My PC is Unbearably loud, please help

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JustinW

Junior Member
Jan 6, 2008
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I currently have a total of six fans in my PC and i've tolerated the noise for 8 months but now it's just becoming unbearable.

I am going to go the watercooling route and I know what watercooling system I want, but I don't know whether I can get away with zero fans with this setup.

Hopefully after I tell you my current specs and what I'm looking for, some of you advanced users can advise me in the proper direction.



First off, let me state that overclocking is not a priority for me. I want to run the PC at normal speeds, at normal temperatures, with <STRIKE>no</STRIKE> little noise.

I'm looking at buying the Zalman system seen here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835118015

Because the GPU water block doesn't fit my video card (geforce 8800GTX), I would have to purchase this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16835118027


<B>My question is, with just that Zalman Reserator System, and the special GPU water block, can I keep my PC adequately cool with the only fan being in the power supply?</B>


Here is my hardware:

cpu: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16819115001

motherboard: Asus Striker Extreme http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16813131074

GPU: EVGA Geforce 8800GTX 768MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16814130072

PSU: PC Power & Cooling 750 watt http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817703009

RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 800 http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16820145176

Hard drives: Two WD Raptors 150GB in raid0. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16822136012 ---- One older 200GB EIDE WD drive

Sound Card: Creative sound blaster platinum

DVD Burner



Would I need additional fans? Northbridge/SB/mosfets waterblocks? Can I slide with that setup? The temp of my room is about 68-73 F.


Thanks for your help!!!
 
T

tofumonster

Member
May 25, 2007
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I'm no water-cooling junky. But as a rule of thumb, these pre-made watercooling setups are more or less "crap".

You're going to have to go with individual parts. Swiftech is a good place to start (not the cheapest but of good quality). google it.

Edit:

Also look up:

Danger Den (often abbreviated here on Anandtech as "DD")
D-Tek
 
VinDSL

VinDSL

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2006
4,869
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www.lenon.com
Originally posted by: JustinW
Hopefully after I tell you... what I'm looking for, some of you advanced users can advise me in the proper direction.
Click to expand...

If you truly want 'quiet', forget all that junk...

Buy yourself a lappy, and hook it up to a regular keyboard, monitor and mouse! ;)
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
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Yeah, no sorry, that premade stuff really isn't going to be able to keep up with your system adequately. sorry.

There are plenty of ways to VERY quietly air cool a system but, if you're convinced to go the water route and you want quiet be VERY ready to drop as much as a thousand dollars for a new case and all the hardware you're going to need as well as have your system torn apart for an entire weekend, not to mention pre-assembling everything and leak testing it well before it goes anywhere near your shiny, expensive, electrical stuff.

First off, what case do you have this rig hanging out in? What have you done to said case, if anything? Can you post pictures of it so we can overtly scrutinize your wiring tidiness? What fans do you have in your case? Are you running completely stock cooling on your CPU/CPU/NB/SB? Where are the hard drives mounted? We need lots of details about the way your system is set up at present so we can make suggestions for improvements.

As a point of refrence. I have an entire HTPC with a hot old A64, four hard drives, an 8500GT a pair of capture cards and an EMU1010 being cooled by a 120mm fan and three 80mm fans, one of which is in the PSU. IF I put my ear up to the case I can hear the hard drives spinning and thats about it.
 
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JustinW

Junior Member
Jan 6, 2008
8
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Why don't you think the Zalman would work? And who pays $1000 on water cooling?

I happen to have some pics I just took this week.

pic1


pic2

 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
Originally posted by: JustinW
Why don't you think the Zalman would work? And who pays $1000 on water cooling?

I happen to have some pics I just took this week.

pic1


pic2
Click to expand...

Links not working.

The Zalman unit is not designed to transfer the ammount of heat that your system is going to be putting out. I might trust it to the cpu or the gpu but, not both and certainly not to the whole system.

It's terrifying but, when you really get everything pulled together, including a case mind you, $1000 is more common than most will admit, depending on how thourough you want to be. The last watercooling system I built about 2 months ago, for a customer as a christmas present to his brother totaled $980 without a case. It was a tripple loop, dual pump, tripple radiator set-up that cooled everything on water(including the HDDs). Granted he told me to just do it, F the cost, so I used 1/8" wall no kink tubing, Apogee GTX CPU block, DD GPU blocks for SLI, dual reseviors, a tripple 120 radiator for the cpu and gpus and a dual 120 radiator for the chipsets, pwm and HDDs. He had me squeeze it all into a silverstone tj-07 with a tagan 1100W psu, a pair of 8800gtx's and a C2QX6850 on a DFI LP P35 board, all at my leisure so, he was more than ready to just throw cash at it. He got one hell of a discount just cause I got to play with it for a month before taking over to his brothers and setting up for him. talk about a dream machine. His brother really doesn't know what to do with the damn thing either.

I digress, sorry. Listen you have a pretty nice case, I'd have gone for the 2000 series for water cooling but, you're not bad off. If I were doing it for you I'd probably put the pump in the rear HDD bay on the bottom, split off into two lines, one straight to the top, to a dual 120mm radiator then straight into the cpu block, bounce it over to the southbridge(optional) then into the resevior. The other line going to a single 120mm radiator at the rear then to your GPU then over to the northbridge then to the resevior. It sounds complicated but, it'll yeild you the best temperatures. I try and always use 3/8"ID no kink tubing and fittings will cause an un-necessary pressure drop which will hurt a lot more in a dual loop, single pump set-up. You won't need too much total flow but, you're going to need decent head pressure. I'd probably use a swiftech mcp655-b, tons of flow and should be enough head. could use the 355 as it offers more head but, a lot less flow. A swiftech micro res would be nearly perfect for the set-up but, they can be hard to find. Any bay res with 3 fittings would work quite fine. To trim the budget notably you could just leave the chipsets air cooled. The swiftech apogee gt is a good cpu block thats not too expensive, the GTX is better but, like half again more money. again, given a budget aspect you could use a DD maze 5 on the GPU and some big BGA sinks.
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
ok, the picture links just decided to work and no wonder it's loud!!!!

Ignore my entire last post.

Do some MAJOR cable management first and foremost. I'm seriously going to have nightmares about that case tonight.

Take that 60mm fan off the back. I'd be shocked if it's doing much of anything to help you and it's bound to be making a lot of noise. 60mm are horrendously noisy as it is and trying to push air through that tight grate is going to be loud. Then dust everything, please. Put that rear fan on 7v if it's the extreme model, if it's not, replace it, it's not moving enough air and thats causing your factory intel HSF to have to kick on more often which is going to be really noisy.

Move the sound card up a slot and replace the factory HSF on you 8800 with just about anything aftermarket and it'll be quieter and cooler.

Finally, replace the factory HSF on your CPU, that may be the #1 most noisy thing in your system. If you're on a budget get the freezer7, in not as tight a budget get the tuniq tower.
 
J

JustinW

Junior Member
Jan 6, 2008
8
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0
Thanks for the advice. Do you think the freezer7 is quieter than the stock intel HSF ? You think any aftermarket HSF for the 8800GTX would be quieter? Any recommendations?
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
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0
Originally posted by: JustinW
Thanks for the advice. Do you think the freezer7 is quieter than the stock intel HSF ? You think any aftermarket HSF for the 8800GTX would be quieter? Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

Yes and yes. I typically reccomend the Freezer7 for anyone on a budget and the tuniq tower as the next step up with the thermalright ultra 120 extreme on top. As far as for the 8800GTX, you could do a Arctic cooling accelero s1 or 2 i don't remember which for the 8800 or the thermalright hr-03 gt. Quite frankly if you just want quiet the zalman znf-100 would probably work but, you're going to need more than adequate airflow to use in on an 8800
 
Quiksilver

Quiksilver

Diamond Member
Jul 3, 2005
4,725
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71
Originally posted by: JustinW
Why don't you think the Zalman would work? And who pays $1000 on water cooling?

I happen to have some pics I just took this week.

pic1


pic2
Click to expand...

Damnit Jim! no wonder its so loud, it's probably running hotter than it should with all those cables in the way.

Grab some zip ties and strap those puppies down and tuck them in places; behind the mobo, into optical bays, anything is better than what you have now.

I also have Aerocool Xtreme Turbines in my case, granted its only 1 but its not that loud to me at all, but noise is subjective.

Anyway, for a decent water cooling setup you would need to spend over $300 and build the loop yourself, because every premade watercooling system is utter crap; high end air cooling will perform better.

The easiest solution would be just to use quieter fans, fan silencers, and smart cable management. (Sound dampening pads would be optional of course) Shouldn't be no more than $100.

 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
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I just finished cleaning up my case a little more and will be posting a thread about what real cable management should look like. I pulled it off in a case where there is 0 room to use behind the motherboard and I moved my hard drive up into the optical bays, right next to the main power cables and my DVD-rw. It got a bit crouded up in the top their but, i'm pretty happy with it. pics to come.
 
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bigpow

Platinum Member
Dec 10, 2000
2,372
2
81
JustinW, why don't u do an elimination process?
you can temporarily stop a fan (carefully), to check if that one is the culprit.

Just mobo+CPU+CPU HSF+PSU+VGA

I'm willing to bet, either the CPU HSF or VGA is the loudest.
Take care of it (replace it with something quieter).

Next is PSU+Case with those above
Now which one is the loudest? Take care of that one.
Lian-Li used to come with ADDA fans, they're loud (but moves a lot of air).
If not overclocking, u could safely replace them with quieter fans. My LL has all Panaflo L1A fans.
PSU.. well, I'm not familiar with that monster PCP.. I chose Seasonic instead for quietness.

Then, build them all together, and lastly, if the HDD humm bothers you, suspend the HDD with some elastic bands.

Also, place your quiet PC, at least 3' away from where you sit. NOT on the desk, right beside the monitor.
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
Originally posted by: bigpow
JustinW, why don't u do an elimination process?
you can temporarily stop a fan (carefully), to check if that one is the culprit.

Just mobo+CPU+CPU HSF+PSU+VGA

I'm willing to bet, either the CPU HSF or VGA is the loudest.
Take care of it (replace it with something quieter).

Next is PSU+Case with those above
Now which one is the loudest? Take care of that one.
Lian-Li used to come with ADDA fans, they're loud (but moves a lot of air).
If not overclocking, u could safely replace them with quieter fans. My LL has all Panaflo L1A fans.
PSU.. well, I'm not familiar with that monster PCP.. I chose Seasonic instead for quietness.

Then, build them all together, and lastly, if the HDD humm bothers you, suspend the HDD with some elastic bands.

Also, place your quiet PC, at least 3' away from where you sit. NOT on the desk, right beside the monitor.
Click to expand...

did you look at the pictars of the inside of his case???
 
J

JustinW

Junior Member
Jan 6, 2008
8
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B

bigpow

Platinum Member
Dec 10, 2000
2,372
2
81
Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12
did you look at the pictars of the inside of his case???
Click to expand...

Yeah, holy 'cable-management and fans' Batman! ;)

I still think the top two loudest ones would be the VGA and CPU fans.
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
Ok, now were into the fun area. For case fans I like scythe but, I prefer their slipstream fans. This fan on 7 volts is one of the best values around IMHO. as for replacing the HSF on your cpu. There isn't really a better value than AC freezer 7 pro. That being said, for overall performance/silence the tuniq tower with a 7v slipstream is very high up on my to do list.
 
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JustinW

Junior Member
Jan 6, 2008
8
0
0
That fan is way too loud.

If you look at the reviews of the EVGA 8800GTX here you'll find about 95% of people consider it quiet and very few said loud. search for "quiet" and "loud".
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
did you miss the part where I said to knock it back to 7V? That cuts the speed by about 40%. puts you down to about 55cfm and 24db. If thats too loud get ready so get spendy with HSFs and fans to go mostly passive. I'm well aware of whats loud and quiet however, you have to remember that those ideas are subjective. I have an almost completely passive HTPC that runs 1-2db above ambient noise and I have my main rig for gaming that runs about a 40db whir while on. I've come to accept that as the price for a 3ghz A64 and a heavily OCed 7800GT.
 
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DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
0
0
Originally posted by: JustinW
I ended up going with 2 of the 20 dBA Scythe case fans and a Zalman HSF http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16835118003 im v. happy with. Much quieter all around. Not perfect though.

Time from order until delivery was about 27 hours. Newegg is amazing.

Thanks for everyones input
Click to expand...

27 hours? wouldn't that be nice. I've had to wait 42 hours for an overnight. That was at least partially my doing as I ordered at like 8pm and needed it ASAP and of course there was not way they could process the order and get it out before noon and my IDIOT fedex lady didn't get it to me till 2pm.

I'm not intentionally being sexist here but, I've started ordering things and getting them exclusively UPS shipped because both FedEx and USPS have women delivering to my area and I can order UPS and get it at 10 am or order USPS or FedEx and get it at 2-3pm. I'm not gay but, I love my UPS man, he's prompt.
 
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