Fan-Weary

IronGeek

Junior Member
Jun 5, 2004
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It's time to upgrade my system. I've decided the thing bugging me most about my current box is all the fans, so it's time to go fanless!

I've heard rumors of "coil whine" and would like to avoid that as well.

What I've been thinking thus far is a fanless mobo with an AMD Kaveri APU, (as I'd like the chance to tinker with the 'Mantle' API,) paired with a pasively-cooled Palit GTX 750Ti, (as I still want to play with CUDA.)

So, who has insights upon nVidia & AMD playing nice? Fanless builds without "coil whine"? Those are my big concerns. Oh, & I haven't settled upon a form factor, but I guess slimming down to ITX would be kinda nice.

Thanks for any tips!

-IG
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
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Sadly the Kaveri CPU isn't exactly efficient, compared to the Intel choices; if you want to go fanless then I would recommend going with some Ivy Bridge or Haswell based.
 

IronGeek

Junior Member
Jun 5, 2004
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Sadly the Kaveri CPU isn't exactly efficient, compared to the Intel choices; if you want to go fanless then I would recommend going with some Ivy Bridge or Haswell based.

Ah, I hadn't learned much about them aside from the fact that they can run Mantle. Point taken; I'll probably opt for something less power-hungry.

I guess the passive Palit 750Ti isn't even on the mrket yet, is it?

-IG
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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> Oh, & I haven't settled upon a form factor, but I guess slimming down to ITX would be kinda nice.

In general, the smaller the case, the harder it is to cool quietly.

If budget isn't an issue, Puget Systems can build you a close-to-silent system using hand-picked quiet parts: http://www.pugetsystems.com/

For reviews of quiet and silent parts and systems: http://silentpcreview.com/
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
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One potentially good choice for the case is the Silverstone ML07- it's a Mini ITX case, but the GPU is on a riser. This means that the graphics card lies parallel with the motherboard, and also the GPU is in a separate compartment from the CPU so cooling them separately should be easier. http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=503
 

Piroko

Senior member
Jan 10, 2013
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From personal experience I'd recommend you to go for a system with a few silent case fans (one or two 120mm fans at 7V for example) instead of going fanless.

Coil whine isn't something you can avoid as it can happen with components from all price ranges. Typically though it's so silent that you won't be able to hear it, unless, well, you eliminate anything that is louder. Lower temperatures help as well at reducing it.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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Coil whine can be avoided with higher quality components. Some custom models advertise it as a feature.

Fanless isn't just the noise, its dust proof as well.
 

Piroko

Senior member
Jan 10, 2013
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Coil whine can be avoided with higher quality components. Some custom models advertise it as a feature.
How high of a quality do you want to go? Seasonic? Enermax? Google them + coil whine, you'll be surprised. Most PSUs have coil noise (actually, physics says pretty much all of them have it) and high temperatures plus very silent room will not help.

Fanless isn't just the noise, its dust proof as well.
Not specifically. Unless you go for a case with few vent holes, but then you'll run into thermal issues. He is targeting a system that'll be able to pull 130~150W after all.
 

Lorne

Senior member
Feb 5, 2001
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IronGeek, What do you have already?, Are you willing to take a performance hit just to be quieter.
 

IronGeek

Junior Member
Jun 5, 2004
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IronGeek, What do you have already?, Are you willing to take a performance hit just to be quieter.

My desktop is ancient!

Q660, nFofrce 680i mobo, Quadro FX1500

It did the job for a long time. In fact, I'm not *that* much of a gamer, (I do mostly coding & CAD) so it actually still handles the load pretty well. It's really just the *fan-noise* that's bothering me at this point. Not even really thinking home theater, either. Just want a *silent* system for my late-night experiments.

Still, I want to get as much performance as I can with a reasonable budget, which is what leads me to the 750Ti.
 

Piroko

Senior member
Jan 10, 2013
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With all the arguing I forgot to give a proper answer - If you do want to tinker with Mantle, then think about the A8-7600 since its price is fair and it's a moderate upgrade from your Q6600. Also you can always set it to 45W max, limiting power consumption even more. However, keep in mind that the Haswell Core i3s will probably be faster for you and consume even less power.
In both cases keep the stock cooler for now and replace it with an aftermarket tower cooler only when noise is an issue. Both CPUs would cut the power consumption by more than 50% at load and idle compared to your Q6600.

The GTX 750 Ti is a good idea, though you might get away with one with a fan. The fans on those new cards are much larger (lower rpm) and the cards idle at much lower power levels, keeping the fan at even lower speeds when you don't use it.

You might want to spend a bit extra on a good case, my personal recommendation would be the Fractal Design Define Mini. Keep the included fans at the front (positive air pressure), set them to a low-ish RPM and call it a day. If noise is too high for you, replace them with a pair of BeQuiet fans or sth. similar, but from my experience you probably won't have an issue with both this noise level as well as this noise type (minor wind noise, no bearing noises in most operating conditions).
I have a similar setup and during idle one of the loudest components is actually the WD Green HDD I have (which is actually a very silent HDD), followed by the front case fans at 7V (minor wind noise). The traffic outside of my house is now more annoying though...
 
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JDG1980

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2013
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My desktop is ancient!

Q660, nFofrce 680i mobo, Quadro FX1500

It did the job for a long time. In fact, I'm not *that* much of a gamer, (I do mostly coding & CAD) so it actually still handles the load pretty well. It's really just the *fan-noise* that's bothering me at this point. Not even really thinking home theater, either. Just want a *silent* system for my late-night experiments.

I suspect you don't have to go completely fanless to drastically reduce the noise levels from what you currently have. I've never used a Quadro FX1500, but looking at the photos, it appears to have a tiny and no doubt noisy axial fan. These fans don't always wear well, either - it could be much worse now than when you bought it, which is why you're starting to complain. For the Q6600 CPU, are you using the stock heatsink/fan, or an aftermarket product?

There's a decent chance you would be satisfied with a case designed for low noise (say, the Fractal Design Define R4 or Nanoxia Deep Silence 1) using a good tower heatsink for the CPU (the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo gets very good ratings and won't break the bank). For the power supply, you may want to consider the fanless Rosewill SilentNight - it's made by a well regarded OEM (Super Flower) and costs $120. FWIW, there have been less complaints of coil whine than with the Seasonic fanless supplies (though I think Seasonic has gotten better on this in recent years).
 

lyssword

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2005
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I know it has fans, but my r 270 asus dc2 is near silent, in all reviews it seems asus DC2 fans are the quietest. I mostly hear cpu fan even tho its not loud, but it does spin up a bit because of overclock, but then I didnt invest extra $ into quieter fan. Anyways, the stock 5770 fan annoyed the crap out of me, but custom asus fans is like night and day.
 

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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Fanless is extremely hard to achieve with standard desktop parts. Even if the GPU is fanless it would still need a case with sufficient airflow to shift the 70W of power it can output. I totally understand your desire for silent, but we need to work within the confines of what is possible today and fanless isn't.

The key to quiet/silent is low heat parts and big coolers with slow spinning fans. The bigger the cooler is the more surface area it has and the less airflow is necessary from the fan. So what you want you want to aim for is a big CPU cooler but with a low speed (less than 1200rpm, ideally 600rpm floor) fan. For your GPU the 750 is ideal as it's very low power consumption and pretty quiet out of the box, but you can also get quiet higher end cards as well like the vapour cards from saphire.

The other possibility is water cooling, well beyond your price range but I will mention it anyway. Water cooling allows you to remove what from where it is produced and take it to nice big radiators that can blow out of the case. The other route to quiet, even with a super high end rig is a lot of radiators (120mm worth per 130W of power with 800rpm fans) taking the heat away but with very quiet fans.
 

fleshconsumed

Diamond Member
Feb 21, 2002
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I've been building quiet (not silent) computers for a very long time. I just checked my silentpcreview forum membership and I joined them more than 10 years ago.

What you want is really really difficult to achieve. A purely silent system with zero fans is practically impossible with anything more than mid level components. It will be stable at idle or desktop/office/web usage but it will overheat and throttle (or shutdown) if you actually stress it. If you go fanless you not only have to worry about your CPU and GPU temperatures, but you also have to worry about north/south bridge temperatures and memory and hard drive temperatures as well. Without airflow ambient temperatures start playing big role as well, if you're in basement where it's 66 degrees, it's one thing, if you're in a small room upstairs where it's 77 degrees, that can make enough difference to make your system unstable. When I was pushing the limits with just one 700rpm 120mm exhaust fan cooling my PC my northbridge was scorching hot to the touch, and my Crucial Ballistix DDR2 ram would start giving me random errors. Granted, that was the infamous ballistix RAM that was so prone to the failure and I still think it was colossal failure on the crucial part, but it didn't give me errors when I kept it cool, or at least not as many. Then you also have to keep in mind that many of the "fanless" parts such as fanless PSUs or fanless videocards rely on some redisual case airflow to cool them down. Most of those part will not work very well if there is zero airflow.

As I said, it is really really difficult to build a completely silent system. However, it is very easy to build almost silent one. Personally I find 120mm fans (Nexus Real Silent) under 700RPM to be practically inaudible. Technically it's not silent, but it is inaudible unless you're up at 2am at night with zero noise coming from elsewhere and unless you actually try to listen for it. A case with two 120mm 700RPM fans and fanless components is completely doable and will be practically inaudible for all intents and purposes. You will have to choose your components carefully, but it is possible and this is what I would recommend. One thing, once you go down that path, the choice of fans start to matter. There is not much difference between fans once you hit 1000+ RPMs because the wind noise drowns everything else, however at really slow speeds such as 700RPMs the wind noise goes away and fan bearing/motor becomes the dominant source of noise. From my experience I have found that Nexus Real Silent fan is really good for vertical mount (very poor for horizontal mount as it starts to click), and Scythe fans with Sony's FDB motors are really good for both vertical and horizontal mount. Also, keep in mind that noise and hearing is very subjective. I'm currently using Scythe GT fans on my videocard radiators because they're the best fans for radiators, however, in general I find their tonal qualities very annoying if running at full speeds, but to be honest I think I'm one of the very few people who thinks so, most people love GT's, so noise is subjective, you might have to try a few fans before you find the ones you like.

Anyway, good luck with your build.
 
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IronGeek

Junior Member
Jun 5, 2004
11
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Wow, this all sounds like really good advice; thanks, all of you! I'm going to reconsider the "zero tolerance" approach & look at at least one large fan for the case. At work now, but will look over the components you've all recommended when I get a few minutes.

L8r-

-IG
 

Lorne

Senior member
Feb 5, 2001
873
1
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A I7 4790/K would be 20+ watt less power and heat and off the top of my head 40+ pct more performance, Top it with a nice cooling tower as mentioned above.
I am thinking you could dump both those GFX cards in place of a large fan NV 750, That will lower the wattage by another 180.
Unless use of the NV professional card is an absolute must it should go, The NV 750 has better performance then the Quadro FX1500 in most test and 20 watts less power draw.
You can use the 680 in a separate game machine because its still a awesome card.
 

Piroko

Senior member
Jan 10, 2013
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Just keep in mind how the human ear works, as soon as you eliminate the loudest noise source it'll adapt untill you can hear the next lower noise source. That can even be your own pulse, which is rather unpleasant. Thus, your goal should be to reduce noise where sensible and make the remaining sources of noise be as unobtrusive as possible. And low spinning 120mm/140mm fans do that trick for me.

Also, I prefer to have two or more fans in my system, a bit more noisy but that way they at least partially cancel out any ticks an individual fan can have. Also saves me time to find that perfect fan...
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
6,380
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Just keep in mind how the human ear works, as soon as you eliminate the loudest noise source it'll adapt untill you can hear the next lower noise source. That can even be your own pulse, which is rather unpleasant. Thus, your goal should be to reduce noise where sensible and make the remaining sources of noise be as unobtrusive as possible. And low spinning 120mm/140mm fans do that trick for me.

Also, I prefer to have two or more fans in my system, a bit more noisy but that way they at least partially cancel out any ticks an individual fan can have. Also saves me time to find that perfect fan...

This is definitely true, I built a fanless HTPC and the first thing I noticed was, I could hear 4200rpm WD Green storage drive...from 15 feet away. Ended up going with an SSD and stream data through a NAS drive.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,326
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Interesting thread to put here, versus Cases & cooling. But Gfx causes heat, and many gfx cards have fans.

It took me some years to refine a fan strategy and get it all to work. Maximize airflow over hot components and in proportion to their temperature; minimize the overall number of fans; choose the mobo fan ports to use sparingly and thoughtfully to implement total thermal control. For everything but the graphics fans (which are thermally controlled by a good graphics card), you only need to link everything to the CPU temperature.

If, at CPU idle, you can run all the fans at < 1,000 RPM, use large fans for intake and at idle running 300 RPM, your kruft and dust buildup problems diminish drastically. Under CPU load and high temperatures, the fans spin up toward top-end depending on your adjustments of fan-control software -- usually bundled with the motherboard. There are all sorts of ways to reduce the noise level of the noisiest fan or fans, and of course -- under most sane usage, those fans will seldom rise up to those high-end speeds, so . . .
 

monkeydelmagico

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2011
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If, at CPU idle, you can run all the fans at < 1,000 RPM, use large fans for intake and at idle running 300 RPM, your kruft and dust buildup problems diminish drastically. Under CPU load and high temperatures, the fans spin up toward top-end depending on your adjustments of fan-control software -- usually bundled with the motherboard. There are all sorts of ways to reduce the noise level of the noisiest fan or fans, and of course -- under most sane usage, those fans will seldom rise up to those high-end speeds, so . . .

Agreed. Sub 1000rpm 120mm or larger case fans drastically reduce noise. Controlling CPU fans so they don't spin up until under heavy load further reduces noise. That leaves the GPU. I've put mine under water (red mod) further reducing noise.

I game without headphones, my box sits on the desk less than 2 feet from my head, and I still don't hear it.