Updated Once More: Monitor Successfully Silenced.

[EddNog]

Good day, all! I have acquired a Pentium 4 2.6C and wish to build the quietest possible system based around this chip, on a budget. I am willing to underclock the chip (ie run it like FSB100 and 1.3GHz and with lowered voltage, for silent cooling); it was a gift anyway. Would like a recommendation as to the best set of equipment (hopefully dead silent if there is, or if not, stuff that can easily be made as close to dead silent as possible, using only minor mods--ie no dremel), and what hard drive would be basically dead silent (if there are any; I'm not personally very experienced with the latest 5400rpm drives, dealing normally with extremely high-perf stuff). Performance is secondary to silence for this build; I have my monster rig for gaming anyway.



So far these are my preliminary choices:

Intel P4 2.6C

Evercase ECE4213S--$22, can't really go wrong and I'm putting it where noone will have to look at its ugly mug anyway

Asus CD-S520 CD reader--supposedly quite quiet

Maxtor 6E040L0--single platter, single head, lower profile, FDB and supposedly super quiet

2 pieces of 512MB PC3500 PNY Verto--have it laying around, might as well use it

MSI 865P Neo MS-6742-020--865P, passive cooling, ICHR5, only $86

Zalman ZM300A-APF PSU--supposedly among the quietest going on right now

Connect3D Radeon 9200 card--passive cooling. The 9200 is my choice because it'll probably be the cheapest card that works with the DVI-Component adapter I have coming in, and its passive cooling obviously is silent. I'm trying to come up with a silent air-cooling solution for the CPU, although for the time being I have a Cooler Master Jet 4 that's just sitting around as well.



If anyone has any suggestions or addins, please let me know! Somebody has told me that the 9200s don't accept the DVI-Component dongle; can anyone else verify if this is true or not? He also recommended a 7500 instead, but are there any 7500s with SECONDARY DVI outputs? I'll probably be making my purchases some time in two weeks for the most part, since I don't have the money yet until next Monday, and I like to purchase from the area's computer fairs, which happen only during weekends; they're real cheap especially good if they have what you're actually looking for. Anyone in the Tri-State area (NY/NJ/CT) check them out at www.tri-statefairs.com.

-Ed

 

[Lonyo]

Zalman flowers are quite good I think. Zalman aim for the silent PC area.

If you're not going to look at the case, some 120mm fans would be best (drill some holes in the case, it's only cheap), as they will have nice cfm rating and low noise (and you can probably undervolt them too).
But if you don't want to Dremel, a cheap case could mean not many fans, so not much airflow, and if you caven't got much airflow within the case, it won't be that great.
Look for a cheapo case with probably 4x80mm fans (then buy some quite 80mm fans of course), or I would suggest drilling the case, but if the case is small, not many fan holes etc, it might not be great for a computer without much noise.

The Zalman PSU is meant to be quite too, IIRC, almost silent. See what other stuff they have.

 

[buleyb]

the Fortron 300/350 watt PSUs with the 120mm fan are SILENT, quiter than the Zalmans IMO.

I have the 300watt for my P4 2.4C quiet box, and its only $27 from newegg

 

[oldfart]

Quiet and lots of fans dont mix. (4) 80mm fans??!! He is looking for as close to silent as possible. Silent = no fans. Use a very quiet PS and no case fans. The PS fan will be enough to move air through the case. The 2.6C is a toughie. I'm not sure if that MSI board can undervolt. Not likely. If you didn't buy it yet, look into it some more. A mobo that allows undervolting would be a big benefit. If you underclock it, a 133 FSB would still get you a 1.7 GHz CPU, so it should run fine.

 

[randomlinh]

i think you can get away w/ one more fan, like a panaflow, or something 7v.. if you had to.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

As a hard drive, I have not heard Maxtor's FDB drives but I own a Seagate 7200.7 drive and that thing is dead silent. I can barely hear it when it seeks if I pay attention to it.
I tried to go the same way you did with a quiet P4 system and this is what I'm using:

- Seagate 7200.7 drive, whisper quiet
- Zalman 7000AlCu heatsink, very quiet and cools well too,
- Panaflo L1A fans for the case, I'm using 3, but you can probably get away with only 1 or 2. Again, very quiet at 2500 RPM.
- Thermaltake PurePower Silent PSU, while it's not silent it is very quiet and I've yet to hear it spin up the fans because it's too hot.
- Zalman Northbridge cooler, to replace Abit's standard NB cooler. It's passive so no noise there.
- I currently have the stock cooler on my recently acquire Radeon 9700 Pro, but I've bought one of Zalman's heatpipe VGA coolers for it (no moving parts, so no noise).

I'm very happy with the Performance/noise ratio (I have an overclocked P4 2.4C). IMHO, the quieter parts were well worth the expense.

 

[randumb]

Antec Sonata cases are designed to be silent. They look sweet too.

 

[oldfart]

I dont think L1A's are all that quiet at full RPM. I have one as an exhaust. That is my only case fan. I use Speedfan to control the RPM of that fan based on temp. At 100% RPM. I find it is kind of loud. At 60 - 70%, it is nice and quiet. When my case/CPU temps rise, it will go to 100%.

I also use a Zalman NB cooler and did have a Zalman Heatpipe, but recently changed it for an Arctic-Cooling Silencer DHES cooler.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: oldfart
I dont think L1A's are all that quiet at full RPM. I have one as an exhaust. That is my only case fan. I use Speedfan to control the RPM of that fan based on temp. At 100% RPM. I find it is kind of loud. At 60 - 70%, it is nice and quiet. When my case/CPU temps rise, it will go to 100%.

I also use a Zalman NB cooler and did have a Zalman Heatpipe, but recently changed it for an Arctic-Cooling Silencer DHES cooler.

well I should qualify my comment of them being very quiet. The fans them are pretty quiet IMHO, and the noise they do put out is low pitched and it sounds like air rushing through the case. I guess you are a little more picky about it than I am. Do you have a link for this Arctic-Cooling Silencer cooler?

 

[Nebor]

I also don't think full RPM panaflo L1as are all that quiet. I mean, compared to a regular 3200rpm fan, sure, they're not even there. But I use a Vantec fanbus now to control my 5 panaflo L1as, and you can definitely hear a difference between 700rpm and full rpm.

I also use a zalman heatipe for my video card, w/ the optional OP1 92mm fan (also attached to fanbus) a zalman 7000cu (also attached to fanbus) and a Zalman PS (which makes no audible noise)

My loudest component is my hard drive(s). WD800JBs...

I <3 silent computing.

Ignore these 120mm fan nuts. An 80mm fan @ 5v is quieter than a 120mm fan @ 5v. And before you even start, 120mm nuts, SILENCE is paramount here, not performance (airflow.)

 

[Big Lar]

I'd try a Water cooled system, with a block on the cpu/gpu/northbridge, and on the hard drive. Then just 1 fan exhausting on the rear above the board, and the power supply.

 

[oldfart]

I'm getting pickier as I'm getting older and er um...fartier.... I had 1 L1A intake and 1 exhaust @ full RPM for quite awhile and thought that was good. I then lowered the rpm with Speedfan and was surprised how much that improved it. I did some testing and found that an intake fan does very little for cooling, but plenty to make noise. I ditched the front fan and was pleasantly surprised how nice it is. I now run the L1A rear and the M1A CPU fan both @ 60% during low load. At high load, they go to 100%. I have the best of both.

Here is Silent PCs review of the Silencer. I run it at the low 1200 rpm speed which is inaudible. What I like is it directly removes the GPU heat from the case instead of radiating it into the case like most coolers.

I got it @ SVC.com, but they are OOS right now.

 

[EddNog]

I, too, have been seeking the VGA Silencer, but cannot find a dealer either.

I'll be looking into cases with better passive cooling features as well as active cooling, "options," per your advice. Since this purchase won't be for two weeks, I've time to do so. The main appeal of that case was the $22 price tag, hehe. I have a whole bunch of relatively-quiet-at-full-12V cheap 80mm fans laying around (relics of my case flow insanity days) and I'll try comparing them through a fan controller with 120mm fans, also through a fan controller, to see what works better (before getting the case). I just need to figure out what fan controller to get; my Aerogate I is serving 24/7 duty in my power rig. I have a Vantec Nexus NXP-201 that I'm not using but its obnoxious buzz is the last thing I need on my silent rig project. Anyway I do concur with one person here that no fans is still best, and if I can get away with that, I will. And where can I buy Panaflows with the power plugs?!?

Yes, I have also considered single-platter 7200.7s by Seagate as well as single-platter 7K250s by Hitachi. I just need to get my ears on the Hitachi, some place. I have one of those Barracudas in my dad's rig, which is quite quiet except for a single noise, which I have yet to determine either to be CPU HSF, PSU or hard drive. It's got an Antec Truepower 330, which I doubt to be the sound I'm hearing, and I'm thinking it's either the CPU HSF or the hard drive, even though I didn't think that drive was supposed to be audible in that way.

The CNPS-7000A-Cu is most definitely on my short list of possible HSFs for this project, as well as a Thermalright SP94 with some sort of silent fan setup (something already quiet, through a fanbus). I'm curious about water cooling but also keep in mind that I am trying to keep this within a budget. I'm also wondering if a water cooling setup that has such quiet active cooling through its radiator will work any better than a damn good quiet air cooling setup, and doesn't the pump make noise too?

I'll take a look at the 120mm fanned Fortron PSUs for a look see.

Getting a better motherboard with undervolting option is a very good point, and I didn't think about swapping out active cooling devices for passive cooling devices until now. Can anyone recommend a decently priced Intel-based, HT-capable mobo with good o/c options whose northbridge cooler is mounted via pins (not epoxy)? I'm looking at the ABIT AI7, since it appears to fit my need but if anyone can figure out something under $100 it'd be pretty nice.

Thanks a lot for all your help so far, guys. I knew Anand readers would follow through. I had originally posted at Sundhian's but they just don't get the traffic this place does. Their people don't seem quite as knowledgeable either, but I do commend the few who spoke.

-Ed

PS BTW anybody have any word on Radeon 9200 w/DVI port and ATi DVI-Component Video Output Dongle compatibility? I'm, still up in the air on that one.

 

[Nebor]

Abit IA7? Was that a 533mhz mobo? You should probably get an 800mhz bus to match your CPU. The... Ah. Ahah. Just as I go to recommend the Abit IS7, it hits me, the 'a' lies rather close to the 's', doesn't it? Well, I've lost all credibility now... I'm screwed.... Unless somehow I could stop this post from reaching teh int4rw3b...

 

[EddNog]

Yeah dood, AI7.

-Ed

 

[oldfart]

I have an Abit IC7 and it can not undervolt. I doubt the AI7 will. I would put up a separate post on the mobo forum asking for a mobo with undervolting capabilities.

For controlling fan RPMs, I use Speedfan

Panaflo L1A can be had with 3 pin mobo or 4 pin PS plugs. Again, I think an L1A is too loud @ full rpm. You will want to slow it down.

 

[EddNog]

Ah yes, good old Speedfan. If I do use the motherboard's fan headers, that's a good idea! Thanx.

-Ed

 

[EddNog]

*BUMP!*

 

[buleyb]

The Radeon 9200 don't work with DVI-Component adapters (says an ATI sales support guy). The 9600/9500 series is the lowest in the line that does anymore, and if you haven't tried it before, beware...

P/M me if you want more details

 

[RalfHutter]

I answered part of your question in your mobo thread about undervoltable mobos.

If you're looking for a passively cooled DVI vidcard I'd suggest an ATI 7500. I have several in use on my silent systems. You could also go with an 8500 and just rip off the heatsink fan and cool it with an undervolted L1A on a Zalman bracket.. I ran my 8500 like that for a year.

In this thread I talk about my own silent P4C system. It's actually easy to pull off.

 

[EddNog]

Okay, so this is what I now have in mind:

Antec Sonata case I'll see how the True380 PSU sounds and if it's not quiet enough, then I'll spend the money on an upgraded one

ASUStek black CD-ROM drive supposedly it's pretty quiet, special motor

Thermalright SP-94 CPU HS not sure what fan to use yet, I have like 10 different fans sitting around which I'll try first and if none of them work out, I'll get my hands on a Panaflow or something.

Seagate ST340014A Barracuda 7200.7 series 40GB drive

two pieces of PNY PC3500 I've got sitting around (512MB each)

Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000Pro 2004 GT Edition I plan to render the northbridge cooling passive

ATi Radeon 9600SE already passively cooled, and should work fine with my DVI-Component Video Output dongle from ATi


Again these are still preliminary as I still haven't made any purchases. Got another week to decide. How's it look now?

-Ed

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: EddNog
ATi Radeon 9600SE

NOOOOOOOOO!!!OOOO!!!O!O!OOO!!!!! :Q :Q

9600SE = Baby Jesus +

Get the Sapphire 9600NP for about the same price (it's CDN$160 up here) and get MUCH better performance.

- M4H

 

[EddNog]

I already have a power rig (check the My System Rigs link below) running a Barton at 2300MHz and Radeon 9800. This machine I'm putting together now is purely for silence.

-Ed

 

[txxxx]

The 120mm fan idea is not nuts, think it over :roll:
Lower rpm , larger surface area = better CFM throughoutput...

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: EddNog
I already have a power rig (check the My System Rigs link below) running a Barton at 2300MHz and Radeon 9800. This machine I'm putting together now is purely for silence.

-Ed

It's a $0 upgrade for a substantial performance boost.

Still waiting for the downside to this.

- M4H