Quiet at Last, but not Silent--Any ideas?

[hmsrolst]

My main rig is a P3 1Ghz (HSF is a Silverado) on an Abit BX133 Raid with 3 hard drives. Yesterday I switched it from a Lian-Li with a regular Enermax 365 to an Antec SX600 with a Whisper Enermax 365 and 3 PC Power and Cooling Silencers. It's now noticably quieter and cooler with the case running barely above room temperature and the CPU in the low 80's (F, of course) at idle. But it's still seems quite far from silent. Do you think it's the hard drives? The open front of the case makes for good and quiet air flow, but perhaps it also does less to muffle interior noise. There's also a slight ringing noise that goes away when I squeeze the sides of the case which I assume means the drives (or something) is vibrating. Any ideas of further steps would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[lozina]

i watched some special on the discovery channel on making the new V-ROD Harley Davidson. The cool part was when they showed this accoustical chamber they had with a sophisticated microphone array, which they sweep accross the bike to produce an image- sort of like a infra-red image of heat- but for noise. How I'd love to have one of those to see the loudest part of my PC =\

I guess you can try using rubber washers for all your fans if u havent already. Then use em for your HDs, maybe try some accoustical foam insulation as well.

 

[hmsrolst]

Thanks for the ideas. What kind of rubber washers? I would think they'd have to be much thinner than the kind you use in a faucet to fit in. Does anyone know where you get the washers for the HD's? I'm also not sure what to do about the 80mm Silencers since in the Antec cases, they just snap into a plastic receptacle.

 

[Phinance]

You can also get strips of 1/8" thick rubber and put them on the tops and bottoms of the HD cage. It'll be a bit of a push to get the cage back on and seated firmly, but that'll cut the vibrations transmitted from the cage to the rest of the case.

 

[Jhhnn]

Try little pieces of soft self-stick insulating foam tape on the corners of the fans & holders, wherever mating occurs, also where the drive cage mates to the chassis.

Running the fans at 7v may help, just move the fan's black ground wire to mate with the psu's red 5v wire in the fan plug. Never move the wires on the psu side of the plug- It's easy to forget, start moving stuff around, and get a dead short- a bad, bad thing. If your silencers are like mine, they don't have pass-thru connectors, makes changing them around easier. For fans with pass-thru's, the output conector's voltages must be made to be the same as plugs on the psu, otherwise a short can occur if anything is plugged into one.

You might try something like B-Quiet or Dynamat to kill the vibrations, this stuff only makes a noticeable difference if your system is already quiet. I like to wrap it around the circumference of the fans, kills the vibration at the source, also big chunks on the side panels. YMMV. 2cooltek is marketing some Sonex acoustical panels, which I haven't tried, that may help. Putting a large acoustic ceiling tile on the wall behind the computer (or two walls if it's in a corner) helps kill reflected noise.

None of this stuff will make any huge difference, it gets progressively more difficult as the noise level diminishes. Unfortunately, it will never be silent, entirely too much air motion is required for cooling, and then there's the drives.... You're not keeping any old, noisy drives, are you?

And these guys sell shock mount adapters to put drives in 5-1/4" bays, rubber mounted, so they may help with noise. Haven't tried them.

Shock mounts

 

[FlowerMan]

2cooltek sells rubber grommets which you should use, not washers. You dont want the fan or the fan screw in contact with your case at all

VERY IMPORTANT LINK!

LOL, You switched from a Lian Li to an Antec SX600 Never seen anyone "downsize" before! BTW, why are you using a Silverado on just a P3? These things run cool enough with just an Alpha PAL6035 or PEP66. You could even run the fan at 7V and still get good temps. IMO, silverado=$$$ in the drain, unless you got it for free

 

[XRaider]

Or you can Duct Tape a big pillow around it.

 

[hmsrolst]

I can get by with a 6035 (what I had before), but the Silverado at 7V is just about silent and keeps the CPU very cool. Plus I got it used and just couldn't resist. Thanks for the ideas. I tried out some insulation on the Silencers and it definitely gets rid of some of the vibration noise. I'll look for the grommets. Thanks.