Silent/Quiet PC components - any recommendations?

[amjedm]

Add Yate Loon to the list of quiet fans. The Nexus I believe is a Yate Loon with a resistor in it and I think it sells for around £14

I went for the cheaper option - Yate Loon sleeve S(low) and M(edium) speed fans. I think they start at around 4.5v and are very quiet.

To make my computer very quiet I did the following mods

cut out rear and front grill
suspend the hd with round elastic
use blu tack between fans and case and use cable ties to mount the fans
fan swap (used an Aerocool Turbine fan) in the Forton psu and then connected a Zalman fanmate and undervolted it to 5v

With all the above the noisest thing was the two Barracuda IV/V hard disks and these are supposed to be very quiet.

I recently swapped to a Seasonic Super Tornado 400w and need to do a fan swap (with an Aerocool) to make it quieter.

Edit: psu fan swap, suspension of the hd, use of blu tack are all tips from silentpcreview.com.

[alexander]

My PC Is silent.

[BenW]

Thats really helpful alex!

The nexus ARE the quietest fans you'll get. They are, as amjedm says rebadged yate looks running at a lower speed. 1000rpm at 12v i think. I've got 2 coming tomorrow.

Hard Drive suspension is great. I've suspended my samsung and it works a treat

[M0nkeyb0Y]

My PC Is silent.

Can you post some specs, and a bit of how you did it? or is it just turned off?!

[amjedm]

Thats really helpful alex!

The nexus ARE the quietest fans you'll get. They are, as amjedm says rebadged yate looks running at a lower speed. 1000rpm at 12v i think. I've got 2 coming tomorrow.

Hard Drive suspension is great. I've suspended my samsung and it works a treat

BenW

where did you buy them from?

Thanks.

[Koolpc]

My system is very quiet indeed. Here is my spec:

Coolermaster ATC201 case
Amd 3200 CPU
512 pc3200 Ram
80g Samsung Hard drive (Suspended with sewing elastic in the CDRom bays)
NEC dvd writer
fx5200 Passive Graphics card (It plays games!!)
Nexus 3500 PSU (very quiet)
CPU fan is volted down
No case fans

Temps are really great and the noise is just about noticeable. I would like to upgrade the graphics card soon though.

[BenW]

BenW

where did you buy them from?

Thanks.

Nexus fans are available at www.kustompcs.co.uk

Great store, cs is about as good as it gets. They never fail to reply to emails, will get you a product if you cant find it elsewhere and they're active on the forums!

Would recommend them to anyone.

Tomorrow my pc should be near silent. I'm getting:

2*Nexus 120mm fans
1*Thermaltake Schooner GPU cooler (Fanless)for my radeon 9800Pro
1*Arcitc Silver 5 to lower cpu/gpu temps a bit
1m cable braiding to tidy up cables and lower air flow disturbance
10cm heatshrink for the braiding to keep it tight
1m blowhole trim to tidy the fan holes where i cut out the grills

[amjedm]

I've ordered off Kustompcs and agree with all your comments about them.

I was hoping for a cheaper place.

Thanks.

[ja3h]

I intended my pc to be quiet but...it hums!
i got...

akasa evo 33 running with the 80mm fan on low and it makes the biggest noise, i can't use a 120mm convertor on it because there is not enough clearance.
zalman vf7700cu(called that) it is really silent, even on full.
2 vantec stealth 120mm fans connected to an asus fan controller, on low rpm's they shift a bit of air but any higher and they begin to howl.

I'm going to get some new 120mm fans which ones would you recommend? I'm thinking the akasa quiet ones or if i'm feelin crazy then maybe some silenX ones? They are like £20 tho >.<

[chazt]

what about water cooling? Kits are getting cheaper all the time, cool river deluxe is supposed to be pretty good for about £65 off scan

[herulach]

I intended my pc to be quiet but...it hums!
i got...

akasa evo 33 running with the 80mm fan on low and it makes the biggest noise, i can't use a 120mm convertor on it because there is not enough clearance.
zalman vf7700cu(called that) it is really silent, even on full.
2 vantec stealth 120mm fans connected to an asus fan controller, on low rpm's they shift a bit of air but any higher and they begin to howl.

I'm going to get some new 120mm fans which ones would you recommend? I'm thinking the akasa quiet ones or if i'm feelin crazy then maybe some silenX ones? They are like £20 tho >.<

Noiseblocker or Yateloon for fans all the way. Akasa is basically pap. same goes for your heatsink, get a cnps7000alcu or some such. Can you feel your case vibrating? Its prob worth investing in some suspension kits/fan grommets and acoustic wadding too.

[ed^chigliak]

My PC is silent too.

I bought some long cables and stuck the PC in the corridor. It still makes noise but it doesn't bother me behind a closed door. I don't have to pay the premium for quiet PC kit no matter what I buy.

USB repeaters.
Long monitor cable
Sound extension cable
Mic extension Cable

Can't get the USB2.0 hub to work off of a USB repeater other than that it's fine.

Was cheap and will always be cheap.

[herulach]

what about water cooling? Kits are getting cheaper all the time, cool river deluxe is supposed to be pretty good for about £65 off scan

True, but that kit wont do your GPU, which is a pretty annoying fan, and you can still never get rid of fans completely just because you need airflow for drives mosfets etc. The cheapest watercooling kit (for silence) id consider is a Reserator 1, which comes with a gpu block, and also makes a nice desk ornament.

[dodgybob]

Don't forget Seasonic psus. I bought a 500w S12 and when i first tested it i thought it was broken as i couldn't hear anything only to look down and see the fan spinning away.

Silentpcreview absolutely love them. Got mine from xcase.co.uk and although they're a little bit more expensive than say enermax psus i think they're definitely worth it. Very high efficiency too, 80%+.

[amjedm]

I intended my pc to be quiet but...it hums!
i got...

I'm going to get some new 120mm fans which ones would you recommend? I'm thinking the akasa quiet ones or if i'm feelin crazy then maybe some silenX ones? They are like £20 tho >.<

Fans I currently have (120mm)

Yate Loon - medium and slow speed
SilenX 14dba (a couple)
Aerocool Turbine (a couple)
Enermax Adjustable
Globe

The quietest are the Yate Loon (start around 4.5v) and the Aerocool when undervolted. The SilenX are anything but quiet (even when undervolted).

[ja3h]

Noiseblocker or Yateloon for fans all the way. Akasa is basically pap. same goes for your heatsink, get a cnps7000alcu or some such. Can you feel your case vibrating? Its prob worth investing in some suspension kits/fan grommets and acoustic wadding too.

My case is probably vibrating! Its an akasa eclipse case so its not the quietest! I will have to invest in some noise blocker fans then. I am interested in the new zalman cpu cooler, i can't remember whats it called at the mo. I might buy that to replace the akasa cooler.

Thanks for your advice, i might be buying a new case, the p180 is meant to be really good in terms of noise reduction right?