Silence this setup.

BoomAM · 13 Mar 2007 at 14:00

Hi.
I have a challenge for you all.
I want the following specification silenced or at least making v.quiet:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
Abit AN8 Ultra.
2Gb GeIL Value PC3200 CAS 2.5 (4x512Mb).
Connect 3D Radeon X800XL 256Mb PCI-E.
250Gb Hitachi SATA2.
2x250Gb Samsung SATA2.
Lite-On 16x DVD.
Lite-On 8x DVDRW.
Antec NeoHE 500W.

Coolermaster Stacker w/ 2x 4in3 Drive Cages/120mm intakes.
Thermalright SI-120 w/ Akasa Silent 120mm.
Artic Cooling VGA Silencer ATI 5.

Say a budget of £150.
New case i would accept, but it must be able to add a few more HDDs if i want it to, and have dust filters.
Oh, and the VGA Silencer needs replacing. Because it scrapes on startup until the fan control kicks in.

Impress me!

MeddlE · 13 Mar 2007 at 18:06

4 x Yate Loon fans, 2 on the 4-in-3's, 1 as exhaust, one on the CPU.
1 x Thermalright HR-03, will easily handle the x800 in passive mode.
1 x zalman fan controller.

Well inside your budget.

BoomAM · 13 Mar 2007 at 18:17

MeddlE said:
4 x Yate Loon fans, 2 on the 4-in-3's, 1 as exhaust, one on the CPU.
1 x Thermalright HR-03, will easily handle the x800 in passive mode.
1 x zalman fan controller.

Well inside your budget.

Hmm. Interesting.
Most ppl, and myself, went the P180 route with a different CPU fan and GFX card cooler.

How much quieter do you think moving to a P180, changing fans around and a new GFX cooler would be compared to the setup you've suggested? If at all?

MeddlE · 13 Mar 2007 at 18:30

I couldn't say, I have no personal experience of the P180 (don't like cases with doors).

I am running Scythe S-Flex 1200rpm fans at full speed in my Stacker, it's not totally silent but it's a lot lot quieter than the Ambers that were in there.

Any case with fans at the front will appear louder as the noise source is closer to you, that is my belief anyway.

jmhduck · 13 Mar 2007 at 18:52

I have tried a similar thing in the past, I bought an acousticase which comes with precut acoustic material and the case has 2x120mm, and rubbergrommets for the drive bays, however because of the acoustic material the 120mm fans have to spin faster to achieve the same cooling as a normal case as no heat can exit via the metal case.

Thus what I would suggest is having all quiet fans, and fan controlling them, if you want to go further than that get hard drive enclosures for all hdds. Once that is done whilst pc is on unplug each fan 1 by 1 and you will be able to determin the loudest component/fan keep changing until you are pleased. ie if psu is the loudest get a quieter psu, if hsf is loudest replace the fan, if chipset is noisy replace with the zalman northbrigde hsf etc etc.

alexakasloth · 13 Mar 2007 at 20:27

MeddlE said:
4 x Yate Loon fans, 2 on the 4-in-3's, 1 as exhaust, one on the CPU.
1 x Thermalright HR-03, will easily handle the x800 in passive mode.
1 x zalman fan controller.

Well inside your budget.

That looks like a good set up for quietness.

BoomAM · 13 Mar 2007 at 21:14

Might have to source them parts.

.
The thing im most concerned about it my Stacker. It rattles a lot and because its so open and has a lot of 'holes' in it, it surely cant be good from a sound point of view?
Would the parts suggested, but in a P180 be better?

alexakasloth · 13 Mar 2007 at 22:25

I would assume so, from my experiance the P180 is a very quiet case, though I've never even seen a stacker.

MeddlE · 13 Mar 2007 at 23:28

My Stacker doesn't rattle.

BoomAM · 14 Mar 2007 at 07:47

Its the sides of mine that do. They are very flimsey considering the rest of the case.

gt_junkie · 14 Mar 2007 at 08:49

My Lian Li in sig is a fair bit quieter than my old P180. If i were you i would pick any (good quality) case you like the look of. Something like an Akasa Eclipse or Mirage would be your safest bet! Then get a new vga cooler and a couple of quiet fans (yateloon, sharkoon, akasa amber, etc...) that should sort you out! I found the P180 incredibly cramped and that was coming from a mid sized case - with you migrating from a stacker you will be mortified!

The HR-03 was a good suggestion and your si-120 is an excellent cooler so keep it! Here's my line up under budget:

gt

MeddlE · 14 Mar 2007 at 09:01

BoomAM said:
Its the sides of mine that do. They are very flimsey considering the rest of the case.

You could get some of the Akasa sound deadening foam and attach that to the side panels, should eliminate the rattling.

Fan wise I would get either Yate Loon, Scythe S-Flex or Noctua. For the Scythe and Noctua get the 1200rpm models and attach them to a fan controller, then you can set them to your own preference of noise/cooling.