Need to silence my PC

[kmac]

Have just spent about £100 trying to silence my PC and hmmm......wondering if it was worth it.

I have a Coolermaster ATC-201 all aluminium midi tower (ATX) - four YS-tech 80mm fans
Asus A7V133 Mobo and Athlon 1400 Mhz CPU
Coolermaster Copper heatsink with heatpipes and a 60mm fan
Also had a Hiper Power supply with three fans
Passive cooling for northbridge chip and graphics card

So as you can imagine. a bit of a screamer.

Anyway, the £100 was spent on:

1) Zalman flower 7000B ALCU cooler
2) Corsair HX625W PSU
3) Noctua 80mm silent fan

I have disconnected all case fans except the exhaust fan at the rear which I have replaced with the Noctua

Still getting some fan humm....mostly from the CPU cooler fan.

Any thoughts on how I can silence this further? Cooler fan is a 92mm badged as Zalman - anyone recommend replacing this witha Nexus or Scythe?

Or should I consider some form of case damping?

Any hints or tips gratefully received

[Fraz]

Turn it off

[Fraz]

More seriously, a lot of noise often comes from the case vibration set up by your hard disk - especially in an aluminium case like yours. Try suspending the disk from some elastic. Makes a surprising amount of difference and costs ~25 pence.

silentpcreview.com | View topic - HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!

[kmac]

Turn it off

Yeah that's the thing...when I do turn it off the silence is so sweet.

Will try the hard disk cushioning.

Yeah there are no merits at all to an aluminium case apart from looks.

I got taken in by the marketting hype of it being cooler but in my experience its the same as a steel case and as you point out, more prone to vibration.

But it does look nice and also is very well designed in terms of installation etc. (except for no rails for the 5.25" bays)

[dangel]

I get no appreciable vibration related noise from my HDs (all three of them) in that case. I swapped my font fans for quiet 80mm ones and the top and rear to 120mm fans.

[kmac]

Any chance of a pic as to how you adapted the case to accept 120mm fans please dangel?

[dangel]

Any chance of a pic as to how you adapted the case to accept 120mm fans please dangel?

No need - the rear fan: simple bolt on a 80mm->120mm adapter - it fits without obscuring anything vital on the back. Top fan: either glue or tape to the outside the adapter (you may be able to fit it inside but I didn't want the hassle and it sits under the desk anyway). You can tape on the inside of the adaptor, through the hole into the case to hide it of course. I removed the whole filter/fan assembly from the top hole (of course). Top fan extracts as does rear for reference. Dust isn't an issue as you still have the filters at the front of the case (where air comes in). I liked the tape solution as it's non-permanent and doesn't ruin a (very) lovely case.

I found the top fan especially was noisy for me.

If you're still confused then PM me your email and i'll take some snaps over the weekend of my bodge job

[Pob255]

Can you post up some pic anyway dangel, this "bodge job" of yours sounds intresting.

[kmac]

Thanks dangle, seems clear enough to me.

I knew there were adaptors that you could use with CPU coolers, and duh, didn't think of just using the same for case fans.....

[cotswoldcs]

Spending £100 on an Athlon 1400Mhz machine seems madness to be honest. Even a powerful quad core CPU doesn't require 620W PSU so only replace the PSU if you plan to upgrade to a gaming monster of a machine in future.

I'd recommend you put the £100 towards a new mobo, CPU and memory.


Intel Dual Core E2160 = £42.64
2 GB DDR2 RAM (Corsair TwinX 5400) = 26.44
Abit IP-35V = £54.51

TOTAL = 123.59

OK so it's over your budget but it would offer better performance than your Athlon 1400 and offers the ability to upgrade to a Core2Duo or Quad CPU in time. The IP-35Dark Raider or IP-35 Pro is a better choice but again more money.

[kmac]

The 100 is already spent but thanks for the thought.

Its not maddness as - at some stage I will upgrade to a more powerful CPU.

It is well spent because it is so quiet. Highly recommended and modular to boot.

Anyway all we really use the machine for is surfing, email and a few letters on Word. I'm not a gamer. Just want a silent PC.

Also have a Mini Mac and it is totally silent as the CPU fan only kicks in under high demand placed on the CPU.

[kmac]

Update: almost total silence achieved now except for hard disk noises. Still awaiting trip to shops for stron elastic as I am going to attempt suspension of drive by elastic

80mmfan - used the voltage reducer provided by Noctua (L.N.A) to reduce fan speed. No sound now. Also installed the fan speed adjuster for the Zalman cooler (CNPS7000B AlCu) and no appreciable sound from there either.

So just the hard disk to go and I can think in quiet....

[Fraz]

Update: almost total silence achieved now except for hard disk noises. Still awaiting trip to shops for stron elastic as I am going to attempt suspension of drive by elastic

I finally got around to doing this on my PC today, and boy what a difference. Hard disk seek noise is now basically inaudible unless you put your head by the case. And all the vibrations and buzzing set up up by the hard disk vibrations transferring to the case panels have totally stopped. A well recommended mod. My PC is now quieter than my UPS unit which rather annoyingly makes a soft buzzing sound unless you press down on the top of it.

As for elasitic... I finally found some - after looking for ages in a variety of shops - in an odd 'n' sods household section in Sainsburys. Two metres of elasitic polyester. Can't remember how much exactly, but was certainly less than a quid.

[Dr Cool]

Ahh being a silent enthusiast my self i'll just give you a good cheap list of things on scan.co.uk that should realy help.

Harddrive Vibration reduction (4.69)
New Case (24.66)
2 Akasa Smokey Fans (3.54 X2)

I dont know what socket your cpu is so i cant say what cooler to get.

[Fraz]

Harddrive Vibration reduction (4.69)

Personally I think these things are rubbish. I tried a couple of different varieties (admittedly not this exact one), and they did nothing at all. If anything, they made things worse because the 5.25" bay I had to put it in was even more vibrationally coupled to the rest of my chassis than the 3.5" bay it was in before.

Seriously - elastic suspension is both a cheaper and far far better solution.

[kmac]

Yeah I'm going to stick to elastic suspension for my HD

Also nothing wrong with my case or fans Dr Cool - I have the Noctua case fan and a 92mm fan that comes with the Zalman flower CNPS 7000B AlCu CPU cooler.
Both are extremely quiet. Zalman fan ( I don't believe they make their own) could possibly be improved.

Only other fan I have is in the PSu - Corsair HX620 - it is a 120mm Adda fan and completely inaudible at speeds controlled by the PSU itself.