Noob - vibration woes

moley6knipe · 19 Oct 2009 at 10:30

Hi. First post, but I've been sniffing around for a while! A friend was upgrading his system, so I bought his old machine from him (I'm new to this, so apologies if the info's not clear!)...

I had to take the case completely apart to clean everything when I got it - three years of nicotine to remove. It went back exactly how it came apart, and everything's tight.

My problem is, the sides of the case vibrate like mad - if I take them off there's absolutely no vibration at all! I figured I could do a few things to help, wondered if I'm on the right lines and if anyone had any further suggestions?

1. fan mounts - rubber gaskets or pins
2. replace cpu fan with noctua
3. anti-vib feet (suspect they'd be too soft, though - it's heavy!)
4. "soundproofing" stuck to inside of case
5. sort out my woeful cable management (no clue how best to route and tie cables off, mind!)

Pic > http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac27/moley6knipe/the_inside.jpg

I don't game with this case, I wanted such a beast of a thing for the hard drive capacity (I've got a massive, massive iTunes/AppleTV library)

Silverstone case. Don't know model no. Two rear 80mm fans, one front 120mm fan, space for 80mm fan on top. 7 PCI slots, 6 int 5.25, 6 int 3.5 bays. mobo slides out of the rear (once heatsink removed, natch). two side-hinged doors on front

Two rear fans are Noctua NF-R8, front is NF-P12 (I've just fitted all three, replacing Everflows - all three with the Ultra-low noise adaptors on, making P12 900rpm and R8 800rpm). CPU fan is an Everflow 92mm. No fan fitted on top of case

Asus P5E3 Deluxe mobo

Chip's a Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00Ghz, don't know model though

4Gb DDR3 memory

Corsair HX620w PSU

WinXP SP3 running on a WD2500AAKS drive, two more WD drives in the case (WD10EACS 1Tb and WD6400AAKS 640Gb)

broona · 19 Oct 2009 at 10:45

Blu-Tack.

moley6knipe · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:05

Ha ha! The sides are off at the moment coz I just took the pic - I'll give it a go!

misterPK · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:14

Yup, some blu-tack at the contact points for the side panels is probably worth a try before you start paying out for other solutions!

PK!

EsaT · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:55

moley6knipe said:
4. "soundproofing" stuck to inside of case

You'll need first vibration proofing meaning mass.

front is NF-P12

That fan vibrates... consequence of clear steps in motor. (unlike when blades rotate smoothly when you push them forward with finger)

G-Dubs · 19 Oct 2009 at 21:38

Blue tak good, but also strips of the stuff you can buy to improve window seal against wind. Kinda like sticky back foam

Grimley · 20 Oct 2009 at 10:42

G-Dubs said:
Blue tak good, but also strips of the stuff you can buy to improve window seal against wind. Kinda like sticky back foam

You mean draught excluder.

G-Dubs · 21 Oct 2009 at 17:05

Grimley said:
You mean draught excluder.

face + palm

yup, just couldn't think what the stuff was called

Marsman · 21 Oct 2009 at 18:50

I had vibrations not so long back in my Antec 300. It was coming from the side panel, same as the OP. Now someone has mentioned it, draught excluder would have been great, but I didn't think of it, and didn't have any anyway. So I looked round the house, and ended up using one of those green saucepan scouring things. Cut it into strips, popped some double sided tape on them and shoved them in the groove when the side hinges into. Put the screws in, no more vibration.

Steeps · 21 Oct 2009 at 18:53

Suspend the harddrives in bays and blutack the side panels. Worked on my eclipse

shaf · 22 Oct 2009 at 07:54

I used some tape which stopped my case side panels from rattling. Only on the inside.