Any way to silence this system further?

Meddling-Monk

Meddling-Monk

Meddling-Monk

Associate
Joined
2 Sep 2013
Posts
2,309
Have been slowly silencing my system bit by bit, and I "think" I've now done everything possible to silence or reduce the noise of my existing gear as possible. And I "think" I've narrowed the remaining items down to two remaining sections that require something more (that I can't do anything about) just yet, but I believe it is everything. Just wanted to see if anyone can see anything I've missed out on tweaking or ghetto modding further to reduce the noise being produced to as little as possible. The aim of the system is to have all the computing components running at the most energy efficient level (so at the fastest level using the least energy) whilst also having it as silent and cool as possible (with silence more important than cool). So basically the impossible in most cases. :p

So the system:
Corsair Obsidian 650D (Ghetto modded)
Asus Rampage IV Extreme (Original version)
Intel i7 4930k @4.3Ghz
Corsair 64GB (Dominator and Vengeance) DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
Powercolor Red Devil RX580 (reapplied thermal paste)
Corsair HX650 Bronze PSU

Corsair 650D Ghetto modded
Cut out 200mm fan grill at the front, placed cable sheath plastic over the remaining sharp edges to reduce noise made from air rushing over them.
Cut out 120mm fan grill at the back, placed cable sheath plastic over the remaining sharp edges to reduce noise made from air rushing over them.
Top grill has an A4 pad of 150 odd leaves remianing placed on top to cover it up, preventing sound from escaping from the top of the case.
Front 5.25" Bay covers removed and empited out to place extra fan there. Dust filter attached to the former location of the slot covers.
Side Panels have duct tape taped to the edges to prevent direct transfer of vibration from case to panels.
PSU seating (raised metal struts in the case location for the PSU) has some duct tape applied to raise any PSU fitted in there a tiny amount so as to reduce gap between PSU and case (and vibration from PSU to case, etc)
Removed the top external HDD tray.

Cooling in use
Noctua NH U12A on CPU. Fans set to Exhaust out towards the back. Connected to CPU Fan Header. Set to 50% at CPU 50C and to raise to 60% at 70C, and 100% at 75C+ (as per BIOS settings).
Noctua A12x25 in Rear Fan Slot set to Exhaust. Connected to CPU Optional Fan Header. So slaved to copy all CPU Fan settings.
Noctua A12x25 in 5.25" Bay set as Intake. Sides ghetto taped up to prevent recycling of air there. Also connected to CPU Optional Fan Header. So slaved to copy all CPU Fan settings also.
Noctua A20 in front 200mm Fan Slot. Set to static 60% Fan speed in BIOS PWM settings (for least amount of detectable sound vs highest operating RPM)
Noctua A12x25 in PCI slot set as Exhaust. Set to static 50% Fan speed in BIOS PWM settings (lowest setting it can go unfortunately).
Noctua A14 sitting between the end of the 5.25" Drive Bay and the GPU (at height of the lower half of the case, so between the A20 at the front and the A12x25 at the PCI slot) set to provide increased airflow inside case. Set to static 60% Fan speed in BIOS PWM settings (lowest possible without producing detectable noise).

Rough temps in play right now
Room Temp: ~ 25C
CPU: Idle ~27C, Load ~64C, AVX Load ~72C, Gaming Load ~53C
GPU: Idle ~33C, Load ~83C
GPU VRM: Idle ~40C, Load ~90C
GPU Fan: 0%, Heating up (from 60C) 35% flat to throttle temps (90C)

The system is currently sitting under the desk in an open desk. So basically the sound echoes around easily as there's not a lot stopping it. There's a wall to the left of the desk less than 6 inches away from the back of the case, and the back of the desk is less than 18 inches to a wall, both of these return the echo of the fans and "thwipping" sound quite noticably during the night. But imperceivable during the day.

I don't have a sound meter so I can't really tell you how much noise it's currently at. But testing during the middle of the night, the sound from the back of the case, is akin to a car engine left on, approximately 30-45m away. So you can barely hear it, but you can notice this very low frequency "thwipping" type of sound when you put your head down towards the case. It's "there", but you can't necessarily tell where. That type of volume is what is being emanated to my ears.

1. I believe this "thwipping" sound to be emanating from the PSU fan or the PSU itself. And I think the only solution really is to go Fanless PSU and hope no sound from the rest of the components, or to put it into enclouse with sound dampening materials to reduce the remaining sound from it. Correct?
2. The final piece of the sytem making a sound is the fans escaping out the back of the case and echoing around. I'm thinking this part absolutely requires me to place the computer into an enclosure of some type (that has been fitted with sound dampening material) to dampen the escaping sound further and there's no other option, right?
3. Sound dampening foam for inside the case isn't going to help here correct?

Any other ideas and thoughts, totally happy to tender. :)

Thanks all.
 
Hello, I have the Red Devil GPU too. Does it make a difference just reapplying the thermal paste? I am trying to reduce noise on my PC in our kitchen and looking at the GPU & CPU cooling..
 
You could also remover the grills from the PSU too. .Depending on how hot the PSU runs you could flip it and flip its fan so that it acts as an intake and blows air at the GPU. This would also reduce noise being blasted at the wall.
 
shaggyd said:
Hello, I have the Red Devil GPU too. Does it make a difference just reapplying the thermal paste? I am trying to reduce noise on my PC in our kitchen and looking at the GPU & CPU cooling..
Click to expand...

It depends.

1. A few of the RX580's and from what I remember reading - some of the other Red Devils (Vega and 480 I think) from Powercolor, had badly applied Thermal Paste on the GPU, resulting in some really poor contact between the GPU and the GPU Cooler.
2. Reapplication would help reduce the temps down without changing anything else, but if you are after more noticable temperature reduction in a system, if the reapplication helped, you can slowly reduce your GPU fan speeds to see how far it can go down before your GPU throttles (around 90C), then add some overhead to the GPU fan for hot weather moments like now. That should help your GPU noise a bit.
3. But if you really want to keep the GPU cooler from being that noisy (and I know how noisy it is), then you want to increase more airflow available to it in the system, that way you'll need the GPU fan less or at much reduced speeds. All of which helps with the noise coming from the Red Devil GPU cooler.
4. Use Wattman or MSI Afterburner, whichever you happen to be using, and make sure that the Fan Curve being used on the card is appropriate for your cards temperatures. Remember, than the GPU can safely hit mid 80C without issue, as on hitting 90C, it'll throttle itself and slow down anyway. So if your GPU right now is loud, but only hitting 75C, then reducing fan speed by 30%, and letting the GPU hit 83C instead, will be much quieter without losing the performance at the expense of a bit more heat.

Hope that helps you control your GPU noise some. :)
 
drakulton said:
If the PSU is out of warranty, why don't you replace the fan with a noctua?
Click to expand...

That's because I'm fresh out of more Noctua's at the moment. :p ;)

No, honestly though, the PSU isn't out of warranty. It's only 6 years and a few months old at the moment. Meaning if something goes wrong, I can still get an RMA warranty on it. So I don't want to make any physical changes to it at this moment. Otherwise I totally would have attempted it already. :D

And I don't think a RMA would work or happen for the noise at the moment either in case anyone is wondering. The thing (PSU) is actually very quiet, barely audible (during the night and certainly during the day) and works flawlessly otherwise. It's just I'm looking to silence things further and found the PSU to be making the most background "noise" now (almost like a mosquito; you know its there but can't quite find it type of sound...). Unless one of the Corsair reps here tells me I can do so otherwise as it shouldn't be making that noise.

So I think a fanless PSU is still the best option here for a future upgrade? Unless if someone has one and can tell me that the fanless PSU still creates that "buzzing" or vibrating type of "mosquito" noise from the circuitry? (ie, what I'm hearing is a normal and actually from the circuitry and not the fan?)

drakulton said:
You could also remover the grills from the PSU too. .Depending on how hot the PSU runs you could flip it and flip its fan so that it acts as an intake and blows air at the GPU. This would also reduce noise being blasted at the wall.
Click to expand...

May do that at the end of the year when the warranty is over. Although I'm not sure if the noise is from the air from the fan hitting the wall (since I can hardly feel any airflow from the back of the PSU), and more the air flowing inside the PCU case and causing that vibrating type of sound (like a fridge I guess but much MUCH lower volume).

drakulton said:
You could also fit a morpheus ll cooler and 120mm noctua fans to the GPU to keep it cooler and quieter under load.
Click to expand...

Have looked at the Morpheus II kit previously, but the problem is that the kits VRM Heatsink doesn't fit the VRM on the Red Devil PCB, and so I've had to abandon that idea unfortunately. And I am unable to locate a reliable source on where to locate an appropriate VRM Heatsink to fit on the card either, whether individually purchased or if found in another kit/pack. So I've kinda abandoned this particular idea at this time until that can be located.
 
The morpheus ll cooler is a beast, but they don't seem to have kept the compatibility list updated. The 1070fe is also unsupported so I had to get a small pack of heatsinks to cool all the components. Card now runs at high 50s max and very quiet.
 
doyll said:
Have you tried unplugging the rear exhaust fans to see if they are the late night noise? Below is link to basic guide of how airflow works and how to optimize case airflow and thus lower system noise.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/30354296/
Click to expand...

Have done so and it's not them that's causing the noise I was looking for unfortunately. :( There IS a slight wind rush sound, but it's not the vibrating/"thwipping" almost like a mosquito or an idle car engine REALLY far away (so you can just about hear it) type of sound.

I had ALL active cooling turned off, and the noise was still coming from the case. The only item I couldn't turn off was the PSU. And when it is...

slipperydave said:
turning it off will silence it.
Click to expand...

Turned off. That noise goes away. So I'm fairly certain it's the PSU that's making that... well. For lack of a better description, "background" noise (that's sounds so far away you can barely hear it volumes).

Incidentally, I found out that the Noctua NH U12A rear exhaust fan in Push Pull causes a slight humming sound, but that is absorbed into the case right now with the ghetto mods I did so you can't hear it.

Oh, and the system is also now quiet enough that during daytime, turning it off and on is hard to tell; I need to put my head under the desk to look for GPU LED logo light or listen intently for the fan sounds to see if it's on/off these days. It's just I'm wondering if I can tune the souds being made down further. :)
 
Just found out that what I'm hearing is PSU Coil Whine. So it's nothing something that changing the fan in the PSU will fix unfortunately, just something I'm going to need to change at some point to remove that blasted sound.

As for the fans, working on a possible ghetto s duct (serpentine inlet) mod with some dampening matierial on the inside to reduce the sound from the fans escaping from the rear fans. Will see if that helps before I grab an enclosed desk (one that isn't open) and add dampening to the insides to reduce fan noise that way.

Incidentally, now I know it's definitely PSU related and what it is. Can anyone recommend a PSU that is least likely to have coil whine along with it?
 
For anyone interested, I made further Ghetto mod to test out further silencing and surprisingly, it worked.

Not quite an S Duct, but sort of close in theory: A cardboard box (yes I'm aware that it's not a safe long term solution, etc, but it's a test run for now), cut to size of the fans at the rear of the case, with the ends cut off, and then partitions added at an angle to each other on the inside to reduce noise produced, and to angle away sound. And works surprisingly well despite no actual sound absorbtion material applied to it.

Airflow
--->

Duct
____
```\
_/__

It doesn't stop all the sound, but stops the echo going around the computer area quite well. I'd imagine that if I want more reduction I'd need a solid (panelled) desk surrounding the tower with absorbtion material to take care of the final sounds. Remaining sounds now are the PSU Coil Whine, which has become quite a pain now I can hear it. Annoyed I didn't try to silence this system further a long time ago. But thanks to OCUK for the audio station that my kid got so I could do an in person comparison and set me down this road. :)

:: edit ::

Although I will grab some sound dampening material and see if adding it to this "S Duct" actually reduces audible sound further.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom