 8300
Sony DRU-510A
Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 - 72GB
Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 - 36GB - Drives mounted on edge using foam supports


It isn't quite the quietest configuration I have ever run, but certainly the quietest without using a fan controller and constantly monitoring temperature.

 

[Scrith]

I built this one in December:

Athlon X2 4800+ w/ Thermalright SI-120 heatsink + Nexus 120mm fan
Antec P180 case w/ 3 Nexus 120mm fans (and fanmates, to reduce speed, on 2 of them)
Seasonic S12-500 power supply
Seagate 7200.9 SATA hard drives (160GB and 500GB)
eVGA 7800gtx 512MB video card
Plextor 716SA SATA DVD-RW
Corsair 2x 1GB 3500LLPro memory
Asus A8N32-SLI motherboard (passive cooling)
E-Mu 1212M for audio (see signature for where the digital output goes)

This system is the quietest I've ever heard. I think the key here is the Nexus fans (in the case and on the CPU heatsink) and the Seasonic power supply. The arrangement of everything in the P180 case helps too, I think. The video card is also surprisingly quiet (although I believe it gets louder during heavy 3D gaming, though I've never really noticed it because I'm not really paying attention to noise while playing games like that).

I have the system modestly overclocked with a 215 FSB. Temps are in the high 30s to mid 40s, depending on what I'm doing.

 

[NeilPeart]

Antec Sonata II
Seasonic S12-500
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400
Thermalright HR-01 w/Nexus D12SL-12 @7
Nexus D12SL-12 @ 5v for Chassis
OCZ PC4800 2x512MB
Asus EN7800GT (fanless)
RME Digi96/8 PAD (Digital Output)
E-MU 1212M (Analog)
Western Digital WD1500
2x Hitachi 7K500 (In NAS)
Plextor Premium
Asus CD-A520 (Ripping)
BenQ DW1640
Dell 2405FPW

They allowed up to $4000 so I was well underneath that threshold - if only my home system was as powerful.

It should last the requisite 3 years.

 

[MikoLayer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilPeart Antec Sonata II Seasonic S12-500 Asus A8N-SLI Premium AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 Thermalright HR-01 w/Nexus D12SL-12 @7 Nexus D12SL-12 @ 5v for Chassis OCZ PC4800 2x512MB Asus EN7800GT (fanless) RME Digi96/8 PAD (Digital Output) E-MU 1212M (Analog) Western Digital WD1500 2x Hitachi 7K500 (In NAS) Plextor Premium Asus CD-A520 (Ripping) BenQ DW1640 Dell 2405FPW They allowed up to $4000 so I was well underneath that threshold - if only my home system was as powerful. It should last the requisite 3 years.

excellent system there, can you smell some envy in here?

but I am obliged to ask, why you must have two such prestigeous sound card in one system. I use two sound cards myself, but the secondary in my rig is Philips aurilium purchased for $20 and works well dedicated for speakers. I am sure you have your reasons but that truly sounds like overkill. The general consensus here is RME has smoother and warmer, perhaps more "musical" analog output, so I would love to hear your personal opinion on that bit. Do you have your EMU modded by any chance?

Seeing how you, as another HD650 enthusiast, liked K701, I am a tad bit more inclined in that direction over DT880 in my next hedaphone investment.

 

[jiiteepee]

My HW setup, dedicated for audio only atm (all I can say - it's damn quiet system):

Case: Compucase ATX-Medium LX-6818A w/o case fans, sound-proofed
PSU: Fortron 300W, model: FSP300-60PN(PF), ATX, 20dB
Motherboard: Asus P4S8X-X
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz, down clocked to 2.0GHz w/o fan (ripped), only heat sink left (proc./mb. temp. both < 38 °C by the mb monitor/PC-Probe)
Memory: Apacer 2x512Mb CL2.5 DDR333
Graphics: Connect3D ATI RADEON 9200 128Mb w/ heat sink (no fans)
Audio: RME FF800 (when RME is on DAW use, Creative Audigy 2)
HD: Boot/Software: Maxtor 80GB /8MB (boxed and sound-proofed , no noise)
HD: Data: Samsung 120GB /2MB, External/USB 2.0 (add. boxed and sound-proofed, no noise)
HD: Back-Up: Maxtor 160GB /8MB, External/USB 2.0 (not permanent connected)


jiitee

 

[Gabe Logan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 Let's say my comp isn't as quiet as you guys, would the dampening stuff be worthwhile? I figure if it can cut the noise in half, it'd be very nice improvement.

I personally think it is worthwile.Half?Well i don't think that much but you will see an improvement.I use sound absorbing and vinyl and i know i saw an improvement.

The majority of the noise that will be gone when taken care of comes from cpu,gpu fands and hdd's.