New system - first thoughts

[jt256]

Got hold of my core i7 system a couple of weeks ago, but have been away and haven't had much of a chance to test it.

Installed vista, seems to fly along. Very well packaged.

But it's VERY loud. I spent a lot of money on an upgrade to an antec p182 case and Paul M assured me this would be a quiet choice. But the background hum is severe, and I'm hugely disappointed with the noise, even when the PC is in the corner of my room. There are two fan speed options on the back of the case, and they're both set to low, so I think something else must be causing this problem. If they told me it would be this loud there's no way I would have splashed out a grand for it. No way at all. It's louder than all my friends' regular desktops (Dells, HPs etc)

Here's an mp3 I just recorded, you can listen for yourself. EDIT - apparently I can't post links. Great. Go to tinyurl and tinyurl.com/cqghxn to download the mp3 file

The other things are I can't resume from vista sleep - when i push the power button after sending it to sleep the machine sounds like it's firing up, but nothing appears on screen, and no signal is sent to the monitors to wake them up. I then have to hold the power button for 5 secs to get out of that state.

Also my boot up times are getting slower for no apparent reason. Even the opening bios page now hangs for 10 secs whereas before it was quick.

I'll try and set up a virtual support thingy tomorrow. If anyone can suggest how to safely go about removing some of the noisy fans without blowing this thing up please let me know. There's no way I can have something this loud whirring away all the time, so hopefully we can find a solution.

[NightOwl]

Re. the going to sleep thing - I have a Core i7 too, an Asus P6T motherboard and Vista. When my system goes to sleep (it powers down completely, like it's switched off, with just a winking power light to indicate the suspended state) I just wiggle the mouse or tap a key to get it to wake up again, I don't think I've ever used the power button. I presume you've tried the mouse/keyboard approach, have you?

The funny thing is that I have had a number of computers over the years and this is the first time I have ever seen this feature work properly! It's always been a nuisance so I understand where you're coming from with this problem. Normally I turn power saving off but forgot to do this on the new system when I got it recently - when it first powered itself down my dismay turned to astonishment when the PC and monitor actually woke up again within a few seconds!

Anyway, this is probably not a great deal of help, sorry. I guess my point is that it probably should work with the i7/P6T/Vista combination. My Vista power settings are simply to put the PC to sleep after 60 minutes. I don't know offhand what my Bios settings are for this, AFAIK they are still the default power settings that came with the PC, but maybe that's an area you could investigate, the wake up ability may be disabled there.

[jackvdbuk]

whats fans are in there? sounds quite noisy but then again my reply to that is turn the sound up MOAR!

check google for the vista standby problem, see if there is any help elsewhere. so many people have problems with standy/sleep modes

check the bios to make sure quick boot is enabled, which skips a few tests before loading the OS

[Philipp]

Got hold of my core i7 system a couple of weeks ago, but have been away and haven't had much of a chance to test it.

Installed vista, seems to fly along. Very well packaged.

But it's VERY loud. I spent a lot of money on an upgrade to an antec p182 case and Paul M assured me this would be a quiet choice. But the background hum is severe, and I'm hugely disappointed with the noise, even when the PC is in the corner of my room. There are two fan speed options on the back of the case, and they're both set to low, so I think something else must be causing this problem. If they told me it would be this loud there's no way I would have splashed out a grand for it. No way at all. It's louder than all my friends' regular desktops (Dells, HPs etc)

Here's an mp3 I just recorded, you can listen for yourself. EDIT - apparently I can't post links. Great. Go to tinyurl and tinyurl.com/cqghxn to download the mp3 file

The other things are I can't resume from vista sleep - when i push the power button after sending it to sleep the machine sounds like it's firing up, but nothing appears on screen, and no signal is sent to the monitors to wake them up. I then have to hold the power button for 5 secs to get out of that state.

Also my boot up times are getting slower for no apparent reason. Even the opening bios page now hangs for 10 secs whereas before it was quick.

I'll try and set up a virtual support thingy tomorrow. If anyone can suggest how to safely go about removing some of the noisy fans without blowing this thing up please let me know. There's no way I can have something this loud whirring away all the time, so hopefully we can find a solution.

jt256,

Please email me your invoice number (philipp@scan.co.uk), I am sorry you are disappointed with your 3XS machine,

There is something else wrong here, our systems are not loud for no apparent reason, and the Tri Speed fans on the Antec cases are good when set to low you shouldn’t be able to hear them…..

I am wondering if something might be caught in a fan etc etc…

Again if you can email me your invoice number and contact details I will get a member of the support team to contact you right away.

Regards

[moogle]

I am wondering if something might be caught in a fan etc etc…

Sounds loud but not as loud as if something is caught in them Phil. If it's a Tricool fan maybe the switch is set to high? Just my 2p

[Philipp]

Sounds loud but not as loud as if something is caught in them Phil. If it's a Tricool fan maybe the switch is set to high? Just my 2p

Ohh not downloaded the MP3 yet, ill get onto that.

Good call with the fan switch, jt256 please check the fans are set to low.

Regards

[jt256]

Ok thanks for your thoughts people. I have emailed philip with the order info.

There are three fans in my case. I suspect they are the standard antec ones. The front fan blows into the case, through an empty cage into one of the cpus 120MM AMBER Case Fan AK183L2B

The top fan blows down onto the cpu cooler

The rear fan blows out of the case. The other 120mm amber fan blows straight onto the rear fan, which in turn funnels air out of the case.

The hardware switches adjust the top and rear fans. Setting to med or high makes things even louder.

All three case fans are activated from power on, there does not seem to be any thermal policy like in my laptop. I wonder if bios is meant to take care of this? It really does make a hec of a din, especially when there's no music. It's like the noise you get from a desk fan on full blast. A whirr, not a grating sound, but loud enough to ruin quiet music.

I also seemed to have knackered my overclock settings. I chose the "optimal settings" in the bios, and now i've lost my OC and am back to 2.6 ghz. I then tried to use and save "previous settings", but it didn't work. I wonder how I should get back the bios settings with the 3xs overclock? I mentioned this in the email to philp, hopefully they can help.

Thanks guys, JT

ps - very attractive layout in the box, top marks for neatness!

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi JT256

Please do check the fan switches on the system as its possible that the top fan is causing the noise, this when set to low is a lot quieter, as the system is an Overclocked system however I would advise that you dont turn all the fans down as the system does need to be kept cool

If you have a memory fan as well these are very small fans and can be quite loud when running at full speed, in the bios you can set the fans to Qfan which will control the speeds of any fans connected to the motherboard...

I have called and left you a voice mail and also emailed you the overclocked settings you wanted

Cheers

Ben

[format]

Not sure if I read correctly, but shouldn't the top fan in the P182 be taking air out of the case(away from the CPU?)
I have my P182 with 3 Nexus 1200 fans, and a Sharkoon 1000 over my TRUE. The top HDD cage is removed with a fan there, it makes for improved airflow.
THe other two Nexus fans take hot air away from the CPU cooler, with the Sharkoon pushing air horizontally out of the case towards the back fan.
I bought the P182 because I'm always on the quest for a quieter computer. I personally found the TriCools a little too loud so I swapped them out.
Could I ask what GFX card you have and what cooler you have on your CPU? It could well be the noise created those that you are hearing.

[jt256]

Yes, sorry, the top fan is blowing air out through the top.

I disconnected the front fan, as it was causing the most hassle. I also got the overclock settings back with help from Ben - thanks Ben - who pointed me towards F12 once I was in the BIOS settings. Fortunately Scan had saved a profile.

At 100% load (a 3d render that uses all 8 cores) I'm topping out at 70 deg C. Idle at 47 ish. That seems OK to me, so I think I'll leave the front fan off.

Graphics card is a not too high end 9800 xxx 512mb. I'm running dual 24inch 1920 x 1200s. No gaming. This is my first time using Vista and it's flying along, much better multi core support than XP, really pleased with it so far. Initially had XP installed on this i7 system but it just didn't feel right.

The question remains, though, how to ensure that if you ask for a quiet system you'll get one. I've since learned that I need to get ultra quiet case fans for the p182, and that they connect straight into the psu, no motherboard control. So any prospective customers looking for a quiet pc, you'd better make damned sure you talk it through before you end up with a noisy beast. I would prefer it if mine was uber quiet, if anyone can recommend what fans I need please let me know. It'd be really nice if Scan sent me a couple as a comp for sending me a noisy box ;-)

[format]

Personally I prefer to connect my fans to the mobo purely for ease of cable management.
Not sure how noisy the cooler on the 9800 is but it could be that making all the noise?

As for case fans, Noctua, Nexus, or low RPM Scythe fans are all fine, although some can be expensive.

I'd recommend the the Nexus 1200RPM models , they can connect either via the motherboard or the PSU. After being out at a club I cannot even hear my case atm with them They are very quiet

I'd also consider replacing the front fan, as its the only way that cool air can efficiently get in to your case.