Fanless underclocked penryn for absolute quiet?

[scruffypup]

You can have a fanless system and even do a slight overclock without heat issues.

Now I would still recommend 1-2 low rpm fans which can be nearly silent and some case mods to further dampen the sound, which would allow for the same low noise overall with better cooling.

I cannot stand running my penryn at 50% overclock since I am currently on an intel HSF and when it runs full speed it is annoyingly loud,... so I currently run it at 25% with it very quiet (1000 rpm intel hsf is about the noisiest part), once I get around to changing a couple things I can still have a 50+% overclock and have it near silent. I am willing to give up a little on the max overclock to have the noise reduced dramatically.

Some of us prefer lower noise systems, nothing crazy about it. That is why there are even a few websites dedicated to silent computing,....

 

[taltamir]

Depending on the case and the airflow

With a fanless setting, there IS NO airflow in his case...

Just get silent fans.

 

[scruffypup]

I was thinking along the lines of a normal PSU which would still have a fan, but no case fans or HS fan. Of course you can eliminate the PSU fan and still have airflow, there will always be some airflow due to simple physics which means the hot air as the molecules become excited will rise and cool air will fall due to density.

Now granted this is not something really to rely on for a computer system as the reliability factor of not having heat issues goes way down, unless you want to engineer a case from scratch maybe. You can have a fanless system with exception to the PSU fan and get away with it, the heat doesn't even have to go through the PSU as you can reverse the fan and have air pushed into the system through the PSU.

You can also get one of the way too expensive cases that act as a heatsink for your system, which transfers heat to air outside the system.

If you were creative I am sure you could find many ways to go fanless,... and not just by putting the computer in the refrigerator either.

Though I would always recommend 1-2 quiet, low rpm fans,... these can create an ultra quiet system in the right combination with other parts.

 

[Tempered81]

why not the stock intel with the smart fan control "quiet fan" option.

the fan only spins when you need it, and even then it's not loud at all.

 

[scruffypup]

I currently have that on my system and it is louder than I like. I think the OP point is he is wanting something quieter as many of us do.

 

[aigomorla]

can i just ask how many of you guys actually participating have ever tried to run a passive system?

Let alone a Passive penryn. AKA QUADCORE.

The OP said Fanless, there is only 2 fanless options i can possibly think of.
The 2 would be a zalman case.

Now extremely low noise with the least amount of fans, running the CPU fanless is possible. The first option at top ISNT unless you pull off a fanless PSU, and you get a really good convection case.

Now since i dont think the OP was aware of fanless psu's, and since your gonna get one inside, a shock absorb'd Yate loon spinning at around 900-1100 RPM's will generate less noise then the fan inside your PSU.

And having this yate in your REAR will kick start your airflow and really help you out.


BTW: this thread SHOULD be in cases and cooling.

Now since your not going to have a full on active cooling on your sink, you need a sink whch has a lot of mass. Why? the more mass the sink, the longer it takes for the sink to heat up.

The longer it takes for the sink to heat up, the colder the base gets, and your equalibrium point will go lower.

This is why a massive sink is important for passive systems.


Guys if you dont have any experience with a passive system, or havent built a passive system, dont participate.

Theres so many things you can bork on and mess up. <no joke>

1. Overheating and dying northbridge / mosfet is one thing on the top of my list.
2. BSOD centeral from overheating components is another.

Lots and Lots of things...

In short, its about as expensive to build a full on passive system then it is to watercool.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: scruffypup
I currently have that on my system and it is louder than I like. I think the OP point is he is wanting something quieter as many of us do.

ok but...

Originally posted by: jaredpace
why not the stock intel with the smart fan control "quiet fan" option.

the fan only spins when you need it, and even then it's not loud at all.

This is what I did and it became completely silent. I have a fileserver with the quiet fan option (700 rpm case and 800rpm CPU unless temps get too high, on fans that can do much higher) and I unplugged my LED lights, and people think the server is always off (it is always on). You just can't hear it.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Why do we have two of these threads?

 

[Markfw]

I just put then together, but not sure where the new messages went, top or bottom.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I just put then together, but not sure where the new messages went, top or bottom.

They all got added to the end of the thread and list with identical post datetime (10/7 at 7:29 EST)

 

[Foxery]

Thank god. I thought I was going crazy reading the same posts over and over.

OP: Out of curiousity, are you willing to spend a lot of extra money to reduce your noise?
See also http://www.frostytech.com/
and http://www.silentpcreview.com/
for more ideas.

 

[scruffypup]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
can i just ask how many of you guys actually participating have ever tried to run a passive system?

Let alone a Passive penryn. AKA QUADCORE..

Penryn is not just quadcore to start off with, it refers to the die shrink and subtle changes in architecture over the conroes. It can be a dual core,... an e7200, e8400 etc are penryn based chips, though more often referred to as wolfdales

Guys if you dont have any experience with a passive system, or havent built a passive system, dont participate.

Theres so many things you can bork on and mess up. <no joke>

1. Overheating and dying northbridge / mosfet is one thing on the top of my list.
2. BSOD centeral from overheating components is another.

Lots and Lots of things...

In short, its about as expensive to build a full on passive system then it is to watercool.

I have gone passive, though anymore I will use 1-2 fans. I believe most builds are overkill anymore with 5+ fans and such as you can have proper cooling with much less and still overclock, which produces less noise overall and less draw on power.

It is possible to build a fairly passive system that it is much cheaper than watercooling, but yes it needs to be done with more consideration to parts and case. The points you bring up where you can mess up on are things to consider in any build whether you go with massive air cooling, water cooling or passive cooling.

I think the general advice to the OP is to consider a couple of silent low rpm fans. That is very doable and with proper components with it would be very quiet. To the OP you might want to look at www.silentpcreview.com for apples to apples comparison on some fans, which heatsinks would be good for passive operation, and the forums there for various ideas on quieting other components.

 

[Concillian]

FYI, e5200 is probably the best chip to try this out with.

With 12.5x multiplier, it gives you lots of room for underclocking. I checked default speed (2.5 GHz) at 1.05v and it was stable on my CPU (12 hours 2xPrimes running).

seems like somewhere around 2GHZ or so you could probably get it running at 0.9 or maybe even 0.87v. Definitely would be faster than P4 2.8 even if you had to underclock to ~1.6k-ish, though I think you can get low enough voltage to run passive at 2.0-ish.

TDP of e5200 is listed at 65W, but it's not really 65W. e8600 has the same TDP rating, but not only runs higher clock speed, but also higher voltage and has more transistors due to the extra cache (though cache typically is low power). I've seen estimates of the e5200 more in the 25-35W range stock, which would put one that was running 0.87 - 0.9v somewhere in the 10-20 watt range, which isn't all that different from typical northbridge output, and should be easily doable with passive cooling, provided there is enough airflow inside the case.

I don't think I'd use a 100% passive setup without a special "heatsink" case. Heat still needs to get out, and to do that, you need some air moving. There are some very silent fan options, you may want to check out silentpcreview.com for the best fan and power supply options. Most important are fanless GPU and motherboard options, because the small fans are high pitched and most annoying. Keep the rest of the system to low speed 120mm or larger fans and you will have very, very near silent, while you get the airflow you need. A quiet power supply plus one or two undervolted quiet case fans should be adequate.

Another factor is whether a motherboard will undervolt. I have a P43 ASUS board (P5QL-E) and it will undervolt, but I've seen other brands of inexpensive motherboards not have undervolt options in BIOS (only higher voltage for overclocking).

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Why not just buy a laptop?

They have fans too, and rather noisy ones. Sure, they're quiet for a while, until the fan kicks in.

Not "silent" but very quiet. This was my main rig (until I fiddled with stuff). That 120mm case fan is undervolted. CPU was a 65nm Conroe E6750 overclocked to 3.2GHz with a passive Scythe Ninja. Video card is an overclocked 8800 GT with a passive AC Accelero S1. PSU is reasonably quiet. HDDs are suspended in the Antec Solo chassis.