Help on making my rig, quieter, cooler and less power hungry.

Willie Sawyer

Willie Sawyer

Willie Sawyer

Associate
Joined
2 Jul 2010
Posts
53
Hey, about two years ago... i think...i built my first rig, about 6 months ago i headed off to university and with it i meant that i had to place the situation of my tower, and i began to notice that it makes a hell of a lot of noise, and due to the fact the best place for me to put it is next to a radiator probably doesn't help.

So I've been wondering if there are any fans that i can use to ensure it stays cool but cant be heard from two room away?

My current spec is:

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5850 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail

Asus Crosshair III Formula AMD 790FX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1600LV4GK)

Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ)

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black


All using stock fans, not over clocked either. I was also wondering if i could reduce my cpu wattage because next university year i'll be paying bills so id like to reduce costs etc.
 
You cannot reduce the wattage unless you want to decrease the CPU speed. Doing this will make no difference to your noise problem.

First of all, take the system apart and give it a good clean. CPU coolers, especially the stock coolers can become very loud when clogged up with dust, I know, it has happened to me. My old system from about 3 years ago sounded like a hoover because of it.

The noise will be mainly the fans and maybe the GPU fan.

First of all, clean all the fans to make sure they are dust free, if this doesn't work, then get come silent fans like these . They may be slightly ugly, but they are quiet, reducing the noise from your system. The Antec 300 should take them nicely.

Next you could get a newer CPU cooler. I run the Arctic Freezer Pro 7 Rev. 2 and it is SILENT. Over my old stock cooler, I cannot hear it for nothing.

Plus, I run an AMD Athlon Quad and have overclocked it from 3ghz stock to 3.5ghz and runs cool nicely. 30-35C idle - less than 55C always underload.

Plus you have a nice quad. It is the black edition which means it can be overclocked to around 4ghz or just under. With a cooler like the Arctic Freezer it will run very nicely.

Last thing you could do is download MSI Afterburner which allows you to mess around with your graphics card settings including overclock it, set the fan speed and record/take images of gameplay.

If your GPU fan is loud you can lower the fan speed to see if that reduces to noise.

Anything else???

Also, as your new. Welcome to the OcUK forums :P
 
Why thank you, i was actually thinking of purchasing

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-006-CS

as its on offer and i've always been intrigued with how water cooling effects performance. I also have no desire to ensure my rig looks stunning, i'll be saving the "coolness" factor for my next rig when i've completed my degree as a sort of graduation present to myself.

On another note, i have a **** ton of unused cables from my cpu any suggestions on a CPU that doesnt have as many??

:D thank you so much
 
The CPU doesn't have any cable :)

The self enclosed watercoolers are useless for their price, don bother with them

Get the XSPC/EK/OcUK watercooling kits and stick your graphics car in the loop and you'll have complete silence.
 
This cooler (for the same money) is much better than the artic cooler 7 which is very long in the tooth now

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-012-XG&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

The only other way to reduce your elcetricity bill is to get a more efficient psu but the more efficient they are the more money they cost.

Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 600W Power Supply £80 is the cheapest gold rated psu I could find on OCUK

Also you could sell your 5850 and make a slight upgrade to a 6870 which will draw roughly 7% less power at idle and roughly 10% less power at load while being as fast in most things as the 5850 and faster in some.

I assume you have all the standard fans connected and controlled by the motherboard.
 
Thanks for all the help, ive established the main cause of the extreme noise is the stock fans from the case, so im going to replace them.

Im also going to replace the CPU fan, you recommended me

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-012-XG&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Which one is the best replacement in your opinions and are new fans relatively easy to fit?

edit:

Im also going to get
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-003-BQ&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1816

as my case has two fans, but is this any good?
 
Last edited:
The xigmatic is much better look it up at frostytech.com. Its as easy to fit as the stock cooler. Jst make sure your case can fit a 158mm high cooler

The fan will be very good if you need 140mm fans. I would also recommend the bitfenix spectre range as i replaced all my case and water cooling fans with them and they are half the price of the bequiet fans. OCUK are out of stock of them atm google them. There is also a review on this forum of the spectres. You can also get the hydra (google it) and that allows you to turn off all the leds on the fans for that stealth look.:D

You can use 4*120mm and 1*140mm fan by the looks of it
 
@ xbournex

You have an informative signature but it's a touch too large:

You may use a signature (commonly used in email messages) in your posts. You can specify in your profile a signature to use at the bottom of your posts. When you post, there is an option to use your signature. A signature may contain one or more images but they must fit within a box with maximum dimensions of 400 x 75 pixels (width x height) and with a maximum (combined) file size of 20k. Images containing mostly very large words or animated .gifs will not be permitted. You may also add 1 consecutive lines of normal or smaller text directly above or underneath the image with no spaces inbetween image and text. If no images are used then up to 4 consecutive lines of normal or smaller text is permitted. Do not pad out your text lines with blanks lines. A line of text is defined as having a maximum length of 400 pixels. If you want to turn the signature off in the future, you can come back and edit your post. If you have specified a signature in your profile, the box will be automatically ticked for you.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom