How to get a quiet computer?

Figment

I have a computer in my home office and the noise from the fan is bloody annoying. Walls are paper thin so you even get an annoying hum in the living room directly below making it hard to relax with it on.

So any recomendation to a realy quiet PSU? I am assuming that is all i need?

Thanks

HelterSkelter

It could also be the fan on the CPU or sometimes there are fans on graphic cards. Hard Drives can be noisy bastards sometimes also.

Have a look at this site: http://www.quietpc.com

gline

if money isnt an option then ty http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=301973&cks=PRL

my psu is not bad for noise. Is there any fans in the case?? Noisey case fans are usually the culprit.

Venom

It could be the cpu fan, northbridge fan or your mobos equivilent, case fans, psu fans or graphic card fans. Hard drives and disc drives can also make a racket as well but you havent mentioned this as a possable cause.

Only way to get a really quite pc is to ensure each of the above listed fans types that apply to your pc are under 25db.

fiacha

any chance of posting your system specs so we can offer advice on quieter components?

Figment

Thanks guys, i have gone with the quietPC starter kit, Zalman Stealth Kit.
http://www.quietpc.com/uk/bundles.php

I will start with that and see if it makes a difference.

gline

Hmmm...???? I dont think that is worth £100, very pricey

Venom

gline wrote:

Hmmm...???? I dont think that is worth £100, very pricey

The Zalman cpu fans can cost €40 alone so the lot for €100 aint to bad but the gfk card cooler would not be my cup of tea to be honest.

Figment bear in mind the Zalman 7000 series fans will not fit on every motherboard out there so your best checking on the Zalman site to see if you can use it but it is one of the best coolers out there and deffently the best if a quite pc is what your after.

SantaHoe

gline wrote:

Hmmm...???? I dont think that is worth £100, very pricey

You can't put a price on that kind of silence tbh
Plus copper heatsinks really inflate the price over a standard (aliminium?) heatsink.
I've spent a fair bit more than that in buying silent replacements for my PC.
Passive gfx-card heatsink, massive copper flower cooler for my cpu with large low-rpm fan, quiet PSU, new harddrive with fancy acoustic management stuff... although I cheated on the northbridge by simply disconnecting the power to that noisey little fecker... I've gotten away with it aswell, probably because the massive CPU fan is wide enough to cover the northbridge heatsink aswell.
Seriously, if the noise is driving you nuts and the silent kit works, it's definitly huge bang-for-buck... I couldn't go back to whiney fans now.

SantaHoe

Figment wrote:

so you even get an annoying hum in the living room directly below making it hard to relax with it on.

Man if it's going down through the floor then that sounds like some serious vibration... I've got a bit of sponge that I put the pc tower sitting on for that very reason, it stops spinning cd-roms using the floor as an amp.

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet though... I mean if you buy a new PSU and it turns out to be the harddrive, then you're going to be a bit dissapointed.
If you have the time/patience/know-how, try stopping each noise source in turn and see what difference it makes to the overall whiirr.

BadCharlie

Open the side of your computer up "it would take 5mins max". Then pin point where the noise is coming from and replace it.

gline

Venom wrote:

The Zalman cpu fans can cost €40 alone so the lot for €100 aint to bad but the gfk card cooler would not be my cup of tea to be honest.

Figment bear in mind the Zalman 7000 series fans will not fit on every motherboard out there so your best checking on the Zalman site to see if you can use it but it is one of the best coolers out there and deffently the best if a quite pc is what your after.

Look carefully its not €100 its £100, thats pounds , big difference

Figment

Thanks guys.
Main problem is the PSU fan.
The fanless PSUs look good but looking at the back of the case i would need to take a hacksaw to it to get it to fit.
Its ordered now anyway so i will wait and see how it goes.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Figment wrote:

The fanless PSUs look good but looking at the back of the case i would need to take a hacksaw to it to get it to fit.

Yeah I had to file a few mm off my arctic vga cooler because the fecker wouldn't sit all the way into my AGP slot.
Standards me arse tbh!

gline

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Yeah I had to file a few mm off my arctic vga cooler because the fecker wouldn't sit all the way into my AGP slot.
Standards me arse tbh!

Man that suks

Figment

Ok, all arrived. All is good except the hard drive case which the screws are too short to hold the drive in place.
the room is now a much quieter place

On the processor fan there is a speed control but i have no idea what is a safe speed so the chop doesn not over heat. Any suggestions?
At the moment i just have it on full.

jozi

I'm using a fan controler to adjust my cpu fan rpm, when the pc is idle i usually have it way down and put it up a bit when gaming.
The lowest i go with it is ~2000rpm at which you cant really hear it, highest it goes is near 6000rpm (hoover would make less noise).
You could prob turn it down to half, just keep an eye on your cpu temp, i try keep mine below 50C and so far it never has gone up to 50C (even with the fan on slow rpm).

Jozi

Capt'n Midnight

If you have USB CDROM and get extension cables you could simply move the computer further away, 10meters could easily be the next room.

LIDL are doing remote control power sockets for €25, shut down the computer normally and then set the BIOS to boot up when power restored.