Quiet theories

jc94062

Greets all,

I'm looking at a Tagan PSU, some Vantec fans, Aluminum case and a Zalman CPU cooler. I'm not looking for something completely silent just something that doesn't detract as much from playing a DVD as the 747 by my feet does

Not even sure what PSU it is, it was an emergency PC World job which says it all really.

Has anyone got any theories on how quite this should all be?

Thanks for any feedback

Mad Mike

Here is a systematic way to find out which fan in your system is making the most noise:

Stop them one at a time by holding your finger against the hub. You only need to stop it for a second to see if it makes an audible difference. You might be amazed by the results. By far the noisiest fan in my system was the tiny fan on the northbridge. Investing €6.99 in Peats on a Zalman fanless northbridge cooler made a huge difference.

jessy

I can only speak about the PSU, but from my experience (have the 480w ver) and from reviews i've read Tagan are a very good manufacture and the PSU is extremely quite.

jc94062

Stop them one at a time by holding your finger against the hub.

How do you mean? I destroyed a recent fan by trying to stop it :-(

The Zalman I'm looking at is a CNPS7000B, claims to be quiet but not sure how realiable all these claims are in reality
Tkx for the feedback jessy, 480W is the one I'm looking at, wouldn't go for anything less these days tbh

WizZard

That's not a fan - it's a CPU cooler. It is quiet at the low settings, but is audible at full whack. That said it's quiter than any stock cooler I know of.
I have the LED version and it's quite good - but if you overclock then there are better available. Google the XP-120 for example.

sionnach

aluminium cases resonate easily and are a good deal louder than steel ones.

Mad Mike

jc94062 wrote:

How do you mean? I destroyed a recent fan by trying to stop it :-(

Whoops - Whatever you do don't stick your finger (or anythng else) into the blades.

You gently push a finger against the middle part of the fan (the hub). As you slowly increase the friction the fan will slow down and stop. If you feel nervous you don't even have to stop the fan - just slow it down a bit and see if the sound changes. Don't hold it for very long - but a second or so is OK.


By the way - I've just come across another PC with a noisy northbridge - this seems to be a bit of a pattern. It seems to me that the smaller a fan is the faster it has to run and therefore the noisier it is.

gline

Mad Mike wrote:

By the way - I've just come across another PC with a noisy northbridge - this seems to be a bit of a pattern. It seems to me that the smaller a fan is the faster it has to run and therefore the noisier it is.

yep its a big problem, most abit boards have this problem adn old graphics cards too with teeny tiny fans

jc94062

Great feedback and advice

I'll try the more careful approach this time.
Mind you, last time the fan was kinda dead before I started messing about with it, of course, after I did, it was completely dead but heh, "[we] live and learn. At any rate, [we] live"