How much noise should I expect with my new system?

[powerMarkymark]

After about 2 months of extensive research reading every review I could find and forum posting and lots of great advise, I have settled on the following harware to put in my new system (see details below) and will have it on Friday.

Please advise me on how much noise I should expect from this new setup.

Did I go overboard with the all the fans? If the noise level is too much, can I place switches on a few of thefans (such as the HD fans and two of the case fans)?

I am a newbie so any advise is welcome.

Thanks.

Antec 1030 Enermax SPI Case Black Med Server Tower
4 x 80mm case fans, 2 for case intake lower front, 2 for exhaust upper back.
Enermax EG 365 P-VE Whisper Series (Fan Control) 430w Atx Power Supply
AMD Athlon XP 1800 CPU
Alpha socket 370/fc-pga Heatsink/Fan PAL6035MFC
Arctic Silver II Thermal paste
Abit KR7A 133 Raid Motherboard
Thermaltake Chipset Blue Orb Fan 15mm (15CFM) on MOBO chipset
512 MB Major DDR PC 2100 RAM
MSI GeForce 3 TI 200 64 MB VID CARD AGP with TV out
Thermaltake Chipset Blue Orb Fan 15mm (15CFM) on Video card
ATI TV Wonder PCI TV Tuner Card
2 X WESTERN 60 GB 7200 IDE ATA 100 (Hard Drives installed on Highpoint RAID but NOT as RAID array, both masters)
2 X Hard Drive Coolers (One Mounts in the 5.25" bay and has a detachable front grill w/3 X 15mm fans other is a horizontal mounting 120mm fan on top of Hard Drive)
LITE-ON 32X IDE CD-RW Retail
Pioneer DVD-116T 16x
Creative SB Live Audigy Sound Card
1.44mb Floppy Drive
D-Link DFE-538tx 10/100 pci wol Ethernet Card
PS2 Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Freedom Optical Mouse
4 port D-Link Dl-701 Gateway/Firewall Router
Windows XP professional edition

Thanks.

 

[Jman13]

Nice system! It's actually quite similar to the rig I'm running right now. (not everything is the same, of course). The 4 case fans can be loud. I've got 4 running in my SX1040 case as we speak...however, 2 of them are very quiet, so it's not overwhelmingly loud. I think you'll enjoy the computer! Have fun building it. My current machine was the first I built from scratch too.

 

[unsped]

blu orb is a lousy cooler that wears out prematurely in my opinion. my replacement is on the way.

also you say 4x80mm fans ... whats the db rating on them?

the cpu fan, dc pico ace 25 is only 28db ... not real loud.

all those hard drive fans? hhehe

i think there are so many unkowns the asnwer will be? yes it will be loud, I would say a notch under a single delta cpu fan.

also I hear the enermax auto fan control can be annoying if its changing speeds alot.

are you even overclocking it? the xp cpu's don't run too warm, if your not I would say the psu/cpu ... and maybe one quiet 80mm would be fine.

then again im anal about noise, if you bought the stuff already see if you can live with it. I would definitely suggest a baybus to turn the fans off when you don't need them. we get new dells in at work all the time ... and you can't even hear them run .... ahh if only it were that simple.

either way nice kickass system.

 

[Buz2b]

Sounds like a bit of overkill on the HDD fans. I'd lose the horizontal one. 4X80mm fans is quite a bit also but as mentioned it is going to depend upon what the dba rating is on them. You can get an idea (if you know the dba numbers) by going here. My opinion would be that you could also lose one of the 80mm exhaust fans as the Enermax will do a good job of helping in that area. I'd also move one of the front intake fans to make a side blow hole onto the CPU/video card area. Then I think, as unsped mentioned, consider something other than the blue orb. My .02 cents worth.

 

[powerMarkymark]

<< Sounds like a bit of overkill on the HDD fans. I'd lose the horizontal one. 4X80mm fans is quite a bit also but as mentioned it is going to depend upon what the dba rating is on them. You can get an idea (if you know the dba numbers) by going here. My opinion would be that you could also lose one of the 80mm exhaust fans as the Enermax will do a good job of helping in that area. I'd also move one of the front intake fans to make a side blow hole onto the CPU/video card area. Then I think, as unsped mentioned, consider something other than the blue orb. My .02 cents worth. >>



Well I'm sorta the "all or nothing kind of guy" !!!! The reason for the "overkill" is I do plan on overclocking in the near future.

I read a few reviews on the Thermaltake Blue Orb and all were favourable! Well they are bought and paid for so I will try them out and get back to you guys.

By the way unsped, what is a baybus?

 

[Phunktion]

There's no point in using HDD coolers in the case.. the built in HDD cooler is more than sufficient and since it takes in outside air to cool the hard drives they can't possibly get any more cooling any other way..

The HDD coolers would just add unnecessary extra noise to the system..

 

[jiffylube1024]

<< Thermaltake Chipset Blue Orb Fan 15mm (15CFM) on MOBO chipset
Arctic Silver II Thermal Paste >>



The system sounds great except for a couple of issues. The blue orb has been discontinued and replaced by the better performing Crystal Orb. However, I would recommend on getting neither, as putting a fan on the mobo chipset is way overkill. It's totally useless and cooling a northbridge/whatever pretty much never limits anything. Especially with so many case fans doing the job already🙂!

As for the thermal paste, there is no other than Arctic Silver, however why use AS2 when AS3 is out and performs (slightly) better. Unless you already own AS2 then go for AS3 all the way!

I also think that 2 hard drive coolers is way over kill, just get 1 or zero. As for the 4X 80mm case fans, make sure that you have place to mount them in the case, as well as that they all flow in a single direction (like intaking air in the front, and sucking air out in the back). Also make sure the case fans aren't too loud as they will drive you nuts if they're too noisy.

 

[powerMarkymark]

<< After about 2 months of extensive research reading every review I could find and forum posting and lots of great advise, I have settled on the following harware to put in my new system (see details below) and will have it on Friday.

Please advise me on how much noise I should expect from this new setup.

Did I go overboard with the all the fans? If the noise level is too much, can I place switches on a few of thefans (such as the HD fans and two of the case fans)?

I am a newbie so any advise is welcome.

Thanks.

Antec 1030 Enermax SPI Case Black Med Server Tower
4 x 80mm case fans, 2 for case intake lower front, 2 for exhaust upper back.
Enermax EG 365 P-VE Whisper Series (Fan Control) 430w Atx Power Supply
AMD Athlon XP 1800 CPU
Alpha socket 370/fc-pga Heatsink/Fan PAL6035MFC
Arctic Silver II Thermal paste
Abit KR7A 133 Raid Motherboard
Thermaltake Chipset Blue Orb Fan 15mm (15CFM) on MOBO chipset
512 MB Major DDR PC 2100 RAM
MSI GeForce 3 TI 200 64 MB VID CARD AGP with TV out
Thermaltake Chipset Blue Orb Fan 15mm (15CFM) on Video card
ATI TV Wonder PCI TV Tuner Card
2 X WESTERN 60 GB 7200 IDE ATA 100 (Hard Drives installed on Highpoint RAID but NOT as RAID array, both masters)
2 X Hard Drive Coolers (One Mounts in the 5.25" bay and has a detachable front grill w/3 X 15mm fans other is a horizontal mounting 120mm fan on top of Hard Drive)
LITE-ON 32X IDE CD-RW Retail
Pioneer DVD-116T 16x
Creative SB Live Audigy Sound Card
1.44mb Floppy Drive
D-Link DFE-538tx 10/100 pci wol Ethernet Card
PS2 Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Freedom Optical Mouse
4 port D-Link Dl-701 Gateway/Firewall Router
Windows XP professional edition

Thanks. >>



Well I got the computer and I listened to some of your sugestions.

I left out the Blue Orb's and one of the hard disk coolers (the one with the triple fans) and I wind up with a very respectable sound level. Something that I can definately put up with, no problem.

I also added a secondary Vid card, an ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI.

I must admit that the setup is rather sweet. 😉

Thanks for all your kind words and advise.