Not your averaging cooling...

[Bladesonfire]

Anyone know how to COMPLETELY silence a P233 and it's PSU (without turning off the machine )?

Yes, I know, weird, but I want to run a computer 24/7 to test out FreeBSD, and the people I live with don't approve of such things. So if it's completely quiet, they don't know to turn it off =D

 

[fell8]

You'd have to silence the PS too, which may prove difficult/unwise. Just thde the computer away in a closet or under the bed or something. If it's not a screamer, that may prove sufficient. Good luck.

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: fell8
You'd have to silence the PS too, which may prove difficult/unwise. Just thde the computer away in a closet or under the bed or something. If it's not a screamer, that may prove sufficient. Good luck.

LOL

There are passive cooling PSUs but I don't know which brand they're made by. For the processor maybe Zalman has something.

 

[Bladesonfire]

Haha, thanks for the replies =D

Yeah, I'll continue doing some searching around. Too bad I can't just trade it for an Epia CL 6000...

 

[jarsoffart]

ProSilence has a passively cooled PSU, but it costs like 200 dollars. I think you should just get the Fortron 400w PSU from NewEgg.com and replace it with a 5v Panaflo. THe heatsinks in that PSU are huge. The PSU is the one that Zalman uses for their 400w PSU. I think the P233 is Socket 7, I don't know any heatsinks for it. If you can try getting the coolest running Socket 370/462 CPU, undervolt it, and put a Zalman CNPS7000-Cu, if the mobo has the mounting holes, or a Thermalright SLK-900A. You might want to look into Swiftech's new MCX462-V or the Alpha PAL8045. Use melamine foam for further noise dampening. For the hard drive, Seagate Barracuda IV's are famed for their quietness.

 

[Bladesonfire]

Originally posted by: jarsoffart
ProSilence has a passively cooled PSU, but it costs like 200 dollars. I think you should just get the Fortron 400w PSU from NewEgg.com and replace it with a 5v Panaflo. THe heatsinks in that PSU are huge. The PSU is the one that Zalman uses for their 400w PSU. I think the P233 is Socket 7, I don't know any heatsinks for it. If you can try getting the coolest running Socket 370/462 CPU, undervolt it, and put a Zalman CNPS7000-Cu, if the mobo has the mounting holes, or a Thermalright SLK-900A. You might want to look into Swiftech's new MCX462-V or the Alpha PAL8045. Use melamine foam for further noise dampening. For the hard drive, Seagate Barracuda IV's are famed for their quietness.

Wow, that seems like a lot of overkill for a P233 that's already built, but would seem like good advice for a new system. It's just hard to justify a $70 PSU for a P233 at the moment, since I won't even spend that much on my main machine (student, you know how it is).

Well, the 233 is currently not in my possession, but when it is, you've given me some good ideas on how to quiet any system. I've never heard of melamine foam before, so that'd be interesting for me to research. Anyway, thanks for the help. =D

 

[ThisIsMatt]

CPU can use a passive heatsink probably...then put an NMB or Panaflo quiet fan in the psu...

 

[KGB1]

I got a really big aluminum heatsink with my K6 2-500. I water cool the K6 now and I used the heatsink on the 233. It's really big, but not heavy, nor does it really need active cooling...just make sure the power supply at least pulls out the hot air from the case.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Well on my P-166 I just have a heatsink with no fan that came from a Athlon 1.33GHz. It runs 24/7 and hasn't crashed yet!

 

[0roo0roo]

if you can cram a reasonably nlarge heatsink on the p2..sure why not. case would be off though. passive cooling psu required too.

 

[lazybum131]

Replace existing PSU fan with a panaflo, papst, etc. low-noise 80m fan. Hook it up at 5V.

Then just get a large enough heatsink, which by today's standard can be pretty small. It's a Pentium 233! I just took one apart a few months ago, the heatsink was like a 8mm slab of aluminum with some thick fins that pointed up like 4mm. It was coupled with a tiny fan that hardly moved any air. It was clogged with dust when i took it apart too, no stability problems though.

Air flow and fan noise isn't going to be the issue though for the system. It's going to be vibration! First from any fans, but using isolators fixes that, then from the drives.

What kind of hard drive are you using? My parents are still using 3GB, 1.6GB, and 1GB hard drives in their computer. The 3GB Fujitsu one is REALLY loud. Louder then everything else, the loudest fan in their system is a 12V Panaflo L1A, and the drive completely drowns that out.

To quiet the drive your going to need to decouple it, or maybe even isolating it in an enclosure.

To cut down on remaining noise, look into sound absorbtion materials to line the case with. Melamine Sound Absorbing Ceiling Tiles are inexpensive and work, you can get some at www.mcmaster-carr.com

To get more suggestions and help, I think you should read the articles at SilentPCReview, and then post in their forums for help. They'll know a lot more about silencing computers then at other computer forums.