[uzziah]

thinking i'll rebuild my pc; it's "quiet" by most standards now, but not enough. here's what i have now:

seasonic super silencer 300w
160gb seagate ide 7200rpm hdd
antec case (mid tower), rubber wasers on hdd (nice)
120mm antec case fan (turned down all the way with zalman fanmate)
masscool whisperock (" ") cpu cooler
athlon xp 3000
512mb kingston pc3200
chaintech 7njl6
emu 0404
liteon dvd/cdrw (irrelevant; just use for ripping)

thoughts:
1. fanless psu: suggestions? teh seasonic is actually not that quiet
2. hdd: 250gb samsung sata or ide with nidec motor
3. 120mm nexus exhaust (fanmate-ed)
4. good heatsink for socketA fits 80mm fan (suggestions?)
5. athlon xp mobile 2500 undervolted
6. 80mm nexus fan for heatsink
7. undervoltable soketA mobo

and that's about it. suggestions? changes?


my power requirements are minimal. the main thing i use my pc for is music, then just web surfing and productivity. pretty much anything will do.

 

[Asmo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzziah thinking i'll rebuild my pc; it's "quiet" by most standards now, but not enough. here's what i have now: seasonic super silencer 300w 160gb seagate ide 7200rpm hdd antec case (mid tower), rubber wasers on hdd (nice) 120mm antec case fan (turned down all the way with zalman fanmate) masscool whisperock (" ") cpu cooler athlon xp 3000 512mb kingston pc3200 chaintech 7njl6 emu 0404 thoughts: 1. fanless psu: suggestions? teh seasonic is actually not that quiet 2. hdd: 250gb samsung sata or ide with nidec motor 3. 120mm nexus exhaust (fanmate-ed) 4. good heatsink for socketA fits 80mm fan (suggestions?) 5. athlon xp mobile 2500 undervolted 6. 80mm nexus fan for heatsink and that's about it. suggestions? changes?

Where does your tower sit? On top of your desk? Underneath? In a hutch? I found the only way to put the final touches on getting rid of all sound was to have a desk that closes at the front and have the tower hidden away. You can also purchase case sound proofing foam, that helps too.

Otherwise, you can go with a fanless PSU, but hard drive noise you won't get much quieter, the seagates are dead quiet idle, its just when they access you get some noise.

4. You mean the CPU fan or chipset fan? replace all your cpu/mobo fans with zalman stuff, vga coolers too.

 

[Alu]

I made quite the nice addition to my quiet desktop today. A little japanese invention called SmartDrive Copper 2002. An internal hdd case keeping the harddisk cool and quiet.
Works really nicely, and is easy as hell to mount.

 

[warrior05]

I just moved the guts of my pc to a new Nexus Breeze case. It made quite a difference and I'm almost satisfied. I've been fighting the noisy pc battle for awhile. It seems like evertime I put in quiet component, it just exposes a noisy one. If I can get rid of a mid frequency noise then I will have a very quiet pc where I will only have a very low level hum from the two huge and very quiet 12cm fans.

Of course the ultimate will be getting Zalman's fanless case but I'm not quite ready to drop 7 bills for a case. Though I won't be surprised if I do at some point since I'm a stickler when it comes to a noisy pc.

Um... did that help at all?

 

[saturnine]

I would not go with a fanless PSU considering the rest of your system. Sure, it would power it, but not effectively, especially since you are probably looking for stability & good sound. You could replace the fan in your current Seasonic, or upgrade the the much more quiet S12 series which use a 120mm fan. The PSU upgrade would be the best IMO.

The Zalman 7700AlCu is a good CPU HSF, and is very quiet @ 7V. Good price too

Be sure to do some research at Hardforum.com. Lot's of experts and manufacturers post there.

 

[Sparky191]

I generally refer to http://www.silentpcreview.com/

 

[JazzJackRabbit]

Anyway it's going to be hard to silence your PC without seriously changing components. What I would suggest is go with Seaeonic as your PSU. The fan in Seasonic S12 spins at only 800RPM with no load, your Samsung hard drive is going to be louder than that. The only problem with that might be that S12 is ATX2.xx PSU while your system is basically ATX1.3 system. Also be sure to decouple your hard drive from your case. Of course that means that you must be extra careful when moving your case even if it's couple of feet, but the gain in noise is huge.

 

[guynamedjohn]

My DIY system I built a few years back sounds like a vacuum cleaner. When I read discussions about the noise floor in headphones or amplifiers I am definitely lol.

This time around I've turned it over to professionals. I ordered a new pc from endpcnoise.com. I am hopeful that it will be the most audibly significant addition I can make to my rig at this point.

Stay Tuned!

 

[Gabe Logan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alu I made quite the nice addition to my quiet desktop today. A little japanese invention called SmartDrive Copper 2002. An internal hdd case keeping the harddisk cool and quiet. Works really nicely, and is easy as hell to mount.

I got one of those in my PC holding a 160 seagate and they do work better than a bare drive just sitting in the case.It's expensive but a must for a silent PC.

 

[grandenigma1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe Logan I got one of those in my PC holding a 160 seagate and they do work better than a bare drive just sitting in the case.It's expensive but a must for a silent PC.

I just picked up a P180 case a few Nexus 120mm fans, Nexus HD enclosures, and another 250GB Seagate as I filled yet another one... Got to school the day I left for break... so it awaits me when I get back.

 

[Sparky191]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JazzJackRabbit Anyway it's going to be hard to silence your PC without seriously changing components. ...

I agree. You have to build from scratch a quiet PC. Abolutely everything has to be sourced for quietness. If any one component is noisy or has annoying "hum" or "whine" it negates the quietness of all the other components. It costs a significant amount more to build a quiet PC than a normal one.

 

[skyline889]

Have you considered liquid cooling, it's supposed to be a lot quieter than fans, also for a quiet power supply I would look at this; http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...340&pfp=BROWSE.

 

[Gabe Logan]

They say you don't know what else is makeing noise in your PC untill you silenced the noisiest component.Well i did and after i was done the only noise that i couldn't fix easy was the humming coming from the motherboard coils.At that point i was at my limit on silencing the thing and was not intent on changing a motherboard.

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparky191 I generally refer to http://www.silentpcreview.com/

as do i

however, their reviews i find to be a tad lacking as far as what's available (i.e. not that much reviewed, so much stuff available)

 

[Sparky191]

You have to be pretty dedicated. If you get fanatical about it, its like a completely new hobby.