completely silent pc

quozl

Hi,
I'm looking to build a completely silent pc. As its gonna be a server for a wireless network sitting in my room (as my room is only spitting distance from the chimney where i'll be mounting the aerial)
It has to be completely silent, or it'll do my nut. What do I need?
Silent PSU? Where can I get one/how much?

I'll prob use a ****ty p166 i have here, it doesnt have a fan, and I'm not worried about HD noise too much as it'll be idle mostly (should I be?)
any info would be appreciated. I can't afford one of those lovely new shoebox size totally silent pcs.
quozl

Lemming

Check Komplett.ie for "Enermax" PSU's and fans. They do quiet-running ones too.

PPC

Try get some Papst fans.
Overclockers.co.uk do them and they are extremely quite.
Also try www.farnell.com/ie for them.
Maybe you could 7v them aswell for extra silence.

Koopa

greg get an old cheapo laptop(with a 0.0001 inch screen) if you can find one, theyre very silent since they usually have no fans (some have cpu fans, but they switch that off when the cpu isnt getting hot) , and laptop hard disks are the most quiet things ever, never mind the fact that laptop "psu"s have no fans either, and ive yet to see a desktop PSU with no fan

quozl

> Try get some Papst fans.
I wont be using any fans, even the silent ones. They're too noisy, even tiny noises do my nut in when I'm trying to sleep. My 166 doesnt need a fan, I can even underclock it to 100 without any qualms.

As for a laptop, I cant I have a pci wireless card and the cable already bought, thats about 160 + delivery!

I've seen fanless psu's from when I was working at antefacto, but god knows where they got them from. Must email the lads,
thanks for the advice guys,
quozl

PPC

Originally posted by quozl
I wont be using any fans, even the silent ones. They're too noisy, even tiny noises do my nut in when I'm trying to sleep.

Tiny ones usually whine.

As for the papst at 7v i couldnt hear it holding it about 12" from my ear

CodeMonkey

Heeh, how about getting a p4 2.0gz and underclock the crap of out it? It should run pretty cool with just a heatsink.

Gerry

right, laptop psu's don't give out much heat because they are supplied with low dc voltage anyway, so they don't need to do much work with it. If you look at the mains transformer though, that gets red hot.

No point in going near an enermax. If you get a bog standard psu, and just run the fan on the lowest voltage that will spin it, you won't be able to hear it. It won't need much cooling since you aren't running much off it. You could then put noise insulation in and around the pc, since you have enough air going through it to keep it at a safe temperature. For examples you could put baffles in front of the psu exhaust fan, so air( and sound ) cannot get directly to the outside.

You could try running a psu with no fan, however the psu will need to be ventilated to the outside, on all sides, so as much air as possible will go through it.

Ry

You could also look into one of those MAD sound proof cases from Coolermaster or summit. Look at www.overclockers.co.uk or www.over-clock.co.uk They are different sites so check both out if you're interested. Hope I've helped.

Ry

Gerry

Yes, they only cost 3 arms and 2 legs. Quozl is obviously trying to do this on a budget, these suggestions of enermax and coolermaster aren't going to help.

Ry

My Apologies Gerry please forgive me. I hope you can gerry because your opinion matters to me so much tbh :rolleyes:. Just throwing in ideas FFS!

Ry

Gerry

er, whatever.

po0k

regards the hard drive: get some shoestrings or similar - elastic material might be better - use it to mount the hard drive in the spare 5.25" bay, that way it'll be isolated from the case which should stop the vibrations being sent through the body of the case.
Gerry, you've done this allready afaik.

If it's a P-class machine you could get away with 2x 80, 92 or 120mm fans fron radionics.ie - pabst ones, they'd cost maybe 30 total, clock em to 7 or 10 volts - or use a decent resistor to slow em down.
You'd only need the bearest of airflow going through the case.

You could also gop as far asn to line the inside with carpet or some sort of pacing material/felt.
I took down the curtains from the kitchen windows this week and the differnece in acoustics was amazing.
The fabric really absorbed an aweful lot of it.
Thermal issues are not of concern if it's a pentium PC and you put a little thinking into the layout.

quozl

guys. stop talking about fans please!
I already run my p166 with no fans. it doesnt need them. And if by some chance it started to beause my room was warmer or something, then I'd underclock it severely. Fans are out. They're either noisy, or slightly noisy and expensive.

What would be perfect would be a fanless psu. I've seen these when i was working in antefacto, but they were specialist things with no proper boxes between the world and huge voltages.

Anyone know where I can get a low power fanless psu?
Greg
Oh yeah, good idea on suspending the HD, thanks.
Oh yeah2. good idea on the baffles. Sounds like hard work though. Or do you just mean shoving some bits of wood in there?

adnans

http://www.quietpc.com/

ive ordered the Zalman CPU Cooler from http://www.overclockingstore.co.uk but havent had the chance to test it out yet. i much rather preffer quiet cpu as my computer is only few feet away from where i sleep.

adnans

Gerry

Well when I was talking about fans, I was only referring to the psu. I run a p200 here without a fan, just a decent sized heatsink.
For the baffles, you could use the soft foam which is used to package computer parts in ( it resembles sponge ).

Looking at the top of the psu, heres a really rough idea of how you could do it.

Oh ya, if you ran an ordinary psu without its cover, it should be ok without a fan also.
As for the hard drive, well any hard drive, particularly an old one will make plenty of noise, so you will want to ensure that the hard drive is only used to boot the machine, then spins down. Switch all accounting off, etc.

Winters

I have 4 fans in my pc and you cant hear a thing. There is one for the PSU, Mobo and GPU .. the fan for the CPU is a Cooler Master one.. It runs a lot quiter then my p3 450! which has 2 fans (CPU and PSU)..

Xithus

if your looking for something speedier than a p1, have a look at a k6-2. Ive one here (333mhz) that runs fine with just a heatsink.

Im sure you could pick one up in the buy and sell for little or nuth'n.

po0k

you wouldn't need much more the a P75 or p90 for a access point tbh, specially if you're running opensource.
the baffling is a good idea.
Isolate as many moving parts (fans, drives) from the case as you can using rubber grommets or the like.
So long as it's in an area with some sort of air space arond it, natural convection currents will transport most ofd the ehat away.
In fat, vents in the top of the case (desktop) or side(tower) might help that too.
Or put it in the attic.
Should be plenty cold up there.

Gerry

Nah, attics are very warm. All the heat from the house rises into it, they are insulated and have feck all ventilation

Gordon

/me looks lovingly at his lovely quiet iMac fanless, but only in the technological sense...

quozl

me looks lovingly at his lovely quiet iMac

dear god. I'm not that desperate for a quiet computer.
quozl