Help me quieten my PC :P

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

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Joined
25 Mar 2004
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Location
Fareham
so I have the following spec machine right now:

PSU - Seasonic S12 Energy+ 650W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply - but I have the 600W version not 650W
case: Lian-Li PC-7A PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail - clocked @2880MHZ 320FSB x 9 with a 2.5 multiplier used on RAM to keep it at 400MHZ
HSF - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) - fitted onto my CPU
RAM - GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC)
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (not sold on OCUK anymore)
GPU - ATI x1900XTX (not sold on OCUK anymore) fitted with a Zalman aftermarket cooler like this one Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler
DVD - NEC DVD burner nothing fancy

I also have 4! hard drives right now, one very dated 72GB WD Raptor, two 320GB WD SATA drives and one 500GB WD Sata Drives

Plan to quieten my PC a bit:

1. Replace the case

I am not too happy with this one I would like a new one that is a bit roomier and also quieter! keeping my computer both quiet and cool is the top priority here. flashy lights are not required nor is a window, something along the lines of the Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) should be OK

2. Replace/Change Hard drives

If my total drive space available 1120MB~ after losing some to MS's MB data conversion I am currently using most of the storage, I have approximately 160GB free so I need a lot of drive space

my hard drives together seem to be pretty loud so I would like to sell some and keep one or two very large ones instead, can anyone recommend me some quiet but large hard drives to use?

Should I keep usign a Raptor for my windows drive or does it not really matter?

3. Replacement for my Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler?

Are there any better CPU air coolers than this one? right now my computer sounds pretty loud to me and I want to reduce noise as much as possible

HELP me OCUK!!!

I've put in as much info as possible so far but there are a few things that may be relevant

  • The motherboard is passively cooled so it generates some heat, but it is not making any noise
  • The case sits on a glass desk, I am considering moving it below the desk so it's less noisy
  • I don't leave it on overnight or anything but it is in my room so i'd love to make it quieter, even to the point where I can't tell if it is on or not
  • My budget is pretty much whatever I want to spend on this but I don't want to go way over the top
 
There's no indication that you use case fans. If you do get the Noctua 800RPM. It's the quietest fan I've ever bought. I can't hear it next to my 500GB hard drives!

Edit - if you wish to silence your hard disks get a Zalman heatpipe cooler. It only knocks 2 or so degrees off the temps (rubbish cooling ability), but it totally deadens the noise from my Raptors.

Also if you have any small fans - then chances are they'll be noisy. So replace e.g. Northbridge and graphics fans with fanless alternatives - again Zalman do some heatsinks for both
 
the arctic freezer 7 pro is meant to be quite noisy at higher RPMs so i would replace that with a tuniq tower or other such

if your case itself vibrates on the desk, put something soft underneath the feet, some rubber or something.

happy quietening.
 
no case fans used in my case at the moment so it's fairly noisy even without any

mobo is silent so no fans on that either

have replaced the GPU fan with the zalman one so I don't think it's noisy from there either!
 
I have pretty much decided to get one or two Samsung 1TB F1's (I could raid them but would it really be worth it for a home desktop?)

for the case still looking into them
 
The Freezer 7 pro is actually REALLY noisy at full RPM. My motherboard used to manage the RPM and kept it at 800rpm which was silent, I have however now put it on to a fan controller and its lowest setting is 1100RPM which is still silent (2500RPM max = very loud).

Also I have two seagate .9 drives which are very noisy in my 3.5" bays, however I bought some scythe hard drive stabilizer's to fit in to 5.25" bays and they considerably reduced the noise (and only cost £5 each).
 
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1. Do you need all the space of the P182? The Solo is easier to cool and silence, it also comes with hard drive suspension as standard. Get some decent case fans like the Nexus/Yate Loons.

2. The Raptor is hot, loud and aside from access times slower than recent 7200rpm drives. Samsung F1's are very fast, quiet and the 1TB ones are sub £100 now. Be sure to suspend any drives you get.

3. Something like a Scythe ninja.

You also ought to get something for controlling fan speeds, be it a full-on fna controller or various adaptors and bits you can get to redcue the volts.

I'd suggest going over to Silent PC Review to read their articles/reviews and especially the forums.
 
Yep the spinpoints are really silent, I barely hear them at all and my case is nowhere close to being silent.

Get antecp182 definitely if you want the silence. And it's not that big at all imo, has nowhere as much space as my shark.

I would get Tuniq Tower as well, it's dead silent on the lowest RPM and still cools great.
 
Ben M said:
the arctic freezer 7 pro is meant to be quite noisy at higher RPMs so i would replace that with a tuniq tower or other such

if your case itself vibrates on the desk, put something soft underneath the feet, some rubber or something.

happy quietening.
Click to expand...

I use the AF7 and its dead quite!
 
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