Help me silence my PC!

[alexx]

I've got an Akasa Omega case which has the following fan slots:

1x 120mm front
2x 120mm side panel
1x 120mm rear
2x 120mm topcase


At the moment I have 2 fans running very slow pushing air out the top of the case and 1 running very slow into the front of the case.

However it is causing a lot of dust inside my case so the static pressure is probably all to pot.

I've got a h50 with 2 of the standard corsair fans in push pull - pushing out the back of the case but its probably not doing much good as the rad is so dusty!

Can anyone recommend me a way to get it all nice and quiet as the h50 seems to be kicking out a lot of noise.


Also whats the deal with retro fitting passive cooling to a 260gtx?

And whats the deal with replacing PSU fans please?

Many thanks!

 

[OLDPHART]

With the fans on the H50 being more powerful they are pulling all the dust into the rad with the other fans being slowed down.

Fit dust filters to case intake fans, is it the fans or the pump that's noisy?

You could also fit dust filters to the fans set to push on your H50 and just clean them regular.

 

[doyll]

Many of us believe automatic control of case fans same as CPU and GPU use is the way forward. This can be done using PWM signal from CPU and sometime both CPU and GPU.
PWM fans can be controlled with off the shelf PWM splitters with PSU power.
3-pin fans can be controlled with Tealc's PWM to analog converter.

This post gives a basic explanation of how to do it.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=26079729&postcount=5

 

[alexx]

Many thanks - I'll have a read.

At the moment I have one of those floppydrive fan controllers thats just manual turn knobs.

The case fans don't make any noise and with the corsair fans on their lowest they still make a fair whirl.

I'm sure dust management will make a difference so I'll adopt that and I do use those rubber fan mounts for the case fan so they are probably ok.

I was thinking that if I increased the case fans then I could maybe get away with lower speed cpu fans?

Enermax fans seem to get fairly good review?

The other part of the issue is probably the 260gtx... I don't really need this as I don't do any gaming anymore and I'm running osx.

Maybe a passive gpu that will offer the same advantages for 2 x 24" monitors and photoshop / premiere would suffice? Can anyone recommend any passive gpu's that I won't miss the performance of the 260gtx?

 

[Quartz]

Can you motherboard take a x16 card in the #3 slot or lower? If so, and you're not overclocking, you might consider dumping the fans entirely and trying a Nofan CR-95.

Otherwise, I suggest you strip out the case fans and move the H50 (after cleaning it!) so it's exhausting through the top, not the back

 

[alexx]

Its not manually overclocked but I think it steps up and down - its a i5 3750k - I've never seen a fanless cpu cooler thats smart! not sure it'll be right for this though because of the stepping.

Is it maybe a better idea just having one fan on the h50 or is push pull still the preferred setup?

I think it can JUST about fit to the top of the case

 

[welshdragon]

I used to have a lot of fans and was somewhat obsessed with temps.

I would go down to one fan in, one out and whatever on the cooler. Bet that would be plenty?

In my case I have a 180 fan in, 120 out and a Noctua nhu12s and not only is it reasonably quiet temps are more than fine even with an oc

 

[doyll]

I suspect H50 has some pump noise?

What case are you using?

You don't need to go passive cooling to get a near silent system. My sig system is so quiet that I have to look at the power light to know if it's running or not. Even at 100% load all cores it's almost impossible to hear. Key is big coolers, automatic fan control to keep speed as slow as possible with as few fans as possible.. and spend some time setting up and testing case airflow to get it right.
Here's a very basic tutorial on case cooling
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sh...ight=case+cooling+username_doyll#post26027896