Need quiet case and cooling - no sound preferred

[budiman]

Hi all.

I need suggestions on making a QUIET computer - as in can't hear sound 12 inches from it. Looking to make a PC from the ground up, Athlon 1 GHz or 1.33GHz, most probably using ASUS A7V133. Major sound sources: PS fan, CPU FHS, Case Fan, HD. I'll attack the HD part latter.

PC will have its cover on, but will have nothing stacked on top of it, and I won't put anything else to its sides - will be put on a carpet floor in the living room. For the curious, this is for DVD viewing.

Can anyone suggest a case that has a quiet fan or no fan at all? Anyone has any link to articles of fanless Power Supply? And can I go about with a low RPM FHS on the Athlon or even just Heat Sink + Thermal Grease with no fan?

At this point, it's still a work in progress so I'm asking for brainstorm material.

Thank you.
Muljadi Budiman.

 

[cirrus1]

First of all you'd might evaluate if you have need for such a powerful processor as the T-bird 1 and 1.33 ghz are. If you only would use the puter for DVD you would have enough in a Duron which produces less heat. A 800mhz Duron would do the job just perfect.

As for cases, most cases come without extra fans and you are therefore free to choose fans. Good and silent fans are Papst and Sunon, but expensive. You would need a fan with as low dBA rating as possible. I use 1500 and 2500 rpm Papst fans. The 1500rpm model is very silent and also have a good airflow, but can't cope with much pressure in the case. Therefore the airflow must be very free and unobstructed.

As watching DVD's involves a spinning disc you might want to cover the drive itself. Some cases allow this like the Antex SX1030 or 1040.

A german manufactor called "Noise-Control" makes several computer products that helps reducing noise. This include damped cases, special HSF-units and so on.

They produce a cooler called Silverado which is a very efficient cooler with radial fans on it. It is very silent and cools very good.

I have seen heatsinks for Athlons and Durons without a fan but they are very big and expensive. I wouldn't use them on a socket A processor.

P/S's without a fan doesn't exist according to what I know. But there are several out there who comes with low rpm fans, and therefore are more silent. You could also replace the fan yourself with a more silent fan (that's what I have done in my Aopen P/S)

A think that you also should have in mind is that most newer videocards come with fans on them. Those fans can be really annoying on some cards. A way to avoid this is to choose cards without fans as some of the GF2 MX models hasn't.

I hope that I have given you something to work on. Please feel free to come with more questions.

<edit> Oh and yes a little thing: The A7V133 is a very good board but has a fan on the northbridge. However I don't know how loud it is, but I haven't heard anyone complaining about it</edit>

 

[dorkface]

Agree on the Duron recommendation, it generates less heat and therefore requires less active cooling.

If you go with the Duron, chances are that you would have a near completely quiet case with Koolance. (www.koolance.com). Yes, it is watercooling, but not scary at all. It is all ready to go, you pop on a CPU jacket like you would an HSF. In your scenario, you could opt for the watercooled PSU as well to eliminate PSU fan noise. Replace the fans on the Nortbridge with e.g a Tenmmax Lasagna, pretty quiet. And for DVD watching you don't need the fastest card out there, perhaps even one that can do with just a heatsink. Than add one 80mm low RPM exhaust fan (e.g. Panaflo L1A) at 7V, you won't hear it.

 

[Belegost]

I'm going to suggest going with an Intel pIII or Celeron, clock for clock they produce much less heat then any AMD chip.

 

[jugornot]

GO get a mac cube. Has all you need except speed.

 

[Muerto]

A Duron would probably be a better choice. They produce less heat so you can get away with using a slower fan. If you're a total noise freak then I'd suggest going to Quiet PC. They sell components designed to reduce noise including, near silent PSUs, silent hard drive enclosures, near silent case fans, ultra quiet CPU coolers, etc.

 

[danii8]

How about Koolance case?
It even has fanless Power supply.
not sure about over 1GHz--powerful CPU support.
I saw very good review about them.

Koolance

They are now offering complete line of liquid coolers for individual purchase.

 

[guitronics]

Yeah, but they stink.Just a whiff of Intel chips makes me gag...the only chips worse than Intel for smell factor are (in order)Apple's,and Cyrix.The cooler they run is in direct proportion to how badly they stink.

That's why you don't see a lot of P4's turned on at a retailer...but you will see AMD's.The Intel's just plain make people nauseaous,they'll sell you one, but prefer that you turn it on at home.(Don't want people vomiting in the store,could get sued for liability). :|

 

[guitronics]

You could research liquid cooling at www.overclockers.comand/or maximumpc.com, they have some fine articles on cooling, liquid cooling, &quot;Heat Pipes&quot;, etc.

 

[guitronics]

Hey: Just an idea, but you could always go with a laptop and a docking station.Big $ for laptops, though,but they are coming down, ever so slowly.

 

[budiman]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've checked out quietpc site before - since they're UK based, the shipping to US is somewhat prohibitive. Koolance seems to be more on the expensive side, so that might be a last resort option.

I will also use the computer for scaling NTSC sources using dscaler (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/). The software as such will run fine at 800 MHz (700 MHz being the minimum for no dropped frames operation), but for future headroom, I'd like to go with 1 GHz or higher. FYI, the first version runs fine on a Celeron 366, so the code has grown quite a bit and it is getting better.

At this point, quietpc seems to get the nod: relatively inexpensive ($150 for PS and 1.3 GHz Athlon fan, shipping included) to the koolance solution. If someone has this locally, will drop the price down by $35 more. I might go down to 1 GHz if that will let me run the PC without turning on the fan on the front side.

The koolance is running for $205 (CPU and PS watercooled), but for that price I will get the case. Anyone know if it's ATX (site doesn't mention anything)?

I'm still looking, if anyone has any other ideas, please share.

Ciao.
Muljadi Budiman.

 

[Sbud]

Why not just buy a dedicated DVD player?

 

[budiman]

Sbud:
I have a Front Projection system.

The picture coming out of WinDVD is better than the typical DVD players, it's progressive, I can set it to 72Hz so 24fps material appears smoother. Also, with DScaler, I can scale NTSC sources with the computer instead of blowing $500 (for DVDO line doubler) or $13000 (for Faroudja 5000 scaler).

Ciao.
Muljadi Budiman.

 

[Origen]

Check this forum AVS Forum - Home Theater Computers

I've read a ton of good stuff there on how to setup this or that in regards to a HTC.

 

[damocles]

Despite what Guitronics thinks P3s are pretty good and can operate as very quiet CPUs. However getting a quietened Athlon will give you a better price/performance benefit.

To me it sounds like a Tualatin is what you want, but sadly they are a little while away. Small, running cool and pretty powerful.