Silent / Quiet PC?

Tican

Tican

Tican

Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2003
Posts
5,716
Location
Leicester
Hey,

Are silent, or very quiet PCs possible? My current PC the sound literally travels throughout the house due to the way the house has been built. I have tried every combination possible to stop it.

Last time I upgraded my PC was in 2019 - and it's getting long in the tooth so good excuse to upgrade

Ryzen 5 3600 / 32 GB RAM / 3070 Ti (added since 2019)

Mainly use the PC for video editing, live streaming, DJing and Fusion 360 so any suggestions would be appreciated. Would prefer under 1k - including a case, and can keep the 3070 Ti for now
 
Quartz said:
Rubber mats and mountings are your friends.
Click to expand...

That could work! It is probably more the case causing the issues

mickyflinn said:
If your stressing the components then decent cooling is required.

So what is causing the noise ?

What CPU cooler, case and PSU do you have ?
Click to expand...


ThermalTake case fans, cheap AIO cooler (Raijntek) - MSI case and the PSU (probably underpowered) EVGA 650 GQ

Noise is from the fans, if the tower is on the desk, or something else hard it travels via the floorboards of the house. I have 2 cats so putting it on the floor isn't an option
 
If you have any HDDs are pretty bad for low frequency noise which carries especially at night.

A lot of modern PSUs have zero fan mode and won't spin up the fan(s) until around 200-300 watt utilisation and the better ones are pretty quiet which helps to keep noise down.
 
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what sort of wattage should I be looking for in a PSU?

I think for now then my plan might be a new case, fans, AIO, PSU (I will need all but the AIO anyway if I upgraded) - then go from there

Recommendations on fans would be appreciated also

(Have an MSI B450 Tomahawk motherboard)
 
Depends on what kind of graphics card you might use in the future - for a 3000 series GPU I wouldn't go under 650-750 watt to handle the transient current draw the 3000 series can exhibit - if you plan on a higher tier CPU or GPU in the future that might need increasing i.e. a RTX5080 would push that up to 850 watt minimum.

From a quick Google your existing PSU should be pretty quiet, or near silent in eco mode, though up to mid levels of utilisation.
 
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I just re-housed my PC in to a FLUX PRO and it's the quietest it's ever been.

Having said that, I also think that the positioning of the PC is very important. I made a piece of furniture form mine, which is basically a wooden box lined with acoustic tiles. The front and back are open for good air flow but the sides and top are thick wood. It's quite surprising how much of a difference it makes.
 
Unless you're doing some serious overclocking if you need that many case fans to keep a PC cool, you need a better case and CPU cooler for certain.

Select/design things properly and you don't need a huge case either. I have a 280mm AIO, 4 x Arctic P14 PWM fans and 3080ti in an ITX case and all I have is a loud whooshing noise when running at full benchmarking load. Anything from idle to 50% it's near silent.

Get good kit, use the rubber mountings that come with the fans, set up fans curves with FanControl, noise should never be a significant issue. Don't "overcool" things either - most systems I see the fans run way higher than necessary for stable operation.
 
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I have a Lian Li 011 case with 9 SP120 fans (3 of which are mounted to a Kraken Pro 360mm ) and the PC is literally silent ( I had to spend a while setting custom fan curves )
When gaming it is usually quiet too, only have a 3060ti but does the job
 
Thanks all,

It's certainly the case/AIO fans making the noise rather than the PSU - over the weekend I will put together a list of case/fans/aio (and maybe PSU) :)
 
the loudest thing in my system is the MSI PSU... i can hear the little monster humming away all the time.
im going to replace it soon, the hum off it gives me a headache when the house is silent.

this is the one in question, dont get it...
www.overclockers.co.uk

MSI MAG A850GL 850W 80 Plus Gold ATX 3.0 PCIE5Modular Power Supply

Order MSI MAG A850GL 850W 80 Plus Gold ATX 3.0 PCIE5Modular Power Supply now online and benefit from fast delivery.
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love a quiet PC and on another thread I have been asking about quiet RGB fans
I don't know if you also have case fans but the RGB fans mentioned to me wee the be quiet lightnings, phanteks d30, Lian Li st20 which are all supposed to be fairly quiet
 
Tican said:
Hey,

Are silent, or very quiet PCs possible? My current PC the sound literally travels throughout the house due to the way the house has been built. I have tried every combination possible to stop it.

Last time I upgraded my PC was in 2019 - and it's getting long in the tooth so good excuse to upgrade

Ryzen 5 3600 / 32 GB RAM / 3070 Ti (added since 2019)

Mainly use the PC for video editing, live streaming, DJing and Fusion 360 so any suggestions would be appreciated. Would prefer under 1k - including a case, and can keep the 3070 Ti for now
Click to expand...

Yup I have passive heatsink, one single noctua exhaust, passive GPU, PSU fan . Couldn't hear it when it was on
 
You can almost always brute force to achieve similar performance as high end cooling components.
That will depend on, first, if you can accommodate a lot of fans to start with.
T30s are gold for me, as long they don’t have their back close to a mesh, like when using int at the front of the Fractal North (non-XL).
I’m using the silent wings now with the North XL, as the T30 isn’t available in such size, as I wanted 140mm fans for aesthetics, but without sacrificing performance. Similar performance can be achieved much lower price, as the P14 fans.
The pump in must AIOs may not be the loudest part of your system, but in Corsair’s AIOs (for example), they have a screaming high pitch that was noticeable even of all the fans are at much higher noise. Just an unpleasant noise.
PSUs can show some coil whine, some of them may have some noisy fans, but some of them uses DBB fans, which may last long, but at lower rpm can be very noisy (first gen of P12 Max, for example).
Tried a TUF PSU sometime back and that was the issue. Being using Seasonic since then and won’t change for anything.
GPU under load can be noisy, if the fans are the culprit, allowing direct air intake straight to them may help, in case cool air isn’t available as needed. Coil whine is luck of the draw. Or sometimes the GPU needs some repaste as either the manufacturer did a bad job or it has dried out. I would always suggest a thicker paste, and something not likely to pump out easily.

First step is find out what is causing the unwanted noise. Remove the side panel and check is the noise and temperature of the components improves. If does greatly, the lack of airflow is pushing the fans to operate at a much higher rpm, and consequently noisier, to compensate for it.
 
I've ran through the Fan Setup / fan curve video above.

I have narrowed it down now to the AIO pump - that is by far the loudest part of the system and causing vibrations through the case.

I am still going to order the other bits just need to make sure the AIO is quiet
 
from a very quick search it seems something like

www.overclockers.co.uk

be quiet! Silent Loop 2 240 High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm

Order be quiet! Silent Loop 2 240 High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

or

www.overclockers.co.uk

Arctic Liquid Freezer III ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm

Order Arctic Liquid Freezer III ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

might be the way forward? Not too fused about RGB as I could never get it to work in sync with the motherboard before anyway :D
 
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Tican said:
I've ran through the Fan Setup / fan curve video above.

I have narrowed it down now to the AIO pump - that is by far the loudest part of the system and causing vibrations through the case.

I am still going to order the other bits just need to make sure the AIO is quiet
Click to expand...
what AIO do you have now, you probably just need to adjust pump speed

Tican said:
www.overclockers.co.uk

Arctic Liquid Freezer III ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm

Order Arctic Liquid Freezer III ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 240mm now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk
Click to expand...
this is not a quiet AIO unless you adjust pumps speed's and there more than likely what he needs to do with his current AIO
 
I have the BeQuiet and it's not that quiet either to be fair.

I've never needed to run a pump more than 75% for normal use. I have it set to ramp up to 100% if CPU exceeds 85C and it' never done so.
 
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