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Make my PC quieter

S

sathyan

Senior member
I would like to make my PC a bit quieter without increasing the heat too much.

what I have:
Case: PC Power & Cooling Personal Mid Tower
PSU: Antec EA-500
Fan: 1 Scythe SFF80C
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P
CPU: AMD Athlon II x3 (435) 2.9GHz
HSF: stock
RAM: 4 GB DDR3
GPU: HIS H467PS1GH Radeon HD 4670 iSilence4 1GB (fanless)
HDD: WD Caviar Green SATA
OS: Windows 7

I am satisfied with the speed and don't do any gaming. I would like to make my PC quiet enough that I can use it as a HTPC. It idles at around 30-35C, hitting 40C when doing h.264. For this project, I'm hoping I can just swap out the PSU or something. Water cooling is out of budget. What changes would you suggest? thanks
 
Well wahts the loudest component for you now? Stop each fan for half a sec and see which is the noisiest. I'm guessing the stock HS/fan since your GPU is silent. You only have 3 moving fans there... CPU, case and PSU. Obviously the CPU and case are the easiest to replace.
 
Get a proper heatsink. With a good 120mm or 140mm fan. Undervolt your CPU.
Get quieter case fans, and/or get a better case.
Get a fanless PSU. I remember Silverstone, I think, were releasing a series of fanless PSUs.
 
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Yeah, most likely you could drop $80 and get a quiet HSF and a fan controller for your case fans.

Sticking your finger in each fan will let you know which one makes the most noise though.
 
The Dark Knight will probably be quieter than the other fans in your case because of quality build and PWM, and is about $45? you don't need to spend $80.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
Get a fanless PSU. I remember Silverstone, I think, were releasing a series of fanless PSUs.
Click to expand...

The recent releases were Seasonic, and if water cooling is out of the budget, then a $140 PSU is out of the budget.

My guess is that the stock heatsink plus the 80mm case fan are the culprits, as the 80mm fan in the Earthwatts is actually somewhat quiet.

First thing is to get a quieter CPU HSF. There's an Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro for $15 that when combined with Smart Fan setting in BIOS can cool a stock clocked CPU with low noise. Next step up would be a big tower style heatsink. The most quiet ones have widely spaced fins, like the Scythe Ninja.

The bigger limitation would be the 80mm case fans. You can use a fan controller (or do a 7v mod) but with lower noise comes much less airflow. Really, you would have to modernize and get a new case, choosing one with low noise characteristics and using larger fans. The Antec Solo is a good choice, as is the NZXT Hush. Those were designed for low noise, but just about any case that uses 120mm fans can be quiet if the fans are undervolted, and you'll still have more airflow than undervolted 80mm fans by quite a bit. Note that "gamer" style cases that have tons of mesh and grills all over are not the most quiet because you'll hear more fan noise.

The last bit of advice for you is to force yourself to allow the CPU to run at 60°C or higher under loads (your "hitting 40C when doing h.264"). That temperature is nothing for a stock clocked CPU, and a lot easier to achieve with less fan noise.
 
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Is the stock HS/F on the Athlon II X3 really that loud? I use the stock HS/F for my Athlon II X2 and I hardly hear it in my low-end HTPC rig.
 
fffblackmage said:
Is the stock HS/F on the Athlon II X3 really that loud? I use the stock HS/F for my Athlon II X2 and I hardly hear it in my low-end HTPC rig.
Click to expand...

If you've got your fan profile set so aggressively that you're only hitting 40C at full load, then yes.
 
I did some testing...the case fan is the culprit. (The PSU fan is very quiet and the CPU fan is acceptable when spinning below 3k). When I unplugged the case fan, the system became quiet enough to hear the hard drive. Running w/o a case fan raised the temps by about 5 degrees (& 10 for the GPU). The temps were 30C CPU/40C case/53C GPU at web browsing and 50C CPU/50C case/55C GPU at encoding in Handbrake. Are these "safe" temperatures?
Nonetheless, I think I will look at getting a new case that allows for 120mm fans.
thanks,
Sathyan
 
sathyan said:
The temps were 30C CPU/40C case/53C GPU at web browsing and 50C CPU/50C case/55C GPU at encoding in Handbrake. Are these "safe" temperatures?
Nonetheless, I think I will look at getting a new case that allows for 120mm fans.
thanks,
Sathyan
Click to expand...
Very safe. Personally, I wouldn't bother getting a new case. A 7V fan mod could make that case fan quieter, though I'm still kinda iffy about how safe the mod is. I currently have case fans running on 5V, but that might not be enough for some fans to start spinning.
 
fffblackmage said:
Very safe. Personally, I wouldn't bother getting a new case. A 7V fan mod could make that case fan quieter, though I'm still kinda iffy about how safe the mod is. I currently have case fans running on 5V, but that might not be enough for some fans to start spinning.
Click to expand...

If the OP is uncomfortable doing the 7v mod, he could always get a quieter 80.
 
sathyan said:
I did some testing...the case fan is the culprit... Running w/o a case fan raised the temps by about 5 degrees (& 10 for the GPU). The temps were 30C CPU/40C case/53C GPU at web browsing and 50C CPU/50C case/55C GPU at encoding in Handbrake. Are these "safe" temperatures?
Click to expand...

Perfectly safe, but I still wouldn't run it w/o any case fan whatsoever "just in case." It would be better to undervolt the fan or replace it with a quieter one.

Note that the 7V mod may be unsafe depending on how your PSU handles it, but I can't recall it giving people many problems. I've personally used that mod several times with success.

How it works is you ground the fan to the 5v of the power supply (yellow = +12v, red = +5v on a peripheral connector). You end up with the difference in voltage. Maybe an EE can explain it better, and maybe a PSU engineer can explain why it may not be safe. All I know is that it works every time I've done it... so far.

If you want to play it safe, you can use something like this adapter which has 12v, 5v and 7v outputs. It is a "safe" 7v output because it uses a resistor and not a voltage differential. It is also AFAIK not exactly 7v, because I think resistance changes depending on the load of the fan you use. Again, maybe an EE can explain it better.
 
Make duct to cover your fan along the back of the case. Cardboard works great.

I MSPainted for you.

ducti.jpg

(Opening on bottom of duct)

It really cuts down on the annoying high frequencies.
 
Another thought I have is to use a fan adapter to put a larger fan where the 80mm fan resides. This is not ideal, but is functional.

example
 
mfenn said:
It's not a big deal to stop a brushless fan (computer fans are brushless) while it's moving unless you physically break a blade or something.
Click to expand...

Most fans are safe to stop with your finger, but not all. I cut myself good on a ThermalTake P4 478 HSF. It apparently had a pretty beefy motor. So I don't stop fans with my finger any more, I use a pen.
 
sathyan said:
I did some testing...the case fan is the culprit. (The PSU fan is very quiet and the CPU fan is acceptable when spinning below 3k). When I unplugged the case fan, the system became quiet enough to hear the hard drive. Running w/o a case fan raised the temps by about 5 degrees (& 10 for the GPU). The temps were 30C CPU/40C case/53C GPU at web browsing and 50C CPU/50C case/55C GPU at encoding in Handbrake. Are these "safe" temperatures?
Nonetheless, I think I will look at getting a new case that allows for 120mm fans.
thanks,
Sathyan
Click to expand...

Does your BIOS have an option to reduce fan speed? I keep my case fan at 50%. Quiet but still moves air. If I leave it at the default 100% setting it is quite loud. Each fan header has a power control in the BIOS on my MSI board.
 
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Could you not just unplug the fans one by one to see what makes the most noise?
 
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Most 80mm fans are kind of noisy. Sometimes a cas acts like a guitar body and aplifies the noise of the fan. A case with a 120mm fan running slower can make a big difference.
 
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