Needing some quieter fans/cooling solution!

GreenMint

GreenMint

GreenMint

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Hey guys, looking for some advice regarding cooling my system;

Current setup:

Akasa Eclipse 62
Asus P5N-E SLI w/ Intel E8400 @ Stock
Few HDDs including a SSD.
Low end graphics card (ATI 3450.) for now, maybe gaming again later in the year so will upgrade then.

The CPU is cooled by a Noctua UH-12P cooler (From Feb 2007) with its standard Noctua 120mm fan attached, and another of these Noctua fans working on intake at front of the case, and one exhaust.

PSU is a Corsair 620W Modular PSU from, again 2007 when i started this build last.

I really need to find some quieter fans, or a way to make the machine quieter, its currently on its case's wheel on carpet, I sadly can't afford a good watercooling solution right now, so am going to have to stay air cooled, but was considering a ready made cheapish rad setup such as the Corsair H50.

Any thoughts on what I could do/fans I could use? Or any other cases that may not generate as much internal noise?

Thanks!
 
Hi there, may I ask a few questions about your system in terms of the noise issue?

Is the 3450 passively cooled or does it have a little fan?

What 120mm case fans are you using? Are they just the stock ones and are you using a fan controller?

Finally, is there any significant dust build-up on the CPU and GPU heatsinks or the fans?

If you want a straight-forward CPU cooler recommendation then I would look towards the Thermalright HR-02 - this thing can passively cool an overclocked i7 920, so a stock E8400 will be kept very cool with no noise. The thermalright silver arrow is also worth a look if you want more cooling muscle - its noiser than the HR-02 since it uses fans, but it is very quiet for an air cooler and an absolute beast at cooling. Both of these options are better than the H50 in terms of noise - since the H50 has a louder fan as well as a pump running.
 
^^the h50 isn't hugely quiet, you could stick the whole thing into a case designed for quietness, the fractal design define, nzxt hush (bit of an unknown quantity but could be pretty good) or the new coolermaster (i think) one of a similar design.
 
The 3450 is completely passive cooling, as is the northbridge.

The case fans (and the one on the CPU Cooler) is https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-001-NC - No fan controller.

Hmm, had no idea that there were passive coolers out there nowadays for "today's processors".

The main noise is just a very loudish fan noise, the fans are all pretty quiet to listen to close up, but its just that constant drone that is pretty audible.

I bought a system from MM with a Lian Li case, 4 x 80mm fans, and it made no way near as much noise as this, I just want to get it down to a small hum, if even that! :)
 
With the noctua fans and CPU cooler did you get any fan extension cables with blue and black connectors? These are "low noise adapters" (wire+resistor) that will allow you to run your noctua fans at slower speeds for lower noise. I believe the cables with the black connectors chop the voltage down to 9V, which in my experience with noctua fans offers a pretty good trade-off between noise and airflow.

If you stop the other fans temporarily, do you find the the fan on the PSU is making much noise?
 
Try turning off individual fans until you sense a difference. Monitor your system temperatures meanwhile and find a balance between noise and cooling. If the system isn't under much load, you may be surprised how many of the fans could be turned down.
 
cmndr_andi said:
With the noctua fans and CPU cooler did you get any fan extension cables with blue and black connectors? These are "low noise adapters" (wire+resistor) that will allow you to run your noctua fans at slower speeds for lower noise. I believe the cables with the black connectors chop the voltage down to 9V, which in my experience with noctua fans offers a pretty good trade-off between noise and airflow.

If you stop the other fans temporarily, do you find the the fan on the PSU is making much noise?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't recall matey as it was 4 years ago and I've moved house since then, so you can only imagine the chances of remembering, but I want to say no, they didn't come with the fans!

Have not tried stopping the other fans, but with the PC rolled out and my head virtually in the PSU, I cannot hear a great deal of noise!

Any recommendations on a fan controller that won't cost too much and will run these 3 pin fans? Idle temps on the 8400 are usually around 38-40C right now, due to the summery weather!
 
For a fan controller - I really like the Zalman ZM-MFC1 bay, it allows you to control up to 6 fans and its not a bad price. You could hook the case fans and CPU cooler fans up to this piece of kit and tune the noise level to how you like it - just keep an eye on the CPU load temperatures since the motherboard will not be varying the CPU cooler fan speed any more. Unfortunately you can't get this on OCUK any more, so worth having a little hunt around.

Alternatively, you could buy a few of these (one per fan). It will be relatively cheap but there is no tidy looking bay so you can vary the speed when the case is closed.

If you want a fan controller bay that is decent and available on OCUK, I would go with this one. Its only got 4 fan connections, but hopefully that will be enough - and the LED readout does look cool.

If you are interested, here is a review of the HR-02 passive CPU cooler. This tests compares the HR-02 when run passively and with a fan , using a i7 920 CPU (TDP 130W) at stock and when overclocked to 3.6GHz.
 
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Thanks for the help on this matey, really appreciate the detail you went into :)

Will look at the reohstats if nothing else, but that passive cooler sounds (Excuse the pun!) good!
 
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