Is everyone's PC (near) silent at idle?

[SuperElectric]

Most GPU fans are stopped at idle, and most CPUs are fast enough so that general PC use (internet, office, youtube) can be performed at low power usage and therfore low RPM air cooling.

However, I've spoken to people who's fan curves are at default (e.g. 1200+ rpm) when the PC is idle and therefore relatively loud, which is crazy.

Is your PC (near) silent at idle?

 

[Meddling-Monk]

My PC at idle and full throttle (gaming and production work) use the same fan control profile; Silent (custom set and tested).

Have everything undervolted and everything has overspec'd coolers or coolers that are quiet. All 8 fans operate between 500 and 900rpm (staggered to reduce Harmonic Resonance). And because we have background noise (a fridge's hum, and sometimes the Central Heating) here that is louder than this PC running with the fans at this profile, there was no need to try and reduce the sound level further downwards.

During the Summer if the temps are too high, is the only time where I'll step up the fans to the next level (600rpm to 1000rpm). It's only audible during the dead of night, and during the day, you'll never be able to hear it with a citys day to day noise.

So yeah, I can't speak of anyone elses PC, but mine is (near silent) at idle and at full throttle settings.

 

[mattyfez]

Mine is totally silent when idle/browsing etc.

Power supply has zero fan mode at low load
GPU has zero fan mode at low load
CPU fan(s) is noctua NH-D15, which always spins but ramps down and is essentially silent at idle.

I only ever really hear fan noise if I'm running a benchmark.

There is some fan noise when gaming, but I have to turn the speakers off in order to hear it.

I can't even tell if my PC is off or on, half the time if my monitor has gone to sleep, and that's exactly how I like it!

 

[freddie64]

Very quiet when idle but GPU fans get a bit loud when gaming and CPU when bechmarking.

One of the first things i do after updating bios is set a fan curve.

I really need to look into undervolting the GPU as well.

 

[srekal34]

My PC is quiet when stressed as well 3x420 rads, fans never exceed 700rpm, spinning at 300rpm at idle

 

[momo56]

Guess it’s subjective. Not sure about other fans but 1200 is still pretty quiet on the Phanteks T30s.

Wearing ANC headphones most of the time anyway.

 

[Jamin280672]

Same as others, because im custom water cooling, I never hear my PC, idle, gaming, stress testing, there's no need for fans to rage away, as long as you're not exceeding or hitting max temps on your CPU, my 7900X3D has a max temp of 89oC, so I really dont care if im stress testing and its sitting at 80oC and still silent.

 

[Glanza]

My PC at idle is silent, fans are down at 600rpm, when gaming they'll gradually increase as temps go up with the curve I've setup but you can only just hear it even with PC on desk next to me.

 

[PaulM]

Pretty much silent at idle and v.quiet even while gaming now I managed to get a PSU+GPU combo that doesn’t have coil whine.

 

[jinxpad]

I wouldn't say silent but more like a rather soothing hum.

 

[Mr Evil]

I put some effort into making sure all my computers are quiet. The PSU in my PC runs fanless up to something like 500W, so it's almost always off. The GPU fans are off at idle (though they sometimes come on due to multi-monitor idle power consumption issues). The CPU has no fan. That leaves just three 140mm case fans which idle at 200-300RPM. That's very quiet, if not quite silent.

I think this is common nowadays. Power management and fan curves are a lot better than they used to be.

 

[Raggs]

All my case fans attached to the rads I have are wired to a fan controller I can kill the power to them, but then I can hear the D5 water pump whirring away not sure if I can control the pump the same way would be silent if possible.

 

[Gepetto]

I'm running 9 Corsair 120's in a Lian Li O11D Air and in general office/browsing use it is silent. It's also very nearly silent whilst gaming.

Completely unlike my NR200 setup. I can't get that silent no matter what I do.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

There's no real reason for a PC to make noise at idle unless it's something out of your control like pump noise/coil whine.

 

[Pulseammo]

I used to run my fans somewhere in the region of 1100 RPM, the way I arrived at that number was it was the slowest RPM to hit a given temperature target for my CPU under maximum load. It was still relatively quiet. The reason I ran a flat "curve" like that was because I really disliked the fans ramping when there's some transient CPU load at idle.

With my new board it has that deadzone setting where the load has to exist for X seconds before the curve will ramp to the next level, so now I run with something like 700rpm idle, I also have the curve adjusted so that it wont ramp until it's going over 60c.

 

[SuperElectric]

I used to have a low profile ITX case and a power hungry CPU, so it was awful for noise.

Now I put my ear against the side and hear nothing.

 

[lsg1r]

I actually run my fans slightly above silent, I like to know my fans are actually working lol

Does remind me I need to remove my 60mm noctua fans that seem to have developed a rattle....(my main pc has noctua fans but can't say I'm overly impressed compared with bequiet in my server if I'm honest)

 

[Wing-Man]

silent at idle and not fair off when gaming.

 

[BeeP]

Like a harrier during vertical take off, even the curtains are getting sucked into this thing.

Nah totally silent when browsing and a little hum when gaming.

 

[Wing-Man]

Like a harrier during vertical take off, even the curtains are getting sucked into this thing.

I remember my first few overclocked pc’s, that’s was a real thing. I have hi and low speed switch on on the front of my case and when gaming it had to be in high.