please tell me if this is enough to get my system to "dell quiet"?

eshtog

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2001
3,449
0
0
replace the stock hsf and get a 7000cu and put it on low setting
replace the NB fan with a passive zalman
disable the 120mm fan in my sonata

will this make my system a lot quieter?
 

Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
126
Dell's are pretty quiet. My new 400SC is very quiet. Can hear it if everything is off in the room (because I run SETI and the fan is running at a faster pace). Added a GeForce 4 TI4200 to it and now I can hear the fan on the card...doh! :Q

Added a Seagate Baracuda drive and it's very quiet (can't hear when running at all). The secret is using the 92MM case fan as the CPU fan as well. Works beautifully! :)

What kind of video card?
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
7,052
0
0
well i hope you arent disabling the rear fan of the sonata. Having a case with no airflow is a bad idea unless you are water cooling. I say 7 volt the rear fan. I did, and now the fan is whisper quiet, and the only loud fan in my case is my GF4 ti 4200 fan.
 

RalfHutter

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2000
3,202
0
76
Raptor's definitely not "quiet" by most definitions and the fan on that vidcard is fairly noisy too. Your PSU can also be a significant source of noise. You'll just have to try a few things and see if you're satisfied with the noise , if not , work on down the list.
 

Cadaver

Senior member
Feb 19, 2002
344
0
0
www.quietpc.com has some nice (though not real cheap) acoustic isolation foam that you can apply to the inside of the case side panels, top and bottom to quiet things further.

Directron.com sells some all-rubber fan mouting devices (no metal screws) to help reduce fan vibration from being transmitted to the case frame. They also have a large rubber power supply washer that also prevents the metal-to-metal vibration of the PS to the case. Who knows how much they really help, but they did reduce the pitch of the case's fan noise, making it seem quieter.

To quiet my case (a rather big Directron SF201), I've added the above items, a Zalman CNPS6000-Cu CPU cooler and replaced the included 92mm Zalman fan with an even quieter 120mm Vantec. I disconnected the case's stock two 80mm front intake fans (loud!)and replaced the stock rear fans with two Vantec Stealth 80mm case exaust fans running off a Zalman fanmate (at about 50% of standard 12v speed). For air intake, I added a Vantec Stealth 92mm side intake fan blowing onto the motherboard & passive NB cooler. It's not yet "Dell quiet," but it's pretty darn close.

Next item eventually will be a quieter power supply than my Enermax (which really isn't that loud). If after all is said and done, and it's still making more noise than I'd like, I'll try one of those passive coolers for my Radeon 9800 pro. I just don't want to do that much surgery to the card if I can avoid it.
 

beatle

Diamond Member
Apr 2, 2001
5,661
5
81
A lot of the Dells I've worked on have one 92mm fan ducted over the CPU drawing air out of the case and one 80mm fan inside the PSU also acting as an exhaust. These are the only fans in the case. No video card, nb or other case fans. They also run seagate harddrives mounted to the case on rails.

You might try 7 volting the 120mm fan just so you have SOME airflow going out of the case. Experiment and see if your comp can take the heat.