Silencing a standard Antec P180

Linz

Linz

Linz

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I love this system, best I ever had...but...

I find when I have my system on all night (doing downloads mostly) the fan noise is a bit high.

I have all 3 case fans on the lowest setting (using the white switch things) and I have the CPU fan (Freezer Pro 7) as quiet as I can get it with Q-Fan on 'Silent' mode (ASUS P5B Dlux).

Anyone out there quietened either components further? if so I'd appreciate hearing what components you used. Don't mind buying new fans/coolers if I have to.

b.t.w. my CPU shows 48C during these activities.
 
Your going to have to identify where the noise is coming from. Your most likely candidates are the GPU fans and the NB fan and the harddrives. The NB can be silenced by using a passive heatsink, where as the GPUs can have their noise reduced by using an aftermarket cooler such as the Zalman VF900 CU. The hardrives can be made less noisey be using the 'bungee' method (see sticky) or decoupling them some other way. The ultimate option however would be to watercool everything.
 
look at hard drives first as you will surprised how much resonance and vibration they can give off - as mentioned the suspension trick is good, as it padding the hard drive bays with sound deadening material

have a look at http://www.silentpcreview.com/
 
messiah khan said:
Having said that, the rubber grommets that come with the p180 do a decent job actually.
Click to expand...

i have a sonata with the same grommets and the performance is woeful

i have just replaced with acousticpack foam on the base of the drive holder and it has silenced my 3 sata drives

forgot to mention your fans would be obvious for replacement, although my experience of the antec fans is pretty good, but i have not tried the tri-cool series maybe look at some nexus / yate loon fans as replacements
 
Thanks for replies.

Its defo the fans, mostly the front one, then the top and back one. Yes they are the Tri-Cool models. I thought they would be as good as one could get but if someone knows quieter ones let me know.

The 6 drives are truly silent floating in those grommets -fantastic stuff by Antec.

The PSU and 8800GTX are fine for fan noise at idle.

The CPU fan sits at 1088 rpm so contributes to the overall fan noise some. My old P4 system cpu fan only went silent at around 800RPM -Is such low fan speed possible for a Quaddie? (I mean when under tiny load at night) if so let me know which cooler you used (I use Freezer Pro 7)
 
When it's not being loaded my system runs fanless (apart from the psu) - a Scythe Ninja keeps the cpu around 37 and my 7800GT is passive.

Nexus or Noctua fans would be quieter than your Tricools and a decent controller such as an M-Cubed MiniNG or T-Balancer can be set to keep them off until a defined temperature which Q-Fan can't do.

You don't list your psu - they are useful to provide some air movement with no other fans running, but depending on what you have, may be contributing significanly to the fan noise you hear.
 
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Ah noise - my favourite subject.

The tricools are pretty quiet when set on low. I used to disconnect the top one as I didn't think it improved cooling that much. I'm surprised you feel they are the key problem. They aren't sophisticated enough to change speed with temperature, so a long nights downloading shouldn't make them any noisier.

1000 RPM is quite fast, so maybe your CPU cooler is an issue. Have you tried Speedfan? That keeps mine at about 780 RPM during low use, and is close to inaudible.

For me, the hard drives have always been the noisiest component.
 
Speedfan? Does it work alongside or in place of the mobo's Q-Fan thing?

Thanks for help guys
 
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