Reducing PC noise + heat.

Admetos

Admetos

Admetos

Soldato
Joined
19 Jun 2009
Posts
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I'm trying to reduce the noise from my PC. I'll tell you what I have.

Gigabyte P55M-UD2, Intel i5 with Arctic Freezer Pro 7. 8GB RAM
GTX 260 + 7800 GTX (I'm running 3 monitors)
Chieftec Dragon case with 2 x PWM 90mm Artic Cooling fans
OCZ 600w PSU
There is also a soundblaster card, 2 x HDD & 1 x SSD.

First the good stuff.

1) The 90mm Artic cooling fans are excellent, very quiet and push a lot of air. They are PWM controlled by the CPU fan, this is also pretty quite.

Now the bad stuff

1) The 7800 GTX is only used for 2D work and powering my third monitor. However it gets hot, and eventually reaches 80c, this is 2D only. It's sitting directly under the soundblaster, that in turn is directly under the GTX 260, and it's heating everything up above it.

2) The OCZ PSU is not as quite as I would like, not a patch on the Artic cooling fans, and by a mile the loudest part of the system.

3) The Gigabyte P55M-UD2 is a small board, and with 8GB ram it fouls the Artic Freezer Pro 7. The only solution was to turn the cooler around. The fan however will not turn, so i'm blowing air in the opposite direction to case air-flow.

Nothing in the system is overclocked, case temps can reach 50+c after playing games.

Questions?

1) I would like to remove the 7800 GTX. Does anyone know a very good passive cooled Nvidia card to power my third monitor, something that runs cool is the priority.

2) Any recommendations on a quite PSU that can still push some air. Bearing in mind I only have 2 x 90mm fans.

3) Do you think a better option would be to change the case, and ditch the ageing Chieftec Dragon.

4) How bad is the heat trap caused by the CPU cooler turned the wrong way.

I think this is going to get expensive..

Cheers
Jason
 
LGA1156 is good power efficient platform so that's good starting point. (LGA1366 not so)

But you should use passively cooled basic card for those extra work monitors.
Also all later high end cards are lousy at idling and only Ati managed recently to make high end card which doesn't "drink 10 liters per hour" at idle.
(GTX260 "idles" at 45W... which is fair 25W more than HD5870)

If case has 80/92mm fans then it's old failure to start with for this kind heat production, probably keeping PSU heated by CPU and graphics card below it.

Also that small Arctic Freezer relies to high fan speed for good cooling performance and really wouldn't have place in quiet high end system but I guess it would do if kept in good case airflow.

OCZ PSUs are neither that quiet (or made of highest quality components) but probably case layout worsens it's noise quite much.


As you're apparently not willing to change many expensive parts at once change order is better to do from biggest problem to small.
So number one would be case... maybe with change of second graphic card to some cheap basic card with passive cooling. (means low heat production, and no noisy and faster wearing tiny fan)

So what size case you would want (or is your current one DA-01?) and how many device bays there should be /space for long graphics cards?
There really aren't that much quiet cases around because it needs door or similar for blocking especially bad direct noise escape path in front and side holes are out of question and neither are purposeless top holes good.
 
GTX 210: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-216-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1010

From reviews I read these are very quiet and cool, should support your 3rd monitor just fine.
Don't turn the cpu cooler around, it can mess up the flow and just keep circulating the hot air inside the case and not out.
I would get a new case, if you want quiet then one with big fans are just perfect.
I would recommend a quieter psu, but it seems you're not willing to spend too much on this. You could get some rubber holders to keep the fans in place to reduce vibrations instead, which could help noise.
 
Thanks for input.

I'm going to change the second graphics card out first, as Esat has said is older (once high end) cards is terrible for power useage in 2D mode.

Does anyone know a page is Nvidia 2d graphics cards wattages, I can't find how much the GTX 210 uses in 2D. I have noticed the GTX 210 also comes with passive cooler.
 
EsaT said:
So what size case you would want (or is your current one DA-01?) and how many device bays there should be /space for long graphics cards?
There really aren't that much quiet cases around because it needs door or similar for blocking especially bad direct noise escape path in front and side holes are out of question and neither are purposeless top holes good.
Click to expand...

I'm after space for 4 internal 3.5", and 2-3 of external 5.25" bays. Longest card is the GTX 260. Current case is Chieftec Dragon, not sure on model number.

I would like somthing with a quiet 120mm fan at the rear, and maybe front also.

I think todo correctly I need new PSU, new case, and also a better CPU cooler.
 
Noise containing case with better case airflow would surely lower CPU cooling noises if fan is controlled by motherboard so that could be left out from first round if isn't currently high on the list of noise making parts.

Better PSU positioning with cooler ambient could help lot or only little, that's hard to know because different PSUs have different fan controllers... or lack of working controller. But before getting new PSU I would myself wait for Seasonic's new efficiency monster X-650 which will play with 90+ efficiencies using 240VAC and might run passively nearly always with that light load if kept in cooler bottom position.


That 27cm of GTX260 should fit to most better cases but 28cm of HD5870 is different thing and expansion seems to continue toward fulfilling card length spec of PCI(i) so if you'll keep having gaming cards in there E-ATX depth would be sensible thing. (and is great for working space)

Antec P180-serie is silencing "classic" because of noise containing design with noise blocking&vibration resisting (very heavy) multilayer panels but with long graphics card it has only four HDD bays, latest version also threw that classic moderate styling to back seat and multi chamber design chopping away free space isn't any easier to work in with multiple cards.
P193 has same lack of style but E-ATX depth so it would house long graphics cards easily and have also some working space more. Side fan again easily conflicts with big tower heatsinks and decreases noise containing ability.

Lian Li is another maker with noise containing designs, although if you're silencing enthusiast then doing damping mat lining is required for reaching full potential.
pc-b10 has good design but apparently it really can't take longer cards than 27cm so for high end gaming cards it isn't that good. also it would be still further cramped with multiple expansion cards.
pc-b25f has more depth (just enough for hd5870) but now top leaks noise and it still isn't that spacious for lot of stuff.
pc-a71 again takes longest card you have while asking for some more. also you can work with any component (except mobo) without need to remove anything else.
in case of multiple closely packed expansion cards this pci cooling kit would be good addition because it doesn't brake case airflow or leak out noise unlike side fans.

regardless of the case fan controller would be good accessory because fans are rarely coming at speed which would give balance between airflow and noise you want.
also stock fans aren't necessarily acoustically good, antec tri-cools are good example about that, they're very mediocre with their speed switch being thing what saves them.



jasonm said:
i can't find how much the gtx 210 uses in 2d. i have noticed the gtx 210 also comes with passive cooler.
Click to expand...
those very small fans can have horrible bearing noise problems and should be avoided.
ati hd4350 is lower clocked version of hd4550 so that would be definitely very power efficient but using multiple monitors might be hard with different brand cards.

JasonM said:
Current case is Chieftec Dragon, not sure on model number.
Click to expand...
DA-01 is that full tower. (small for modern cards)
 
Esta, thanks for your post all good reading. I like the P180, and heads up on the 90% efficent PSU's.

I've ordered a Giabyte 8400GS (£25 new) with passive cooler, there is apparantly two versions of the 8400 chip, and this is the lowest wattage DX10 card you can purchase. I never mentioned before but my 7800GTX is an XFX pre-overclocked card, and it's like a heater, will be glad when it's gone.

Also never mentioned my GTX 260 is always in 3D mode, have the latest drivers but once it controls two monitors spanned it's stuck on 3D. Have googled many times but can't find a solution.

I've made a mistake I don't have a dragon case. What I have is a Chieftec case thats idential to the dragon, apart from the section above the PSU area containing the 120mm fan. I always knew I had a variation of a dragon, but did not realise the real dragon had the extra 120mm fan on the rear, and extra 5.25" bays. I now understand why the real dragon case was so popular for it's time.
 
JasonM said:
Also never mentioned my GTX 260 is always in 3D mode, have the latest drivers but once it controls two monitors spanned it's stuck on 3D. Have googled many times but can't find a solution.
Click to expand...
Situation is same also with with Ati cards what people have been writing.

As it seems to be impossible to get high end cards to idle properly with two monitors attached then it would be better to have those two additional work monitors connected to second card because it wouldn't make much heat even in "3D" mode leaving only main monitor to primary card and allowing it to go to idle mode.
 
EsaT said:
Situation is same also with with Ati cards what people have been writing.

As it seems to be impossible to get high end cards to idle properly with two monitors attached then it would be better to have those two additional work monitors connected to second card because it wouldn't make much heat even in "3D" mode leaving only main monitor to primary card and allowing it to go to idle mode.
Click to expand...

Yes it's strange you would think they would sort it out. 2D performance was nailed about 10 years ago, so you would expect any card to work in 2D spanned or not.

I like to span two of the monitors however. I program using Visual Studio, and I can line up code in seperate windows on each screen. On my third monitor I have SQL Management Studio. It's very productive, tripple monitors rock! I have considered a fourth monitor above the center one for outlook / browser, maybe one day. Also I like to play Company of Heros over 2 spanned monitors!

One thing I thought of, but only after I purchsed that graphics card, was getting a Matrox DVI 3 monitor thing. Not sure how limited these are in function to 2 seperate cards (work wise). I least the output would be in 2D mode as coming from one monitor source.
 
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Update, I replaced the 7800GTX with the 8400GS.

If you remember, I had the 7800GTX under the GTX 260 with a soundblaster xi-fi wedged between them.

Well my graphics cards were idleing at 60c (2d), there now down to 40c shocking I know but thats what SpeedFan is saying.. The GTX 7800 was putting out so much heat compared to the 8400GS, this heat was then transfering up to the GTX260.

Also the tiny fan on the GTX 7800 was spinning full speed, but the 8400 is passive.

System temps are also showing about 5-6 degrees lower, and the PSW fan is not working so hard.

Lesson to learn, don't use yesterdays high-end cards as 2D cards to power a third monitor..
 
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JasonM said:
Well my graphics cards were idleing at 60c (2d), there now down to 40c shocking I know but thats what SpeedFan is saying..
Click to expand...
Entirely possible with "idle" heat output of high end cards. (except new Atis)

And higher temperature actually increased power consumption/heat output of also other components because leakage currents in ICs increase fast with the temperature which also increases resistance of conductors and slows down operation of transistors making also their operation to consume more.
 
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