please help me silence my htpc

sare^baw's · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:28

i need advice to help me silence my htpc, i bought this htpc (silverstone lc17 case) second hand and i think the seller was fibbing when he said it was quiet and said he could not hear any noise when watching movies, yet the raptor could be heard in a disco

anyway heres a list of the noisey/ rotating components and hope you guys can give me advice on making this htpc as silent as possible, i dont want to go to extremes but im happy to pay for the necessary bits to quieten this htpc. also if i would be better removing or replacing something please say so. it is in my living room near my tv and so needs to be very quiet.

SILVERSTONE 8CM CASE FANS X 2
ZALAMAN FLOWER HEATSINK WITH FAN SPEED CONTROLER 110MM
CHANNEL WELL TECHNOLOGY CWT-450BDP - 450W 120MM QUITE POWER SUPPLY
WESTERN DIGITAL WD360GD, 35GIG, 10,000RPM, 13FEB04
HITACHI DESKSTAR 160GB, P/N 14R9463, 7200RPM, JULY 04
LEADTEK WINFAST GEFORCE 6800 LE - GFX CARD

i have read some poeple get good results using a silent maxx enclosure with their raptor, but also some people not, mine is very noisey (feb 04) and you can hear the seek rattle very loudly, i dont want to hear it at all, should i try a silentmaxx enclosure or just replace it. i would prefer to keep it but only if i can silence it.

i assume the zalman flower heatsink is worth keeping.

from what i see the power supply is a cheapo, which i did not know before buying, would i be better using my power supply from my other pc which is an enermax EG365P-VE, i think its a 350w model, its running a P4 3.0 ghz and 1ghz of of ram, would the enermax be noisier?

what can i do with the leadtek gfx card

i have an spl meter, can i use this to monitor the noise lever and improvements made?

all help and advice greatly appreciated.

Lanz · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:36

Get rid of the Raptor, you dont need a fast, hot and noisy disk in a htpc.

Get an Arctic Cooler for the 6800LE.

(you do know the 6800 doesnt work with hardware HDTV decoding?)

sare^baw's · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:43

Lanz said:
Get rid of the Raptor, you dont need a fast, hot and noisy disk in a htpc.

Get an Arctic Cooler for the 6800LE.

(you do know the 6800 doesnt work with hardware HDTV decoding?)

i dont know anything about hardware hdtv decoding, my new plama is a 42" SD panel as i decided not to go the HD route at the moment. so would i be right in thinking my gfx card is fine for what i need it for ie gaming and watching movies on my plasma?

i should have said i am also using the htpc for occasional gaming and general pc stuff, downloading large files and unrarring and burning to dvd.

i could get rid of the raptor and use my hdd from my other pc a maxtor 250gb, but no doubt i will need an enclosure for this too as i was not thinking htpc when i bought it. should i get enclosures for my hdd's or selle em and buy samsung spinpoint without an enclosure?

Lanz · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:59

I'd get a samsung, they are virtualy silent. Flog the Raptor, they still sell good 2nd hand. Its probably the standard heatsink on the 6800LE making the most noise anyway.

wilders · 25 Apr 2006 at 22:47

Yep, make sure the fan in the graphics card is quiet, also the psu, another thing is running the dvd drive at 1 speed (check the site of the manufacturer for software to do this).....should make it pretty much silent

Logan09 · 26 Apr 2006 at 08:14

1 - Ditch the Raptor (you don't need that kind of speed in a HTPC) & get something quieter, like a samsung spinpoint.

2 - If the 6800LE has stock cooling then consider either getting a quieter cooling solution (Zalman/Artic Cooling) or, better yet, selling it and getting a passive 6600GT (perfect for a HTPC).

3 - The silverstone case fans aren't the quietest. I'd reccomend 7V modding them (possibly even 5V depending on how hot everything's running). Or if you don't fancy doing that, then get a fanmate for them.

sare^baw's said:
from what i see the power supply is a cheapo, which i did not know before buying, would i be better using my power supply from my other pc which is an enermax EG365P-VE, i think its a 350w model, its running a P4 3.0 ghz and 1ghz of of ram, would the enermax be noisier?

From what I've read the CWT PSU's are actually re-branded Antec Smartpower's, so it may well be alright. I wouldn't imagine the enermax one would be much quieter (but I could be wrong).

sare^baw's · 26 Apr 2006 at 11:37

wilders said:
Yep, make sure the fan in the graphics card is quiet, also the psu, another thing is running the dvd drive at 1 speed (check the site of the manufacturer for software to do this).....should make it pretty much silent

i can hear the gfx card fan noise quite easily, not sure of the noise from the psu as eveything is running together, is there a way of checking the psu by running it on its own ie how do you switch it on without powering up the pc?

already quitened my nec dvdrw drive using nero drivespeed, is it alright to run it a slow as 1x as i thought 4x was maybe as low as you should go with it.

Logan09 said:
1 - Ditch the Raptor (you don't need that kind of speed in a HTPC) & get something quieter, like a samsung spinpoint.

2 - If the 6800LE has stock cooling then consider either getting a quieter cooling solution (Zalman/Artic Cooling) or, better yet, selling it and getting a passive 6600GT (perfect for a HTPC).

3 - The silverstone case fans aren't the quietest. I'd reccomend 7V modding them (possibly even 5V depending on how hot everything's running). Or if you don't fancy doing that, then get a fanmate for them.

yeah im kinda now thinking the raptor has to go, i assume the samsung spinpoint are great when eveyone recommends them so ill get myself one me thinks.

the 6800 has stock cooling and i looked at the the artic cooler at £20, im happy to pay this if it will make it quiet enough, what is the zalman cooler for my 6800? Would buying a passive 6600gt give me less performance or is it similar to my 6800, does passive mean it only has a heatsink and no fan?

Where can i get info on 7v or 5v modding the fans i have a fanmate with my zalman cpu cooler, aint heard of modding the fans is there much to it.

thanks guys for all the great info

Lanz · 26 Apr 2006 at 11:46

Not the £20 one...
Arctic Cooling nVidia 5 (6800 Series) VGA Silencer (HS-009-AR)
Price: £11.95 (£14.04 Including VAT at 17.5%)
This throws hot air out the back, also making your whole system cooler.

ted34 · 26 Apr 2006 at 12:01

That will help silencing your graphics. I bought a gigabyte x800 which is passively cooled for a htpc but never got rd to building it. Definitely change the raptor for either a barracuda or spinpoint. Also i managed to reduce a lot of noise by not fixing my fans in place with screws and instead using sticky fixes in each corner. It stopped vibrations. I also mounted a barracuda in a string sling to stop vibrations and 2 of my other barracudas are in silentmaxx enclosures. Cutting the grills out of the case to leave big holes for the fans also helped a fair bit (you can always put a standard fan grill in place which is a lot better than case grills

Logan09 · 26 Apr 2006 at 14:33

sare^baw's said:
yeah im kinda now thinking the raptor has to go, i assume the samsung spinpoint are great when eveyone recommends them so ill get myself one me thinks.

Yeah, the Spinpoints are excellent HDDs. Silent, fast, and reliable.

sare^baw's said:
the 6800 has stock cooling and i looked at the the artic cooler at £20, im happy to pay this if it will make it quiet enough, what is the zalman cooler for my 6800? Would buying a passive 6600gt give me less performance or is it similar to my 6800, does passive mean it only has a heatsink and no fan?

The artic cooler definitely quietens the graphics card down, but I still felt my 6800GT was too loud, so I sold it and bought a passive (yes that means just a heatsink - no fan) 6600GT and now no noise at all. The 6600GT should be about the same kind of performance as the 6800LE IIRC.

sare^baw's said:
Where can i get info on 7v or 5v modding the fans i have a fanmate with my zalman cpu cooler, aint heard of modding the fans is there much to it.

There's a guide here. Not difficult, but if you don't fancy it you can buy an adapter cable to make a molex power cable 7V.

sare^baw's · 26 Apr 2006 at 14:50

cheers for the info mate, what model of passive 6600gt did you go for and are there many available?

daz · 26 Apr 2006 at 15:00

You've gone for 80mm fans... a larger 120mm fan spinning more slowly will push the same amount of air or more, and be a lot quiter.

squiffy · 26 Apr 2006 at 15:02

You could also consider a 2.5" hard drive, these are even quieter. A 60GB or 80GB is ok pricing, and if you're not going to put a lot of data more than enough.

Definietly replace the raptor with another HD though. Perhaps he found it quiet because he had a loud audio system which masks the HTPC noise?

Usually just replacing the loudest item in the system is enough to bring the total noise down (replacing already quiet components with quieter components means a lot of expense and not much lower) I have a 20GB 2.5" spare probably use that for HTPC bootdrive when I build it up.

sare^baw's · 26 Apr 2006 at 15:06

daz said:
You've gone for 80mm fans... a larger 120mm fan spinning more slowly will push the same amount of air or more, and be a lot quiter.

the fans came with the case i assume, the previous owner set the pc up, now im trying to get it quiet as it should have been.

the case only has holes to suit an 80mm fan, would not fancy cutting a large hole in the case for a 120mm one, without the right tools it would look a little rough, not impossible though. something to think about thanks

Logan09 · 26 Apr 2006 at 17:20

sare^baw's said:
cheers for the info mate, what model of passive 6600gt did you go for and are there many available?

It's a Gigabyte fanless 6600GT (you can get it in PCI-e or AGP). Model number is GV-N66T128VP.

james.miller · 26 Apr 2006 at 17:23

raptors are loud
that enermax is loud (used to have one)
the fans on the silvertsones are loud (used to have one) but you really need to run them if your running high end gear in the case

the best solution for me was to sell my silverstone and by a tower. I got fed up with the god-awful cooling abilities of a cramped silverastone case, as lovely as they look

ted34 · 26 Apr 2006 at 22:27

sare^baw's said:
cheers for the info mate, what model of passive 6600gt did you go for and are there many available?

As far as i know (someone correct me if wrong) but it was only gigabyte who released a passive 6600. I remember looking a couple of months ago and went for one of their passive x800's. It was a great card that gigabyte had already overclocked. Shame that newer cards cant run passive - may put the x800 back in some time or just sell it in mm

Lanz · 26 Apr 2006 at 22:41

The best htpc solution right now is a 7600GS, so get a cheap pci-e motherboard and one of those.

sare^baw's · 26 Apr 2006 at 22:52

gigabyte GV-NX66128DP someone has a second hand one of these for sale for £55 ono, would this be a good alternative to my LEADTEK WINFAST GEFORCE 6800 LE

Logan09 · 27 Apr 2006 at 00:33

sare^baw's said:
gigabyte GV-NX66128DP someone has a second hand one of these for sale for £55 ono, would this be a good alternative to my LEADTEK WINFAST GEFORCE 6800 LE

Yes, just make sure it's the passive cooled one, as the one I bought had a model number ending in VP. If it is the right one it should be about the same performance as your 6800LE, but it also has working HD hardware decoding via purevideo (the 6800 series do not support HD decoding for some reason). I think the X in the model number means it's PCI-e, so if you have an AGP motherboard you may want to upgrade to a PCI-e mobo, or hunt around for an AGP version of the 6600GT.

As somebody mentioned above Gigabyte also did (not sure if they're still doing it) a passive X800XL, which may be another one to look out for.

For more info:

6600GT - N66T128VP
X800XL - GV-RX80L256V