GOING SILENT

khulershaker

khulershaker

khulershaker

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Hi,

Just looking for some advice here and this seemed the best thread.
I have the OC'ed bundle GIGABYTE EX58 UD5\CORE i7 from about just over a year and (you are going to shout nooo!) I have taken the overclock off as I want to make the computer silent.
There are many reasons I wont bore you all with, but I need to do it.
So far, I just dropped drop the BIOS back to stock and unplugged the big fans at the top and side of the HAF case and also removed 1 fan from the push/pull on the megahalem.

All that is left is 1 fan on the CPU cooler and the big fan that keeps the HDD's cool. However it's hardly any quieter and was wondering if my approach was messed up? Have I gone about this the wrong way.
BIOS fan is on AUTO which should really be quiet on "no OC" I would have thought, also its a noctua.

Bear in mind I understand how silly this must sound, coming into an overclockers forum to learn how to, take the overclock off and make silent LOL, but it's not for ever, all circumstantial. Dont kill me. Yet!

Thanks guys
 
The Nocuta fans are fairly quiet even at full chat, so they shouldn't be the problem.

I would suspect either the standard case fan is loud or the PSU fan. If it's the case fan, either replace it or get it on a fan controller. If its the PSU fan then you will need a new PSU as its not advisable to replace a PSU fan.

I would suggest you would be better off purchasing a fan controller and hooking up all of your fans to it and running them to suit your tastes. That way when gaming you can ramp them up, and when not, you can slow them down to greatly reduce noise levels.

I certainly wouldn't just disconnect them all as you have done.
 
In the bios does the fan control have a silent setting? I used to use this on my asus mobo when on air, worked great and the fans only sped up if temps got to a certain level. Otherwise as Digggsy says get a fan controller.
 
I run my Noctua heatsink fans at 600rpm idle and 1000rpm full tilt and they are still not anywhere near silent.

First thing I do is work out where the noise is coming from. Reach in and stop each fan in turn and see what effect it is having. Another way is to stop all fans and release one at a time to determine the noisiest. You may find through this that one item is making most of the noise and this can be fixed.

I don't think a HAF case is particularly designed to be quiet but there are some things you can do to quieten things down a bit.

1) Reduce fan speeds through..Voltage mod, Fan controller, Resistor mods, PWM.
2) Block side fan holes. (foam, acrylic)
3) Block top fan hole. (foam, acrylic)
4) Rubber feet. (HAF may already have this)
5) PSU fan mod. (Depends on your PSU whether this'd be worth it)
6) Suspend hard drives. (Probably a down the road mod)
7) Soft mount fans. (Some say this makes no difference)
8) Remove fan grilles. (Clear path for air, fan can run slower but does let noise escape more but reduces grille vibration and resonance)
9) Clean out dust.
10) Underclock GPU for idle conditions (results will vary on your GPU)

The Hard drive fan doesn't need to spin very fast, even a light breeze is sufficient to cool normal hard drives.

When you say Stock settings have you got everything on Auto or have you undervolted anything?

Edit: Noctua fans don't work with my UD5's BIOS fan control. They are 3 pin fans and the UD5 wants 4pin PWM fans. You can use speedfan to slow the fans up and use the LNA/ULNA adaptors as required.
 
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Great advice Tealc, you may want to consider a passive PSU also... One less noisy thing in your case.

Suspended HD's are nice as well, make a big difference in noise and is cheap too!
 
I'm almost silent on my rig. However it's not the most elegant solution, and in hot summer would question myself how effective the cooling is.

1) Run the Seasonic X-650 as the fan never spins.
2) Lowered the CPU voltage fair amount, running stock speeds. Tiny undervoltage on the memory, and chipset voltages fully low as they could be set. The X-650 is so stable you under volt much more than most average PSU's.
3) Second graphics card is passive, primary however still has fan but it's quiet for 2d. (I'm running quad monitors for 2d work)
4) Have a very low RPM Liam-Li 140mm PCI blower blowing air inwards and onto the chipset area.
5) Set the CPU fan so it only comes on when required using Gigabyte Easy Tune.

And here's the most bizarre thing

6) No other case fans what so ever, and running with the entire side of my tower case removed. Only that low rpm 140mm to cool the chipset.

Today i'm seeing a system temp of 30c and CPU temp of 34c (idle). On the hot days in summer I had a large deskfan (on low setting) blowing air point blank into the side of the case. The graphics / chipset / CPU were not a concern even in summer, but the HDD temps were going past 45c. If I fitted some HDD cooling should have been ok without the desk fan.
 
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MikeHunt79 said:
Suspended HD's are nice as well, make a big difference in noise and is cheap too!
Click to expand...

Indeed.
suspendedHDD.jpg


Was fiddly as hell to get 3 in there like this but...oh my god the difference it makes. Considering the drives were sat on silicone grommets of the P183 I was shocked and stunned at the difference.
 
Tealc said:
Indeed.
[IG]http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/Tealc_wii/PC Stuff/suspendedHDD.jpg[/IMG]

Was fiddly as hell to get 3 in there like this but...oh my god the difference it makes. Considering the drives were sat on silicone grommets of the P183 I was shocked and stunned at the difference.
Click to expand...
I found that with my F1 also, while it can't quite get rid of the spinning sound, it virtually eliminates seek noise. :cool:

I plan to elastic mount an F4 once it arrives, can I ask where you got those black things that go between the bolts and the elastic? Or what they're called? I'm currently using zip-ties to keep my HD attached to the elastic, and while it works, it's far from ideal... :o
 
Bungee mods are great and really cheap, but if you want silence, then there's nothing that will beat the GUP Smart Drive enclosures.

I now have both my drives encased in them and barely ever hear them, even when they are getting thrashed. Awesome enclosures :)
 
Diggsy said:
Bungee mods are great and really cheap, but if you want silence, then there's nothing that will beat the GUP Smart Drive enclosures.

I now have both my drives encased in them and barely ever hear them, even when they are getting thrashed. Awesome enclosures :)
Click to expand...

Enclosures are nice, but I've found that they can make the temps get a little high, I can't remember what enclosure it was I was using but HDTune was reporting temps of 70+ degrees.

Out of interest, what temps are you getting with the GUP enclosure?
 
Why has no one mentioned watercooling? There is extra cost involved etc. ut then could run a near silent pc whilst keeping the overclock.
 
There's no need to lose an overclock to have a quiet rig. An idle overclocked PC can be near silent, it's only when you start gaming or doing other intensive stuff that the noise level increases.

I run a 3.57Ghz i7 920 Overclock in a P183 with no fan running more than 600rpm at idle, 1000 at full tilt. It's not silent but it's quiet. Idle temps on CPU are 40 degrees, load 70 degrees. That's not bad really.
 
Greboth said:
Why has no one mentioned watercooling? There is extra cost involved etc. ut then could run a near silent pc whilst keeping the overclock.
Click to expand...

I totaly agree i have an i7 970 and tri sli gtx470 with the stock fans on for the first week, even when idel it sounded like a hover but if i tried to play a game the noise drowned out the sound of my speakers lol. so i water cooled the lot and i even change the fans on the radiator for 120mm slower ultra quiet fans,

now i can't even tell the pc's on even at 100% load and i can get some very nice overclocks and still runs cooler than it ever did on air as a bonus

water cooling is the way to go if you want total silence
 
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Greboth said:
Why has no one mentioned watercooling? There is extra cost involved etc. ut then could run a near silent pc whilst keeping the overclock.
Click to expand...
Because watercooling is not really that quiet, my watercooled PC is louder what my aircooled PC because of the pump noise.
 
I don't know as yet to venture into watercooling but how come then you see people with comments along the lines of "PC is so quiet now can barely tell it is on" Maybe at idle though but under load I cannot see water cooling being louder than a top end HSF and graphics card. As I said though I don't know this but presuming this to be the case.
 
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