In an effort to reduce my PC's noise level I've just spent an hour isolating each noise source. It's fairly quiet already but I'm trying to get it to the whisper quiet stage. I was quite surprised what the main culprits are:
The northbridge fan (I've removed the fan grill already)
The hard drive (Hitachi)
I really was not expecting these to be the main cause. I have an overclocked 7800 GTX 512 and an overclocked dual core Opty [email protected] in there. The gfx card and CPU HSF (XP120 with a decent slow fan) are almost inaudible. I have a CM111 case with "only" 80mm fans but these are on a fanbus so running slowly and again are quiet. My 520w PSU (forget the make) is also very quiet too.
I was previously considering watercooling but it really doesn't seem worth it now. If I can sort out the northbridge and hdd then it will be extremely quiet.
So now to the questions:
1) Do hdd enclosures make much difference? I'll probably change that drive anyway but if enclosures help too then I'll add one while I'm at it.
2) How on earth can I replace the northbridge HSF? Unfortunately Gigabyte in their infinite wisdon put the northbridge (ok, ok, I realise it's actually the nForce chipset not a northbridge) directly under the gfx card. So is there any solution which has a groove down the middle of the heat sink to allow a gfx card to pass overhead?
The northbridge fan (I've removed the fan grill already)
The hard drive (Hitachi)
I really was not expecting these to be the main cause. I have an overclocked 7800 GTX 512 and an overclocked dual core Opty [email protected] in there. The gfx card and CPU HSF (XP120 with a decent slow fan) are almost inaudible. I have a CM111 case with "only" 80mm fans but these are on a fanbus so running slowly and again are quiet. My 520w PSU (forget the make) is also very quiet too.
I was previously considering watercooling but it really doesn't seem worth it now. If I can sort out the northbridge and hdd then it will be extremely quiet.
So now to the questions:
1) Do hdd enclosures make much difference? I'll probably change that drive anyway but if enclosures help too then I'll add one while I'm at it.
2) How on earth can I replace the northbridge HSF? Unfortunately Gigabyte in their infinite wisdon put the northbridge (ok, ok, I realise it's actually the nForce chipset not a northbridge) directly under the gfx card. So is there any solution which has a groove down the middle of the heat sink to allow a gfx card to pass overhead?
.