Over £300 to silence my PC?

[starbuck]

Want to silence my pc(as below). Bit shocked when I added up the cost of what I was looking at to silence it.

1st - a zalman reserator plus to cool cpu,gpu and northbridge = approx £200 incl. the fan for the reserator to cool it a bit more. CPU currently cooled by arctic freezer 64(orig version not new pro version)

2nd - 3 silentmaxx enclosures to quieten my 3 hard drives - £37 each

3rd - 2 quiet 120mm fans - exact ones yet to be decided but prob costing £5-£10 each plus about £6 for 2 rubber grommets to quieten them further.

Am replacing my thermaltake PSU with a OCZ modstream 600w PSU that I have which should be quieter as it has 120mm fans in it.

Any other ways to quieten my pc without blowing the bank(I can afford the above but then won't be getting anything else for a while if I spend that much).

As mentioned in a previous thread, I will be wanting to leave my pc on 24/7(not all the time but occasionally. Want to be able to sleep with it on and when I go on holiday in july it will be on 24/7 for 3 weeks). So I want my pc to be as silent as possible(background noise silent so you don't notice it) while only spending money on things that will actually work and make a difference.

couple of questions:

1 - What do you think of the above choices?
2 - Are there other/more cost efficient ways of making pc quieter(without replacing my harddrives for quieter models)?

[scrandman]

Scythe Ninja Plus for the CPU and Zalman VF900 for the GFX card. If your motherboard doesn't properly support fan slowing (Q-fan on ASUS boards, but it's not always great), then also invest in an additional Zalman fan-mate (the VF900 comes with one too).

The Sharkoon fans come with gromets and are £6-7 a pop. I'm using the 2000rpm model dropped to 5V - turns at 1300 rpm and is pretty quiet.

[starbuck]

my gfx card is currently cooled by a VGA silencer(forgotten the exact name but it is one of the most well known ones & it's rev 5 of the silencer).

Main concern though is my harddrives as they seem to be making most of the noise(they would do what with 3 of them).

I think the main things to quieten are the cpu, gpu and the hdd's.

Are the Scythe Ninja Plus for the CPU and Zalman VF900 quieter than what I have at the moment?

[toolsong]

I have:
Antec P180 with 2 case fans on low
Thermalright SI-120 & 120mm Akasa amber fan
Evercool VC-RE on northbridge
X1900XT stock cooling (the loudest fan when idle)
Seasonic 600W PSU (the best one to get)
3 hard disks

and sleeping isn't a problem except that I cover the blue HD activity LED

[davidstone28]

You don't actually say what CPU/GPU you're trying to cool, what case you have or where the current sources of noise are located. Why don't you post the details of your system? That way you're more likely to get specific suggestions.

1. The reserator makes a faint "humming" sound, which although isn't noticeable during daytime, you may notice it in the dead of night, depending on how close you sleep to it. The reserator also tends to quite sensitive to ambient room temperatures, so if you're a small room with the central heating on full blast, be prepared for high(ish) temperatures.

2. You can get quieter than the Reserator by careful choice of quiet fans / fan controller with the fans undervolted to 5v. The Nexus 120mm are good, as the Antec TriCools. Personally, I was a bit disappointed with the SilenX and Acoustifans.

3. Rubber grommets are a complete waste of time. They're simply not soft enough and neither do they decouple the screw completely (you still have metal on metal). All you need is a piece of foam (say from a HDD box) on each corner of the fan and thread a piece of string through the case hole/foam/fan hole.

4. CPU/GPU coolers need to be passive. For example, Scythe Ninja, Aercool VM-102. See here: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...passive+7900GT

5. That OCZ PSU isn't known for being quiet. Its madness spending £200 getting quiet components elsewhere and then getting a PSU that is going to be the biggest source of noise. I would also be amazed if you needed a "600W" PSU. Are you running SLI?

6. What the source of noise with your HDDs? It is idle or is it when its seeking? If its only when its seeking, simply decoupling the driver using elastic or string, will make quieter than any HDD enclosure.

You really need to identify what are current sources of noise before you start selecting components.

[FatalSaviour]

His got his spec in his sig David...I missed it for a moment too though

[starbuck]

You don't actually say what CPU/GPU you're trying to cool, what case you have or where the current sources of noise are located. Why don't you post the details of your system? That way you're more likely to get specific suggestions.

Sorry, meant to mention to look at my sig as it shows my sys specs.

That OCZ PSU isn't known for being quiet. Its madness spending £200 getting quiet components elsewhere and then getting a PSU that is going to be the biggest source of noise. I would also be amazed if you needed a "600W" PSU. Are you running SLI?

Already had the PSU so may as well use it.

You really need to identify what are current sources of noise before you start selecting components.

Thought I'd mentioned that previously - my 3 hdd's, cpu and gpu.

[cotswoldcs]

I don't think you need the optional fan for the Reserator 1 Plus unless you are heavily overclocked. My P4 3.0 Northwood is running fine at 3.4Ghz and CPU temp never goes over 38c under heavy load. Also unless you are seriously overclocking the additional Northwood cooler isn't necessary unless you have a fan on the chip (which annoys me).

I use a OneClick intelligent mains panel to power off the Reserator, monitors, speakers etc when the computer shuts down. This means the computer is trully 100% silent once you have shut down the computer. I hate the whines and buzzes you get from electrical stuff.

Not sure about your choice of PSU - I'd pay a little more and go for a semi-fanless or decent Seasonic PSU. Check out this link.

Have you enough 5.25 bays free for the SilentMaxx coolers??? I know the Antec P180 is a big case but you probably have some bays taken up.

[davidstone28]

I've got "show signatures" turned off in the control panel so stop seeing huge pictures being duplicated 50 times in a long thread......

[amjedm]

Scythe Ninja Plus for the CPU and Zalman VF900 for the GFX card. If your motherboard doesn't properly support fan slowing (Q-fan on ASUS boards, but it's not always great), then also invest in an additional Zalman fan-mate (the VF900 comes with one too).

The Sharkoon fans come with gromets and are £6-7 a pop. I'm using the 2000rpm model dropped to 5V - turns at 1300 rpm and is pretty quiet.

Starbuck, hope you don't mind me asking a question.

Scrandman - have you compared noise and airflow of the Sharkoon fans to any other fans? Just trying to find out how quite they will be. Thanks.

[starbuck]

Starbuck, hope you don't mind me asking a question.

Not at all, ask away.

[DanceswithUnix]

Some hard drives can be put into a quiet seek mode (at the expense of a little performance) using a utility from the manufacturer. Samsung drives used to be the only drives that shipped in this mode, one of the reasons they have such a reputation for being quiet.

Might be worth seeing if such a utility exists for your drives.

[Pie_uk]

isnt that for the deskstar t7250 ? samsung do it to by the sounds of it

[BenW]

Heres my 2 pence

2 x Case fans, Nexus 120mm from KustomPCs - £12 each

Cable ties and some foam to mount the fans. Put a cable tie through the fan mounting hole, through the holes on the fan and another cable tie on the inside to secure it. Put some foam between the case and fan. Hard to explain but theres a tutorial on spcr forums.

Hard drive enclosures sound good if you drives are fairly noisy to start with. I've got a single samsung spinpoint and its suspended with elastic, works well with just one drive

PSU, get a seasonic S12. Maybe the 500W version?

CPU cooler, sythe ninja. I've thought about getting one and ducting it to the rear fan hole then mounting a fan on the other side of the cooler to push air over the fins and out of the rear fan hole. Could work well but i don't guarentee it.

GPU cooler, personally i use a thermaltake schooner which is a fanless cooler. It keep my 9800Pro cooler than my old arctic cooler and i even get a better overclock! Don't know what sort of heat your card puts out in comparison but if its similar then the thermaltake's worth a try. If not get the zalman

Northbridge, zalman fanless. Its blue and costs about £5



So, the cpu/gpu/northbridge would cost about £65
Fans and mounting - £25
Hard Drive enclosures - £37 each
PSU - £60?

Should be a better solution than above. Well, quieter but probably warmer

[SingingOrange]

what I would do personaly, forget the watercooling, since leaving your pc for 3 weeks on water is not a good idea, stick with air coolers.

use speedfan/ mb monitor to control the speed of the components. lower the fans to minimum when you go to sleep, and put them on normal when you are using it. and high when you leave it for couple of days.

[5lab]

just put yer pc in a big box, fill it with cotton wool.