My Custom Built Silent Gaming Rig..

meansizzler

meansizzler

meansizzler

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Joined
20 Jul 2006
Posts
524
Spent a lot of time and effort into researching components for this build, everything from the hard drive to the motherboard, to the Fans and Thermal Paste, went through 2 cases, 4 motherboards, 2 graphics cards to get to this stage, but I think I have come off good.

Anyway here it is, it's a Pretty Fast rig... :D

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All fans used are 120MM, Used Rubber Mounts for all Case Fans, chose to use the New Seagate 2.5" HD's as they are Quiet, Fast and Use Little Power, Tried to make the cables as neat as possible, just need to tidy the SATA cables up a bit though....


Specs..

Antec P182
Enermax Liberty 500Watt [Replaced Fan]
Asus P5KC [Rock Solid]
Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.06 GHZ
4 x 1 GB DDR2 800 [OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 @ 804MHZ 4,4,4,15]
Pioneer SATA BD-ROM [BDC-202]
Samsung SATA DVDRW [SH-183]
2 x Seagate 120gb 7200.2 [2.5" 7200RPM 8MB SATA2]
1 x Seagate 200GB 7200.2 [2.5" 7200RPM 16MB SATA2]
1 x WD 250GB Scorpio [2.5" 5400RPM SATA]
MSI 8800 GTX OC [610/2000]
X-FI Xtreme Music
DVB-S2 PCI [Technotrend S-3200]
Dual DVB-T PCI-E x 1 [Terratec 2400i DT]
SIIG 2 Port SATA2 Controller PCI-E x 1


Cooling...

Top Case Fan = Noctua 1200RPM @ 7.5V
Rear Case Fan = Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V
Front Case Fan = Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V
PSU Chamber Fan = Noctua 1200RPM @ 7.5V

PSU Fan = Scythe 1200RPM S-Flex @ 12V

CPU Cooler = Scythe Ninja + Nexus 1000RPM @ 7V

VGA Cooler = Thermalright HR-03 Plus + Scythe 800RPM S-Flex @ 12V

HDD Cooler = 3 x Scythe Quiet Drive 2.5
HDD Adapter = Icydock 2.5" E-Sata Enclosure + 3.5" Bay Adapter


Temps...

CPU: 38-45 Idle, 50-55 Load
Mobo: 45 Idle, 49-52 Load
VGA: 62-66 Idle, 76-82 Load

With Stock Cooler, VGA was 78 Idle 90 Load, so HR-O3 Made a big difference in Temps and Noise.
8800GTX is to blame for High CPU & Mobo temps as it gives off a lot of heat, without it CPU & Mobo Temps drop by 5 Degrees...,
Funny thing is When I take the Side Case Panel off All 3 temps drop by 5-6 degrees, probably because with Panel on some of the Heat from VGA was stuck in the expansion card area, but it can escape when Side Panel is off, may need some kind of Expansion Card Vent Mod in Side Panel?

All in all happy with machine, to me it is still not quiet, loudest component would be PSU Fan, still though it's quieter than any 3.5" Hard Drive... :D


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romperstomper said:
nice one mate you should also put some pics in here http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17781384
mine was also an attempt at a silent build ,fairly happy apart from my very loud samsung dvd ,have orderd a pioneer which knows that a dvd only needs to be played at x1 .
Was the vga cooler difficult to fit (thats my next upgrade if it fits )
Click to expand...

The Samsung SATA I have is insanely quiet, I really don't know why, when ripping cd's or dvd's it hardly makes a peep, the BD-ROM sounds like a Hoover compared to it..

"SH-S183A" is the model...

Cooler was okish, Hardest past removing stock cooler, 11 screws on back 2 on pci bracket, then 10 minutes trying to break the bonds between stock thermal paste and GPU, also rememember to clean the old gunk from ram heatsinks and they stick fine, best tip would be to get a bottle of Zalman Thermal Paste, it comes with a brush making it easier to apply, just coat the GPU surface and Heatsink surface fuly with it.., then take care putting on the heatsink, making sure it's on properly.....may need two people as have to hold the card on it's side to install if heatsink is on top of card..
 
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hp7909 said:
Nice :)

How loud we're the Nexus fans @ 12V? Looking at buying some. Also, any guide on how to run them @ 7v?

Watched any Blu-Ray movies on it?

& get that protective film off the case!
Click to expand...

No to the protective film and at 12V they're quiet but 7V silent, I used Zalman 7V speed reduction cable, have a search for it... not the 4 way cable but single one, you cannot use them horizontally as they make a clicking noise, use Scythe's instead... At 7V the Nexus fans are the quietest with best airflow, the Noctua's are quieter but not sure how good the air pressure is on them, so only use them as secondary fans..

Watched a few blu-rays, but kind of buggy power dvd freezes on them sometimes, might be a vista 64 bit issue...
 
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Andeh said:
actually, good point. I wouldn't mind knowing those things too, it would perhaps give the topic is general, more purpose.
Click to expand...

ok about components..

Was going for the WHole SIlverstone SG03 build, had it planned for months, waited 6 months for the case, nice case when I got it, was MATX problems started with the Motherboard..

-ABit FAtal1ty F190HD MATX, very unstable would not go past post...
-Foxconn G965 MATX, Blue screen on XP install, random freezes
-Asus P5B-VM DO MATX, nice board but no overclokcing potential..

Also wanted RAID 0, tried it and just found it to be unstable and unrelaible, tried it on the foxconn and asus boards above, great for raw transfer speed, but not suitable for using widnows on it, some progams would refuse to finish installing, i.e Power DVD Ultra, but take the raid off and they install fine, also when playing games would just get random feezes with the RAID, maybe it was a limitation of the 965 Chipset, jsut gave up on it.
Went for another motherboard in the end the Asus P5KC as it had potential...:D, great baord but needed a new case, was stayign clear of the P180/82 as everyone had it plus it was huge and heavy, but I thoguht what the hell, I can hide the cables behind the mobo tray and it was a big selling feature and got great reviews...

Other reason why I left the SG03 was the temps were really bad 55 idle for the E6600 non overcloked with NT06 Passove Cooler, swapped cooler for Zalman 8700LED, same temps, so scrapped the SUGO idea, not sure how everyone elses idle's at 45 degrees...

Graphics cards, the 1950 Pro I had was great, but need more speed, decing between GTX and 2900XT, GTX scored higher while using less power, wanted the fastest there was, either the BFG OC or an overclockes Ultra, went for the EVGA Ultra Superclocked, fasted non watercooled card out, and expensive, but buggy again, a lot of stuttering, and runs in the 90's on Load, so returned it after 5 days, and was thinking if a GTX was really what I wanted, but decided to go for an MSI 8800GTX OX 610/2000, slapped on the cooler and ran great..

Refering to the VGA cooler, thoguh alo about what fan to use, 92mm or 120mm, thoguh would be best going for a 120mm even though I ordered a 92MM nexus for it, anyway a lot of researching for the best fan for it, only result was the Scythe 800RPM, and after much testing found a great wy to hook it onto the heatsink, maybe I should patent the method...JK...heheh, only need 4 cable ties, to be honest cable ties were a vital part of building the machine...

PSU there was really only one choice in the end, needed something reliable, modular, TAGAN's are ok but the last ones I had generated a clicking noise, I alos need a good combination of SATA + molex o leads, did not like this on the enermax but I thoguh I could work with it, plus it the Large heatsinks so thoguh it would help if I out a low speed fan in it, also heard a lot of reviews when people swapped their fans so the ideal PSU, 620W was too much 400W a bit to less, so went for 500Watt, initially thoguh it was not enough but everything worked out fine, calculated the power output of components again anda again, so no trouble.. as ofr fan replacement started with nexus, that fan was great in the SG03, but once in the P182, the fans generates a clicking noise, read up about it and it's sleeve bearing so cannot be used horizontally, so I was baffled could not find a fan that was suitable, the only one was the Scythe KAMA Kaze 100RPM from Japan, only one near identical to the neus and grat reviews, but could not et old of the thing, so went for the Scythe 1200PM, that fan was heavy, loud =er than the nexus but no clicking noise and it does it's job...

Now CPU cooler for the P182 there was a few, Ninja, Thermalright Ultra were the main ones, the ninja had a good size and light, the ultra was heaavy and feared it's size was block the HR-03 from being installed with fan, so the cpu cooler had to play right with the VGA cooler, so went for the ninja, the push pin mounted I hated, looked ot weak, always prefer backplates, but their holding..., as for fan only choise really was the nexus, great airflow and noise, and 7V should be sufficient, oredered 4 of them, when I got the SUGO, and hated the Molex + 3 pin combined power cable, so cut off the molex and soldered just the 3 pin on, much neater and I HATE SOLDERING, took me 10-15 minutes a fan to do, had to make sure it was strong the bond, then wrapped it in heatshrink... all fans running fine...

Now for fans I had 2 nocutas spare from the SG03 build, heard about the low pressure so no good for CPU or exhaust fan, so put one as top fan in P182 and one in PSU chamber as them ares do not need a lot of air pressure..., used the nexus fans for the rest fo the case.. rear one to match cpu and intake one to provide enough cool air coming in...

Only read after the build about cutting the grills off the case, which I done this now....:mad:, |I mean 3 grills at the front of the case, how is any air suppose to get in!!!!!!....

Now for hard drives, believe it or not as soon as I heard about the new 7200.2 series with it's 60MB/s transfer rate I was shocked, waited since january for them to come out.. I tink they came out in may, grat drives, I had a 7200.10 whileit was the quiet one with purple glue, I hated it, desktop drives sound like a jet engine taking off when they start up, and I hate that motor noise, which is why I went for the 2.5" form factor, heard about they scythe quiet drives for laptop and that made the deal, pleased with the hard drives perfomance...

2 X 120 GB's used for raid in SUGO but now one for windows one for games, only 50GB left on the game drive so ordered the 200GB one to and use that as Game Drive 2, now need one for backups/storign recorded tv, wanted a really quiet one, only choice was the Scorpio 250GB for WD, wanted to use it as E-SATA drive and dock in the PC, so saw that Icy enclosure with 3.5" dock, great idea but flimsy, to much force needed ot pull drive out, now I know silverstoen make the same thing so might go for that, the fact the P182does not use screws for the floppy mounting is a pin, as the whole unit comes out when I eject the drive, that's the only gripe about the case...

Ordered the BD Drive casue I wanted one and the LG BD Writer was to much..., read/write speeds are bit low but better the the ones from the Toshiba HD-DVD Drive which I also have....:D

Wanted a fast drive just for ripping discs and burning, but wanted SATA so went for the samsung, can't believe how quiet it is, was burnign discs with a program called "Disc Juggler", best burning app out there only $60, can write to both drives at same time, so started burning a DVD on the samsung, then burned a CDR on the Pioneer at same time... works great...:p, even played a game at the same time, of course the two images were stored on different drives, as was the games, otherwise I would have had a major buffer error, the buffer was at 80-100 most fo the time, but dropped to 10 when I did somethign intensive, like open up an Internet explorer window...:p, both discs bunrned fine though.. two drives burning and a GTX and full blast, a lot of heat but cases copes with it, 2 bay gap between the optical drives to seperate their heat, anyone who has one drive under the other is just plain stupid..

Since the mobo has 4 ports I have 4 hd's + 2 optical all SATA, needed 2 more ports, researched SATA Controllers, had to be PCI-E x1 and support Hot plug, read a lot of reviews, wanted raid and one with 2 internal + 2 external, £ ware oens were ideal but expensive and 4 port was PCI-E x4, so settled for the "Highpoint RR2302LF", but no stock anywhere, so started form scratch and basic 2 port Internal SATAII no RAID PCI-E x1, read soem review and found this SIIG one, great reviews and uses the Silicon Image chipset, so read up on it on the SI site, supports hot plug and drivers for Vista 64, found only 2 etailers, but for what it was it had a high price, but ordered it anyway... ddecided to hook up WD Scorpio and Smasung Writer to it, have had no problems with it...

Sound card, tv card, dvb-s2 are all standard... I think that covers all of it..., oh in case anyone is using the HR-03 on the GTX be waned it puts some strain on the PCB, mine was bending slightly at the front, so had to support it, cable tied it to the case and no probs bow, card has three holes in PCB at the front so need 2.5MM cable ties...,
 
Pea0n said:
How easy was the GTX cooler to install? I was looking at it for mine when I make the purchase.

- Pea0n
Click to expand...

I already explained...

"Cooler was okish, Hardest past removing stock cooler, 11 screws on back 2 on pci bracket, then 10 minutes trying to break the bonds between stock thermal paste and GPU, also rememember to clean the old gunk from ram heatsinks and they stick fine, best tip would be to get a bottle of Zalman Thermal Paste, it comes with a brush making it easier to apply, just coat the GPU surface and Heatsink surface fuly with it.., then take care putting on the heatsink, making sure it's on properly.....may need two people as have to hold the card on it's side to install if heatsink is on top of card.. "
 
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