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Time to build a _QUIET_ computer

T

themisfit610

Golden Member
Hey folks,

So I'm giving a good friend some advice on building a computer. He does a lot of audio recording, so having a very quiet computer is his primary concern. Gaming is not an issue, but he does need a good amount of CPU grunt, since he will be running some very CPU intensive synthesizers, namely Native Instruments' Reaktor, Battery, and Reaktor - along with some ProTools or Cubase, and Reason.

He's got a _great_ sound card, the M-Audio Delta1010LT, and he will be re-using his current power supply, a nice quiet 480w Thermaltake.

I'm mostly wondering about the cooling options. I've pretty much settled on a P180, as I've had great luck with mine. A lot of the guys on silentpcreview are into the Sonata, but it commands a serious price and comes with a throwaway PSU, so I figured it's easier to just get a P180 and have some room to grow.

I've also settled on a Core 2 Duo E6750. I will not overclock as the CPU will need to be passively cooled, so I'm leaning towards the Scythe Ninja. It's a good cooler, and cools well at stock speeds passively, provided there's some case airflow.

I plan on getting him a board with integrated graphics, as he doesnt need any kind of graphics performance, and if he decides to do more later (like HD-DVD), we can add an 8500 / 2400 or something along those lines. Plus, it's quieter that way.

I'm still waiting to decide on the perfect board. I want 6 SATA ports, 4 DDR2 slots, 1 PCIe x16, and at least 1 PCI slot (for his sound card). That's all I really care about. No need for RAID - firewire would be nice. I'm leaning to an Intel desktop board for its stability.

I'm also getting him a single 500GB Samsung drive. He may add another later.

A SATA DVD burner will also be mandatory. 2 GB of RAM is assumed.

So - the thrust of my question is in the details of the noisy components - namely the case fans. He wants _QUIET_. If it means getting close to the thermal spec of his components, so be it.

I have the P180, and find the tri-cools even on low setting to be a bit loud for my tastes.

I was thinking of just running the rear fan on low, and removing the rest. Maybe one more in front for intake? We could also replace the fans with something quieter. I'm eager to hear suggestions.

I will probably undervolt his CPU as much as possible to keep heat under control.

Any other suggestions are welcome.

For the record, he's going XP Pro 32 bit.

Thanks!

~MiSfit
 
Sonata III does NOT come with a throwaway PSU, antec earthwatts 500w are built by seasonic and are qaulity PSU's. P180 is nice too, but if you want to save money, Sonata III isn't a bad pick at all...

As for casefans, check out silentpcreviews last round up of casefans. Yate loons are good, but have bearing damage... s-flex fans, or nexus fans I think were the best fans. But, I would go with 2 fans, no more. No more is really needed anyways. I would put 1 in the front, upper HD bay, and 1 in the back. That's probably all the airflow you need. The PSU will be creating enough airflow in the lower area. And samsung spinpoint 500gb's run pretty quiet and cool so that shouldn't be a problem. Even more quiet would be watercooling btw 😉 Oh, and videocards can be passively cooled too 😛

About the mobo, why 6 sata ports? 1 for the dvd burner, 1 for the dvd reader, 1 for the hd = 3 ? Most mobo's will come with everything you mentioned, and 4 sata ports, more sata ports mean you pay more money, but more money as well for firewire/wifi which you might not need. Intel is a good stabile pick btw, but so would most p35 mobo's be, be it asus, gigabyte or abit.
 
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Yate loons are good, but have bearing damage... s-flex fans, or nexus fans I think were the best fans.
Click to expand...

WTF, Nexus fans ARE Yate Loons.

For serious quietness...

Antec Solo case - suspended HDDs FTQW (for the quiet win) along with sound dampening panels. Also, airflow in the front is indirect, meaning less noise. Just replace the included Antec Tricool fan with something better, like a Yate Loon (undervolted), Nexus or Evercool Green Fan.

Corsair 450VX PSU - basically a nice and quiet Seasonic.

Motherboard, how about this Intel board? 1x PCI-E 16x, 3x PCI-E 1x, 3x PCI, Firewire, 4 DDR2 slots. Unfortunately only 4 SATA ports, but as mentioned above it is a chipset limitation. If dude needs more drive space, just go for 1TB drives.

Something else... no matter what system he ends up with, placement of the actual computer can affect how much sound he hears.
 
Cool guys - good suggestions all around.

A few concerns.

1) I need integrated graphics, from a cost perspective mostly, and lack of need for anything better. Unless you guys REALLY think it's worth it to spend an extra $50 on a discrete graphics solution for someone who doesn't game, or even do anything graphics related.

2) 4 SATA ports would probably be OK, as he will only have a DVDRW and the Samsung 500GB for now. He could add 2 more drives later

3) He already has a good quiet PSU, so I'm not looking to get him a new one

4) The Solo looks nice - I will look into it. Yate loons for sure.

Any other suggestions are welcome!!

~MiSfit
 
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Even more quiet would be watercooling btw 😉 Oh, and videocards can be passively cooled too 😛
Click to expand...

Don't know what you are smoking... but the pump on the water cooling will be a LOT louder then 2 Nexus or 2 S-FLEX fans... and you still will need some way to cool the radiator, or have it external... and then you STILL need at least 1 fan internal to bring cool air in to cool the RAM, north and south bridges on the motherboard....

That said, if the case you are looking at does not have sound absorption/dampening, you can get some cheap stuff that works fairly well from www.mcmaster.com

Just lookup item 5692T49 which is adhesive backed 1" thick skinned skinned polyurethane foam rubber, which has a 0.75 Noise Reduction Coefficient, and is easy to clean due to the skin (so you can wipe off the dust that will eventually build up on it). Something like $12 for 1 foot by 4.5 feet sheet of it which should easily cover a normal size case.
 
Oh, also - when you say undervolted yate loons, what voltage is generally recommended to keep them spinning, but very slowly? How do you reccomend achieving this - with a rheostat, a molex -> 3 pin adapter with different connectors for different voltages, or motherboard control?

~MiSfit
 
Not smoking, bad for your health. But watercooling can be passive too. For his setup it wouldn't be worth the hassle though.

spcr qoute

"Despite our high expectations, our roundup of carefully selected fans did not produce as many winners as we had hoped. The only fan we can unconditionally recommend is the Noiseblocker XL-1, and even that has tough competition in the Scythe S-Flex and the Noctua that we saw in our last 120mm roundup... Three of the fans we tested showed promise, only to stumble when it came to bearing noise. The Yate Loon, the Global Win and the Fander all have the potential to challenge our current favorites, but all three showed signs of bearing damage. A lack of multiple samples frustrated our attempts to discover what the fans sound like at their best and whether such damage is common or not. In the case of the Yate Loon and the Global Win, the testimonial of certain respected SPCR forum members gives us enough confidence to recommend them ? but only with the warning that the fans may be easily damaged. In the case of the Fander, we know from firsthand experience that they can be very quiet, but the sudden development of bearing noise makes us wonder how reliable they are."
 
I have a P150 (basically a solo with a PSU). I'm running a Q6600 at 3.2Ghz. TR ultra 120 Extreme with S-flex (1600rpm) and another as rear exhaust. The case also has scythe kaze ju front intake and an Antec spot fan. I use a fan controller because my ambients are super hot in August but the rest of the year I have the fans all running on minimum. Its not completely silent but considering its running an overclocked quad its very very quiet. If the screen isnt on I forget its on. Unfortunately my fan controller cant turn off the fans otherwise I would turn off the Antec spot fan and the front intake now its cooler. The band Hard Drive suspension mounts are excellent. I have a samsung HD501 drive and don't hear it!

I thoroughly recommend the P150/solo. For your set-up running maybe 1 or 2 undervolted fans to keep the noise level down it would be pretty much silent.

If you decide to get a graphics card later then you can also get a passive. I have a Asus EN8600GT silent - good temps/no noise.
 
Fallen Kell, a pump can be quiet - my DDC pump is virtually silent when mounted properly. Just a slight hum from it, can be heard over the fans but that is just because my fans are set pretty low and the tone is different than the fans.

But that is beside the point...

I have yate loons and no strange noises at all, bearings are fine. Have had them for a few months now running almost 24/7 and nothing strange has happened to them.

I'd stay away from the Noctua, sure its quiet but it has low airflow and practically no pressure to push the air through anything. Couple that with a high pricetag and they aren't worth it. Plus they are ugly 😛
 
sometimes my large 38mm thick fan on my TR 120x doesn start up cause of my fan controller and its runs passively! LOL specs in sig :-X
 
Originally posted by: Zap
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Yate loons are good, but have bearing damage... s-flex fans, or nexus fans I think were the best fans.
Click to expand...

WTF, Nexus fans ARE Yate Loons.

For serious quietness...

Antec Solo case - suspended HDDs FTQW (for the quiet win) along with sound dampening panels. Also, airflow in the front is indirect, meaning less noise. Just replace the included Antec Tricool fan with something better, like a Yate Loon (undervolted), Nexus or Evercool Green Fan.

Corsair 450VX PSU - basically a nice and quiet Seasonic.

Motherboard, how about this Intel board? 1x PCI-E 16x, 3x PCI-E 1x, 3x PCI, Firewire, 4 DDR2 slots. Unfortunately only 4 SATA ports, but as mentioned above it is a chipset limitation. If dude needs more drive space, just go for 1TB drives.

Something else... no matter what system he ends up with, placement of the actual computer can affect how much sound he hears.
Click to expand...

lol.... zap snaped!! But i agree with all his statements.

The best way i experimented to run a super silent system, is either watering it passively, or using air with duct system.

Watering it passive does not mean reserator. That thing is a POS. It means adding an extremely large class radiator, 120x3 or 120x4 and not connecting fans to it.

@ Zap, i hear the enermax marathons are the questest you can get. I have yet to see anyone comment about these fans tho. :T
 
Originally posted by: aigomorla
@ Zap, i hear the enermax marathons are the questest you can get. I have yet to see anyone comment about these fans tho. :T
Click to expand...

Never heard of those. Last Enermax fans I heard about were the "Enlobal" ones that you can pluck the blades off the motor, or something like that.
 
Originally posted by: aigomorla
@ Zap, i hear the enermax marathons are the questest you can get. I have yet to see anyone comment about these fans tho. :T
Click to expand...

SeaSonic has been getting rave reviews for silent PSUs for quite some time now from silentpcreview. The Corsair got the same...

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article751-page1.html

"The new Corsair VX450W is not aimed at the dual-video card, power-demanding, PC gaming user, but for a much bigger audience: Everyone else. The VX450W delivers clean, stable power that's much more than adequate for the vast majority of PC systems today. Like the HX series, it's among the quietest fan-cooled PSUs we've tested. They are very energy efficient, matching and even surpassing many of 80 Plus certified models we've tested. The sleeved cables are long enough for large cases, and there are enough connectors for very ambitious systems. Corsair's five year warranty remains the longest for any computer power supply we know of."

 
Originally posted by: Zap
Originally posted by: aigomorla
@ Zap, i hear the enermax marathons are the questest you can get. I have yet to see anyone comment about these fans tho. :T
Click to expand...

Never heard of those. Last Enermax fans I heard about were the "Enlobal" ones that you can pluck the blades off the motor, or something like that.
Click to expand...

http://www.jab-tech.com/Enerma...-UC-12-EB-pr-3506.html

yes there the enlobal ones. How do these work? im mighy tempted to try out a few.
 
FYI: if considering the solo, get 2 low-speed 92mm fans for the front when you pick up a replacement for the 120mm in the back. I had good luck with Akasa Ambers in my P150.

-z
 
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