I'm tired of having a loud PC...

[LS8]

Semi-long rant:

I have a loud PC. I'm an IT guy and I work on this PC pretty much 8-10 hours a day in my home office.The hardware was high end in 2006 (FX60, X1950XTX, Raptor 74GB, etc). The hardware runs hot. I love it though, plenty of horsepower for what I do. The noise though, it's wearing on me. This set of hardware has been in three different cases (two Antecs and one Coolermaster) with all sorts of different cooling setups. Inevitably though, it takes a bunch of fans running at full speed to keep this thing cool - and I can't hardly take the noise anymore.

About a year ago, I finally had enough and decided to use my notebook full time. I very quickly missed having a tower. The big issues were the slow HD, horrible onboard sound and painfully slow GPU. I run two monitors at 1920 x 1200 and sometimes the video would "paint" the screen, like in the old days. Also not having two media drives for disc to disc burning was a pain. I also have multiple VMs running in the background most of the time. Needless to say I wanted my tower back, ASAP - my little Core Duo notebook just wasn't up to it.

So I yanked the tower out of the closet and got it back in action. It's still loud, it still takes 4 120mm fans running full blast to keep the case cool. It still takes an after market Zalman CPU cooler to keep the CPU cool and a Zalman GPU cooler to keep the GPU cool. I would really like to have a high end PC that was quiet. Hrrmmph. This thing sounds like a 4U server running at full speed.

 

[WildW]

Quietness IS doable.

A system with Speedstep/CoolNQuiet and a low power CPU is your friend. A big airy case helps too - my Antec P182 is the best, quietest case I've ever owned. Two 120mm fans at 5V or less have been plenty to cool a system not too different to yours in performance terms.

With the time and effort you could upgrade pretty cheaply. The way socket 939 is dying out has driven the resale prices of dual core Athlon 64's and DDR memory up. You could eBay your current stuff and buy better/faster/cooler/quieter with minimal outlay. FX60 especially.

Sounds like you need CPU and memory above graphics ability - swap out the X1950 for a cooler quieter thing - maybe even passive.

How much CPU power do you need? Consider an AM2+ board with a 45W Athlon X2 5050e (2.6GHz) - would give you an upgrade path to PhenomII later. I loved my Akasa Revo cooler on a 45W CPU. . . with a temperature controlled fan it can run passively most of the time. Loudest thing on my whole PC was the (quiet) power supply fan.

I recently changed to an overclocked cheap Core2Duo at 3.6GHz under a slow-spinning Zalman cooler - the 120mm fans have gone up to a full 5V and are now the loudest components.

 

[JaYp146]

If possible, exchange your Zalman GPU cooler for an Accelero S1 rev 2. Ghetto-mount a quiet 120mm fan; done.

Zalman CPU coolers are overrated and are louder than you might think. Replace it with a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 heatsink and a 1200 RPM or 1600 RPM Scythe SFlex 120mm fan.

Replace all open air fans (ie. exhaust or intake) with Scythe Slipstream fans, which are the quietest and most efficient 120mm fans in open air.

Also, look into buying Dynamat or other high quality noise dampening products. Better yet, take your questions to SilentPCReview's forums.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I'd second WildW's recommendations of a 45W TDP Athlon 5050e on an AM2+ motherboard. If and when you need to upgrade your CPU, you'll have an upgrade path.

I also have the Xigmatek HDT-S1283, which uses a 120mm fan to cool the CPU. Very quiet, and it keeps it very cool. You should be able to run it at incredibly low speeds on such a low-heat processor as the 5050e, but it's great because when you upgrade, it's still got enough cooling power to cool a faster CPU and remain quiet.

Get a quiet power supply as well - PC Power & Cooling Silencer is a great option there.

Don't forget a quiet hard drive as well! The people here tend to avoid the Western Digital Green hard drives because of their slower speed compared to the Blue and Black versions, but they're also quieter. They'll be tons quieter than your Raptor.

 

[LS8]

I have done the low-speed/quiet fan path. Inevitably what happens is the case just heats up and I end up going back to my Antec 3-speed fans and running them on high. My office has an ambient temp of around 72F - can't change that either.

Going with low power/slower/quiet components seems like a no brain'er but take the HD for example, I love my Raptor and would be missing it ASAP if I replaced it with a 7,200 rpm drive. Getting a new video card and cpu/mobo are ideas I have been kicking around. The 45w AMD cpus seem like a good choice. Not sure what I will do about the video card. The X1950XTX works great and when I want to fire up a game I can. If I went with something low power like an 8600 GT I think I would hate it.

 

[Blain]

The 1950XT is a power hog = heat generator.
The 4850 is a workable solution.

"Quiet Power" is all about building with the right components from the ground up.

 

[WildW]

Raptors aren't THAT loud in my experience. I'd guess it's more the constant fan noise that makes the most noise in a PC. There are various hard drive mounting schemes like suspending them and stuff. . . for a while I had my C drive sitting on a big lump of knobbly packing foam (from the box the hard disk came in) and all the vibration noise went away. If money were no object, an Intel SSD? =P

As for video card, there are passive options, including 9600GT and 4850 - with a slow 120mm fan they'd likely run fine. To be fair though I just bought a cheap 9800GTX+ with a regular cooler and its fan is only audible when gaming. I find the aim of the game with quiet computers is they have to be silent at idle and for general web/office use. When you fire up a game noise is less of a consideration.

Most of the last couple of generations of graphics cards downclock themselves a lot when not gaming. CPU's too, although depending on the chip this can end up disabled when you start overclocking. Thing is, when your 45W Athlon X2 slows down because you're just websurfing it's running at more like 10W or less. With a modern graphics card doing the same the heat issue just goes away.

 

[corkyg]

Get a liquid cooled system. In the meantime, play background music that overrides your machine.

 

[Elixer]

I find that HD noise is loudest (got 4 HDs), followed by PSU fan, then CPU fan, and then GPU fan, and finally chipset fan.
I even got the HDs on dampers, and it helps a bit, but it is still annoying.

If only SSD were cheaper.

 

[aigomorla]

build ground up passive.

use large sinks, and use slow moving fans for case fans.

Use Duct systems if you need focused cooling on specific hot zones.

Its doable, but it itself is a project.


Once you total'd up the project cost tho, you'll see it would of costed almost as much as a mid tier h2o system.

 

[imported_Scoop]

Take this to silentpcreview.com, there'll be people to help you out. Building a quiet system isn't too hard but you have to pay for the components, like PSU, case, CPU cooler and case fans.

Some suggestions would be to replace your current Raptor with Velociraptor taken out of that ridiculous icebox or whatever and suspending it. Or just get an SSD.

Your CPU and GPU are hot as hell and way outdated. Get an E8400 or similar what you think is enough. SPCR tells you what kind of a cooler you need and which fan for it. Same with the GPU, HD 4850 is a nice choice with Accelero S1 and some quiet fan like a Nexus 120 or 1200RPM Scythe S-Flex. These are also good for case fans (one in, one out).

I could go on about getting a Seasonic M12D-850W and Antec P182 to make a point that it won't be cheap. But it's fun

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: LS8
Going with low power/slower/quiet components seems like a no brain'er but take the HD for example, I love my Raptor and would be missing it ASAP if I replaced it with a 7,200 rpm drive. Getting a new video card and cpu/mobo are ideas I have been kicking around.

The new VelociRaptor drives are pretty much as quiet as any normal 7200RPM drive, and are faster than your old Raptors. That's a no-brainer. They also run extremely cool. Heck, my 7200RPM drives seem hotter.

For video cards, the 9800 GTX+, GTX 260 and GTX 285 are good choices. They have decent auto fan speed control and stay quiet when not gaming. If you want to stick with Radeons, I'd suggest a 4870 as I've heard many of the 4850 cards are noisier. If you are on a budget for the video card, then consider a BFG 9800 GT OC2 or OCX model. These two specific cards have special cooling that runs the GPU cooler while operating at a lower noise threshold. Newegg has them starting at $125. Disclaimer: I work for BFG.

For CPU, get a 45W AMD dual core, or an Intel "Wolfdale" core processor. Then, use a third party cooler like the Scythe Ninja. If you really need the performance for your VMs, then consider a Core 2 Quad 9000 series chip.

You may also consider a new PSU. The latest/greatest units from Corsair, BFG, Seasonic, Antec and others are typically pretty quiet compared to older PSUs. Just ask for opinions on specific models before buying, not after.

It is certainly possible to make a great performing computer that has a very low noise output. My own computer uses a Lian Li Lancool case with the three stock fans it comes with, which isn't even the best for low noise. I consider it very quiet. I'm a recovering quiet freak who used to passively cool everything, use silencing panels, soft-mount fans and suspend hard drives, so when I say a computer is reasonably quiet, I really mean it is pretty darn quiet. My computer has these parts: Core 2 Quad Q9450 overclocked to 3.2GHz and cooled by a Scythe Ninja using a quiet 120mm fan, BFG GTX 260 with stock cooler overclocked to 675/1458/2326 core/shader/memory, 1.5TB Seagate HDD, 750GB Samsung HDD, 300GB WD VelociRaptor. It sits under my desk but otherwise isn't really enclosed or anything. When sitting at my desk with it pretty much against my leg, I hear the ticking of the clock more than any noise the system puts out.

 

[T9D]

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