Help in the quest for Silent PC's - post your ideas

james_blonde007 · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:10

Hi all, I need your help advising on a SILENT PSU.

The challenge lies with my old PII 400 in a small tower case which acts as my Linux firewall and Router.
Its located in my bedroom and switched on 24/7 allowing my neighbors wireless access to the internet etc.
My GF is complaining about the noise at night so its time to silence the firewall.

The only noise generated by the firewall is from the PSU and the HD.

It has an old generic 300 watt PSU in it. I recently replaced the ageing (10 years) 800mb HD (yes that’s 800 mb!!!) with a brand new 40gig western digital drive.

I recently purchased a Sparkle ZAN fanless 300 watt PSU and it did not function properly in the firewall or another of my pcs. (the machines kept rebooting after a bout 5 mins and the drives would not spin up properly there after).

What are your opinions as to quiet PSUs and I mean either you can’t hear it or its virtually silent.

Seasonic, akasa, antec etc.

I have an enermax noise taker and would like it to be quieter than that.

The HD is mounted in a cheap plastic removable caddy for convenience, but this is not essential as the quest for silence is more important.
I don’t know how significant silencing the drive will be.

In case this helps work out why the Fanless Sparkle ZEN did not work, the MOBO is an old BX (the donkeys at the time). Not sure of brand.

Monstermunch · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:13

You can buy some sound deadening mat in the accessories section, plus PSU wise I would look at this:

CA-001-ZA Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-001-ZA)
£54.95 £54.95

or this would be better:

CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£52.95 £52.95

james_blonde007 · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:24

Cool about the PSUs, but are you just listing what i can read on the web or have you personal experience of the PSU's? (not being rude just getting the facts).
I am looking to get personal experiences as I don’t believe the marketing rubbish that gets applied to the products.

I don’t think that the sound deadening mat will be of much use as the increase in case temps will out weigh the sound benefits. the pc is on the floor close to a heater. Not ideal i know but the case temps are approx 26-30 degrees and I don’t wish to increase that.

Thanks for your reply though

Boah · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:28

Have you had a look over at Silent PC Review? The people over there are fanatic when it comes to silence, and there is a wealth of information, both on the main site and their forums.

james_blonde007 · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:32

no I have not, will look now, thank you.

Does anyone have any experience of the Silentmaxx Semi-Fanless 450W PSU ?

Explicit · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:37

Seasonic or Tagan for reliability and quietness

GuruJockStrap · 26 Feb 2006 at 19:57

Used to have a 500W Seasonic PSU. Literally had to put your ear next to it to make sure the fan was on. I'd expect the 430W to be exactly the same.

Lakeland · 26 Feb 2006 at 20:08

silent pc review all the way mate, you will find everything you need to know on there

Monstermunch · 26 Feb 2006 at 20:31

james_blonde007 said:
Cool about the PSUs, but are you just listing what i can read on the web or have you personal experience of the PSU's? (not being rude just getting the facts).
I am looking to get personal experiences as I don’t believe the marketing rubbish that gets applied to the products.

I don’t think that the sound deadening mat will be of much use as the increase in case temps will out weigh the sound benefits. the pc is on the floor close to a heater. Not ideal i know but the case temps are approx 26-30 degrees and I don’t wish to increase that.

Thanks for your reply though

I don't have ersonal experience of the 2 PSU's I mentioned but everyone talks about how good and quiet the seasonic is. It has 1 120mm fan with slow RPM.

As far as the sound deadening mat goes you could just use some around the HDD casing and not everywhere, that shouldn't increase temps.

tim_enchanter · 26 Feb 2006 at 20:46

Also for the hard drives something that was covered a lot on here a while back is elastic suspension, which can also be found on silent pcreview
Link
Never got around to trying it, but it's got to be worth a go.

Edit: I forgot to say I have the seasonic 430 and when I first got it I put the end of a cablety in there just to make sure the fan was turning as I couldn't hear it. They are quiet, I believe the fans tend to run at 733rpm.

pcoltrane · 26 Feb 2006 at 20:53

P2 400? it's barely drawing any power so why not get something along the lines of the picopsu and a 120W power brick? It might cost a little more than a standard psu, but it will be truly silent. 120W will be plenty.

The P2 should have no problem being cooled passively. The hard drive would run hot, but completely fanless is maybe even feasable. I'd probably just put a single 5volted nexus in the case directing a tiny bit of airflow over the CPU and hard drives though. At 500rpm and such an excellent motor you will not hear a thing even in the quietest of rooms yet everything will run at comfortable temps.

Your next problem is that the HD will now be audible. HDs make horrible high pitch noises - especially older ones. Your best bet is either a samsung spinpoint (nidec motor) suspended in the case..... or as it seems that HD capacity isn't an issue I would say get a laptop 2.5" drive (certain 4200rpm fujitsu models and the 5400rpm samsung are very quiet indeed) . Not only will this be even quieter than the already quiet 3.5" but it will run much cooler (no trouble being fanless) and you can even enclose it to dampen the noise even further.

There is no way even the fussiest GF in the world could complain about the noise of a system with those spec! ..... well ok, as we know GFs can find ways to complain about anything .. but i bet it would pass the on/off test ... it'll be so quiet you won't know its on without literally putting your head on the case

Marc

PS: As standard psus go the antec neo HE and Seasonics are the quietest, but they'll still be audible in a quiet room, not to mention running far from their optimum efficiency with such low power requirements.

james_blonde007 · 26 Feb 2006 at 21:55

Thanks every one for your posts. It’s great to get real world opinions.

I will consider the seasonic & Antec as a replacement for my workstations, anyone want a 1 month old enermax noise taker, its not a whiney one, (its already pretty quiet) and I really like the idea of using a laptop HD for the firewall to reduce temps, thanks marc I would never have thought of that one.

I have a brand new western digital 40 gig in the pc at the mo and it is relatively quiet but it does have the high pitch whine.
I only need drive space of like about 1-2 gigs so capacity is no probs.

What do i need to mount and convert a 2.5 inch drive?
Can i use a lead or something and leave it in my caddy box?

I am also in agreement about the power usage, but did not know there was any other alternative to 300+watt psu's for silence. Can you tell me more about the picopsu from your experience?

The CPU is fanless with a large heatsink as is the north bridge.

[edit]Marc, the GF wins on this noise issue as i think i will greatly appreciate it to now that i have thought about it, plus its quite an interesting challenge if not an expensive experiment.[/edit]

tim_enchanter · 26 Feb 2006 at 22:00

I really like the idea of using a laptop HD for the firewall to reduce temps, thanks marc I would never have thought of that one.

Seconded

Shall have to try that on a similar kind of setup I'm planning.

pcoltrane · 27 Feb 2006 at 07:15

I'll post details of how to do it tonight

Spudgun · 27 Feb 2006 at 08:44

I love my silenx power supply, it is exceptionally quiet and the rails are rock solid. I take my silence very seriously and would certainly recommend one of these to anyone else

If you are absolutely loaded, you can also buy fanless versions

chet84 · 27 Feb 2006 at 09:35

The quietest power supply i've ever owned is the 400W X-Pro... this is compared to many others including 580W Hiper, 450W Antec (Comes in the Sonata), and a whole bunch of others

tim_enchanter · 27 Feb 2006 at 17:07

Yeah the X-pro 400 supplies are quiet and excellent value although I got mine sometime ago will be using it again soon on my media unit, but they don't beat the seasonic 430

james_blonde007 · 27 Feb 2006 at 21:20

marc mercer said:
I'll post details of how to do it tonight

How did you get on Marc, did you forget to put the kettle on? ha ha ha.
If you get a chance i am keen to see you write that post.

pcoltrane · 28 Feb 2006 at 18:45

Sorry - had to work late so didn't get online last night.

If you want to use a 2.5" (laptop HD) in a normal PC you have 2 options:

1.) Buy a SATA version and a SATA PCI card if you don't have SATA ports (they cost as little as £4)

or 2.) Get a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter. A few places online sell them and you can get them on a popular auction site too. Be warned though one such adapter i bought from the auction site was quite poor quality - the second from another seller was fine however!

Once you have an adaptor they will work the same as any other IDE hard drive.

As for mounting. I would suggest either suspending it in a 3.5" bay using elastic. Or, if you are a DIY man you could try enclosing it in some kind of damping material - foam etc within some kind of enclosure. Check out silentpcreview website for some ideas.

As with 3.5" drives not all are equal in terms of how noisy they are. Some of the fujitsu 4200rpm drives are very quiet and if you dare get a second hand drive can be found on the auction site. If performance in an issue, the samsung MP0402H is a 5400rpm, 8mb cache model and is almost as fast as some desktop 3.5" drivers, but is still very quiet. Again check out silentpcreview.com for reviews on laptop drives.

I have been running a pc with a laptop dirve for some time now, with no issues at all. it runs dramatically cooler than the 3.5" drives (peak power of 4W compared to 10W for a 3.5") which allows me to damp it with foam without the temps getting out of control. As a bonus there is also less heat in the case and less heat generated as waste in the PSU too! It's the quietest you're going to get without going to the extreme expense of solid state memory!

I don't have any direct experience with the pico PSU myself, but it is on my "to do" list. Look at some of the mini-itx specialist shops on the net for power bricks. You don't have to go for the pico psu itself - there are quite a few similar products that do the same job and will allow you to run fanlessly.

please update us on how you get on, what you buy etc

Marc

james_blonde007 · 4 Mar 2006 at 13:46

Thanks everyone for your input, in particular marc. I am investigating the pico power supply today.
In my head i am gonna try out the pico power supply and get a samsung laptop drive.

I am not concerned with the speed of the drive as all the firewall has to do is boot the OP sys every so often, (really only when i update it) and record incoming and outgoing traffic etc. Not taxing stuff.

I will post back with my findings on the same thread if its still here.

regards

007