Building a 100% quiet PC.

Freeman

Freeman

Freeman

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24 Jul 2004
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I plan to build a quiet PC, completely quiet with no fans.

I'm just a bit stuck with what heatpipe graphic card I should get (will play games and other intense GPU stuff) and what PSU I should get as I know next to nothing about silent PSU's.

Any help please?
 
Zalman used to make a case for this, entire case was the heatsink. You might have 4-500 watts power being used in the case, somehow you have to get that out. If this were an easy task everyone would have one, it's difficult and expensive to make a 'silent' computer. Even without fans you have the hard disks in there (unless you go all-SSD). A reserator without fan helps shift most of the heat, it's still got a pump but it's v.quiet. You can get a water block for the GFX (285/295) and Zalman make heatpipe PSUs but I think they still use a fan. You have a tough task with that.
 
There is no such this as "100% quite" no matter what you do plus even making a quite pc can be very expensive due to buying watercooling ssd drive etc....
 
You may run into problems here. I've got a 8800gt with a thermalright passive cooler. Its fine under minor load with no airflow, but when loaded it'll kill itself if deprived of air. And thats not a particularly quick card these days.

Properly fanless psu is difficult too. Theres two on the market I believe that will function with zero airflow, and at least one of them is externally mounted.


I settled on a compromise. I had a heavily overclocked computer with many many fans in that worked quickly and played games well. The passive gpu was fine as a consequence of so many fans :)

When playing games or doing computationally intense things I coped with the noise. When watching films, browsing the internet etc, I rebooted into an underclocked profile and then turned off the fans in software. Using a TRUE which works fine passively, and a film hardly stresses a gpu.

Only thing I failed to achieve was the psu, as I wasn't brave enough to risk connecting the psu fan to the motherboard in order to control it. A dead 800W psu would suck badly.

Is there anything more specific youd like to ask? Silent is very very hard. Very quiet is fairly easy :)

(overclocking and silent probably means water and a lot of care with the pump)
 
JonJ678 said:
You may run into problems here. I've got a 8800gt with a thermalright passive cooler. Its fine under minor load with no airflow, but when loaded it'll kill itself if deprived of air. And thats not a particularly quick card these days.

Properly fanless psu is difficult too. Theres two on the market I believe that will function with zero airflow, and at least one of them is externally mounted.


I settled on a compromise. I had a heavily overclocked computer with many many fans in that worked quickly and played games well. The passive gpu was fine as a consequence of so many fans :)

When playing games or doing computationally intense things I coped with the noise. When watching films, browsing the internet etc, I rebooted into an underclocked profile and then turned off the fans in software. Using a TRUE which works fine passively, and a film hardly stresses a gpu.

Only thing I failed to achieve was the psu, as I wasn't brave enough to risk connecting the psu fan to the motherboard in order to control it. A dead 800W psu would suck badly.

Is there anything more specific youd like to ask? Silent is very very hard. Very quiet is fairly easy :)

(overclocking and silent probably means water and a lot of care with the pump)
Click to expand...

I think a few people have mis-understood a little about my ability and my funds. I plan to do SSD which I have planned, I know what to get and where to get it. It's just the graphics card (last heatpipe card I had was the 8600GT which is actually really good for medium games) which I'm not too sure about and obviously the PSU.

You mentioned there were two fanless PSU's on the market, what are they?

As for the case, well I have a fanless case as it is so that's silent. As my PC is now the only things that make noise on it are the PSU, Ninja Scythe heatsink fan and the graphic card and obviously the HD.
 
mjones1 said:
There is no such this as "100% quite" no matter what you do plus even making a quite pc can be very expensive due to buying watercooling ssd drive etc....
Click to expand...

Apparently there are fanless PSU's on the market, SSD, no case fans, heatpipe GFX, no heatsink fan (scythe does more than a good enough job on a quad). What would make the noise?
 
Watercool everything. And for the radiator drill watercooling pipes to out side then plaster hole then get water proof box to go over the radiator which is outside to keep it try :) :). Could work :p
 
Freeman said:
Apparently there are fanless PSU's on the market, SSD, no case fans, heatpipe GFX, no heatsink fan (scythe does more than a good enough job on a quad). What would make the noise?
Click to expand...
It was cost a lot to do that plus you would have to get a quite case. I think you should aim for quite and use some sound dampening foam.
 
jimmybates said:
You probably won't be able to get a very good GPU thats completely passive.
Click to expand...

Best I've seen is the Sparkle 9800GT Silent Cool-pipe 512MB from a competitor. I had a 6800 in my old build (in an Antec Sonata case - very quiet overall) which coped extremely well under load.

It's perfectly easy to build a completely silent pc as long as you don't mind compromising either on price or using slightly older technology, I'd fully expect to see silent versions of the current cutting edge graphics cards in the future :)

I'm planning on buying a new pc in April (hopefully) which will be very very very quiet (1 case fan, 1 psu fan and a fan on heat-sinked cpu).
 
Bah, water cooling is old-hat... go with mineral oil submersion for real silence :)

<snip>

whoops, realised that is on a competitor site, so you'll have to google it. Sorry.
 
IMO, an American shop that sells a completely customised case (not available anywhere else) and parts for said case (also not available anywhere else) is not a competitor to a UK based company that offer next day delivery. :)
OcUK is quickly becoming my PC shop of choice.

But yeah, that mineral oil PC is awesome :D
 
Freeman said:
I think a few people have mis-understood a little about my ability and my funds. I plan to do SSD which I have planned, I know what to get and where to get it. It's just the graphics card (last heatpipe card I had was the 8600GT which is actually really good for medium games) which I'm not too sure about and obviously the PSU.

You mentioned there were two fanless PSU's on the market, what are they?

As for the case, well I have a fanless case as it is so that's silent. As my PC is now the only things that make noise on it are the PSU, Ninja Scythe heatsink fan and the graphic card and obviously the HD.
Click to expand...

A complete solution is here (if you have the funds):
http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?Idx=116
 
Ucof said:
IMO, an American shop that sells a completely customised case (not available anywhere else) and parts for said case (also not available anywhere else) is not a competitor to a UK based company that offer next day delivery. :)
Click to expand...

Better safe than sorry, I thought, and you can google it easily enough :)
 
Zalman PSUs are near silent. I have one and it is very quiet. I don't know about completely silent but I cannot hear it above my cpu fan ever. It comes in many different versions. With Graphics cards generally you have the option of silent or powerful, not both, however if you search around Zalman do make various aftermarket coolers such as the one linked below. You can also buy hard drive cages (from elsewhere) that dampen the vibration noise that most mechanical hard drives make, if you want to get one as a storage drive.

Zalman PSU:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-017-ZA&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1102

Graphics Cooler:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-032-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=787

Hope this helps :)
 
Hi Freeman before I answers some of your questions what case do you have - would really help when
recomending hardware to know what it's going in. Is it one of the designed fanless one below or a normal case with no fans installed?

Zalman TNN300 or TNN500
Mappit - A4F
Mcubed - various HTPC shapes
Hush - various HTPC shapes
Niveus Media - Rainer

There's a few Fanless PSU, better ones are below and I've not inc power bricks or sff psu's

Silverstone SST-ST30NF
FSP ZEN 400
silentMaxx Fanless 400W
SilverStone Nightjar ST45NF
Yesico FL-480ATX (T) - Hybrid
antec Phantom 500 - Hybrid
Silentmaxx Watercooled 500W, 12/10mm PSU
Yesico FL-550ATX (T) - Hybrid
Koolance PSU-1300ATX-12N - Watercooled

Hybrid (inc fan or fan header but only on during thermal runaway)

Completely fanless need some thought, time or paying lots of money for zalman or simular to do it all for you.
See TNN 500 case link in chrisLX200 post above.

Standard 'passive' chipset and aftermarket 'passive' gpu cooler are design with at least some case air flow.
Both should not be used in a fanless case without modification or you will get thermal runaway in your case.

If going totally fanless you need to get the heat out of your case (or not have a case) it's as simple as that.
The easiest way is selecting hardware with low heat output and using large heatsinks with vertical fan when installed.
This maximises natural convection and the top/bottom of your case will need vents (blocking front and back may help).
If your hardware is hot heatpipes/large thermal plates or passive watercooling are your only options.

I have a fanless system and I do not recoment this approach to 99% of members.
A single fan system (with the right fan at 5v) is usually below ambient noise levels so is 'practically' silent and that all anybody really needs.
This way retail passive options can use used as intended.

I'd also advise that the system has two cooling profiles - normal (with either no fan or just a 5v fan) and Gaming - with two fans at 7v.
Would still be very quiet an well below speaker/headphone noise but give you the option of serious gpu hardware without the need of passive watercooling.

Hope that helps - see sig for link to my current fanless build log.

In summery.
Retail passive chipset, psu and gpu cooler NEED case air flow.
Fanless gaming = passive watercooling
Single fan systems for the win (99% of the time).
 
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