Building a 'silent' PC

scargill

I'm planning to build a new PC in the not too distant future. I have Dell at the moment that's struggling with Doom 3, and I know it will struggle with Half-Life.

I want to build a good gaming machine but want to keep it as quiet as possible - current PC sounds like a Boeing 777.

If I go down the road of getting a silent PSU and extravagant heatsinks for CPU and graphics card I'm still going to have to get a case that is big enough to house these bigger components and also all these heatsinks need air moving around them so I'll have to put big fans in the case ?

Anyone any advice/experience ?

mayordenis

water cooling or get one of those sound reducing kits

Johnny Storm

If you haven't seen it already, I recommend www.silentpcreview.com

jozi

Papst 120mm fan where recomended to me when i was looking for some quiet fan, them paired with a fan controler and they are very quiet.
I think water cooling it the way to go for silence alright.
That web site mentioned above is good to have a good look round there.

Jozi

Gilgamesh

I can recommend this Site http://www.noiseblocker.de/shop/en_EN/Index

RicardoSmith

HL2 is a lot easier on machines than Doom3 is. Quite old machines are playing it ok.


Half-Life 2 Performance with Athlon XP
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/half-life_2_athlon_xp/

Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 1 - DirectX 9 Shootout
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278

Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 2 - Mainstream DX8/DX9 Battle http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281


Making a machine quiet is expensive.

scargill

some very useful links there, thanks guys.
i'm not sure about water cooling. anyone here actually done it ?

any of the builds I've seen look a bit messy - pumps, pipes, radiators.

think i might go for large heatsinks on CPU and GFX card and a fanless PSU - and just use a case with some silent-ish fans to move the air through ?

jozi - I notice from your sig you have a "Antec Sonata" case - do u find it quiet ? do they come with PSU ?

RicardoSmith

They come with a quiet 380w PSU.
http://tech-report.com/reviews/2004q1/antec-sonata/index.x?pg=1

jozi - where did you buy yours?

scargill

found one on komplett for €120 (won't be in stock for a while though)

Antec Sonata Miditower, Black w/380W PSU

this is interesting too....
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-118-1.htm

jozi

I got my sonata of elara, cant find it or i would have linked it. It did come with a psu but i had a better one so out it went, antec truepower 430watt.
Is it a quiet case? I have nothing really to compare it to, ok it is more quiet thatn a friends pc but he has 80mm fans and they arent on a fan controler.
I'm not using the 120mm fan that came with the case, 2 papst and fan controler, swapped the psu fans to for more quiet ones.
If i turn all my fans down as low as they go (not cpu keep that round 2000rpm) with the fan controler i can sleep with the pc on. Mainly hear hd noise over the fans.
I think antec makes another case based on the sonata, it cheaper and looks good to not sure what model it is. (silentpcreview has it i think)

Jozi

RicardoSmith

So basically it wasn't quiet enough for you as you've replaced all the quiet bits from it, for even quieter bits. What did you did with the parts you took out? I could be interested in buying them.

jozi

The psu wasnt as quiet as i had hoped it would have been, the one in the sonata is more quiet i believ, hence the reason i swapped the fans (not to sure if i really made a big difference).
The reason im not using the antec fan was bacause of the conector on it wont fit my fan controler. Its in my brothers pc now so im sorry but its not for sale.
Im happy with the case thats for sure, its very nice looking and can be very quiet.

Jozi

RicardoSmith

I'll probably be ordering one which is why I ask. Cheaper than buying a decent case, and psu and modding it to be quiet. OcUK have them in stock. I'll probably use it a fair bit in the lounge encoding home videos and that kinda thing. The lockable door will keep the baby from turning it off and on 50 million times.

jozi

I dont think you can got to wrong with a sonata. You could order a 120mm fan to for pulling air in if you want to bring temps down abit, sonata is a fairly warm case.
yeah to lock would be handy for that, theres one on the side panel to.
Jozi

Spunog UIE

the main sources of noise in my case come from a northbridge fan and my graphics card fan. I'd keep that in mind when your building it, namely get a motherboard with passive cooling or buy an after market one and do it yourself. Bacially, little fans = noisey little ****ers

secret_squirrel

Elara and Komplett are both backordered for Sonata's last time I checked. I got mine a week ago from www.overclockers.co.uk - they are a good bunch of peeps. The psu runs fairly warm but the air comes out of the case almost as cold as it comes it.

Its the sort of pc that you could leave on in your bedroom and still be able to sleep....

OCuk also do a foam sound damping kit for it too - not sure what that would do for temps.

If you can get an A64 board that supports Cool n Quiet - the cooler the chip - the less fan noise there will be.....