If Ralf gets a P4EE, I want an FX-53...just for testing, mind you, not for my own personal use.

Is it possible to review this case?

http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?L ... _class=363

Thanx!

Some kind of comparison of dvd / cd drives would be really useful

There's quiet a few posts where people say whether they think their dvd or cd drive is quiet enough or not, but nothing properly comparative

If getting samples for comparison is difficult, a list of which drives can have their max speed limited by software, and which don't support this feature would be handy, or which manufacturers have specific quiet models or make quiet claims (e.g. Asus, and, i think, Samsung)

How about one of Hitachi's Pentium M based desktop PCs? Provided you could get your hands on one, since they are only sold in Japan for now.

How about, athlon64 processor review, temps, noise, cool'n'quiet, wat consuptions etc?

just an idea...

Have you considered putting together a sort of Recommended Silent PC? Kind of like what many other sites (ArsTechnica, AnandTech, etc.) do, only for cooling?

A suggested case, PSU, HSF, and appropriate cooling fans would be a start. Maybe add in some other suggestions like the Fan Isolators at Silicon Acoustics and a fan controller. Modding of course could probably make a system much cooler, I'm kind of thinking of off the shelf parts that you can use to take the guts of a current system drop it in with these new parts and have a fairly silent computer with very little extra work.

This would give people a sort of starting point for building a nice quiet computer. You wouldn't really need to spec out motherboard, memory, CPU and such, but add that those choices could impact your system (a faster CPU generates more heat, which means you need faster fans to cool it, etc.).

A lot of the reviews you have are great it would just be nice to kind of merge your collective knowledge about all of these different cooling devices into a single recommendation for those who really have no idea what to get and don't want to read the forums for a while until they get it all figured out. It would also be nice for those of us who do have some knowledge about HOW to quiet a PC down, but don't necessarily know which parts are the best to work with.

Reliability, cost, quietness, availability and ease-of-use would all be factors to consider when writing something like this up.

The gallery section is supposed to fill that purpose. Ralf has a P4 3.0 setup that has been recommended a number of times. He didn't do anything too fancy with it. MikeC has his reference PC, heh, where he discovered removing the PSU allows for a quieter system. Bluefront has an interesting, but more complex setup as well. And there are others. EDIT: oh, and Lilla's

Perhaps a link to Ralf's system should be placed in the recommended section? Do you think that would help?

MikeC's machine isn't anything close to what I'm talking about. The PSU is outside the case which pretty much makes it impractical. Ralf's is probably the closest to what I'm looking for. It's a fully working machine that doesn't have a lot lot in the way of extras done to it. It's a fully usable machine, that he actually uses.

Simple is the key here. While the gallery does give some nice examples of fairly quiet machines it'd still be nice to have a recommendation that says: buy this stuff and you will have a good quiet machine. I don't really care which mobo, processor, etc. you have. The choices for this starting point wouldn't inhclude those things as they are largely unnecessary.

I still haven't found any sort of consensus on what fan to buy. I went with the Nexus 120mm fan, but others go with the Panaflos, others with Papst. There are still too many choices for people. I'd like to see something I can point at and say "buy this" when someone asks me what to buy for a quiet machine.

I've been trying to quiet down machines for two years now. My "servers" that I was playing with at the time sat in my sister's bedroom while she was at college (I have graduated and moved back home while I work). When she came home they were damned noisey so I was forced to move them back in my room. Guess when I started researching quiet components? Yeah, about 5 minutes after all those machines got turned back on after moving them back in here.

However, not everyone has that long of experience with trying to get their homebuilt PCs to shut up. Reading the reviews tell you how one component performs, not compared to others, the best you get is subjective answers to your questions based on how that particular part worked in that particular machine, under those conditions.

Obviously since everyone's conditions and setup are different, it'd be nice to give everyone a jumping off point to start from. Some people want absolute noiseless so they might put their drives into a silent drive casing or add foam, use a fanless PSU, etc. Others want speed and overclocking so they might use slightly higher speed fans and a fan controller so they can turn down the fans while the machine is idle and turn them up while gaming with headphones on.

Having a known set, a standard on which you can rely on to be silent/quiet, will help in making choices easier. You just adjust for your specific needs/wants/conditions and you are in business.

EDIT:
A link to Ralf's system with an explanation of why you would choose those parts. The only things I would consider is that his OEM Panaflos aren't nearly as easy to get a hold of as normal L1As. A full-feldged article with links to online stores for the hard to find stuff and lists of know reputable stores make it easier to find parts. The only place I've seen with the elastomer fan isolators in Silicon Acoustics. I can find the Sparkle Aurora 120mm PSU just about anywhere. Having a link, to Silicon Acoustics would be nice to make it easier to find that particular item.

BTW, I hope no one takes this the wrong way, it's only a suggestion. I'm just trying to tell you why I think it'd be nice and fully explain what I'm looking for. I'm not going to take my toys and leave if this doesn't happen, and I'd love to help make something like this a reality if a lot of work would be involved. This is something that could almost become like a community recommendation too that we could gauge with a poll every so often so the recommendation would be kept up-to-date as newer/better things appear.

"BTW, I hope no one takes this the wrong way, it's only a suggestion."

No, this is a really good idea.

One problem though is that for less certain items, like fans, there really isn't an absolute answer - yet. SPCR is currently working on a big fan review that should help. I think Mike's strategy is to leave answers open to prevent dogmatic opinions that are difficult to change. One example of a recommendation gone bad is the Seasonic Super series. The samples reviewed were very good, but newer revisions were not as good. So they had to be bumped down the recommended PSU list. The forums really help to correct such changes.

However, this also makes it difficult for newbies. A full crash course - SPCR 101 - is a great idea! There are already a lot of useful stickies but pulling them all together would certainly be useful. If we only had someone to read through it all and write up a crash course A pdf would be nice.

12cm panaflo. And from another thread: "http://www.mcmaster.com -- search for item number 9311K138" for isolators. Hope that helps.

Actually, it's kinda unsightly when you look at it but perfectly functional -- been that way for months now, never had any problems and the fan never ramps up. It is quieter than Ralf's much handsomer and complete machine (yes, I've visited him and had a good listen to his set up.)

Your suggestion is along the lines of what RH and I were discussing earlier today: A simplified primer on a quiet DIY system. I have mixed thoughts on this.

1) If you want a starting point, any number of the DIY systems already featured in the main site are perfectly good starting points. Most people need to experiment a bit to establish their "loudness level of comfort". As I already mentioned in the Disclaimer: Noise, subjectivity, standards, etc threadstarted by Bluefront, PC noise is the end result of a system of components that work together. IE, you can't just slap a bunch of recommended parts together and expect the lowest noise. The thing needs some "system analysis" -- tweaking and fine tuning with an understanding of both thermals and noise to get it to a really quiet level.

2) With so many components at similar performance/noise levels to choose from, there is an obvious risk than some components will be unfairly excluded in such a DIY primer, which means the piece can turn into a bit of a political nightmare.

3) The other hairy issue for SPCR recommended system configs is one the other sites don't have to worry about at all: So OK, maybe we can recommend low noise (30 dBA/1m or better), quiet (25 dBA/1m) or virtually silent (20 dBA/1m) configs.

But with what kind of system performance and at how high a system load??

To illustrate:

To get 20 dBA/1m from a VIA C3 or EPIA system is a piece of cake. And 25 dBA/m from a P4-2.8 is a challenge, maybe expensive (relatively) especially at full load but still doable. But even 30 dBA might be really tough to reach with a Presscott 3.4, never mind the budget.

Anyway these are a few of the complications involved. We will try to sort through them in the most practical ways. I do agree that some DIY System suggestions would be useful to lots of silent newbies, especially in this world of rapidly expanding "silent" components.

Technically, there is one simple recommended SilentPC. That's the ARM systems StealthPC. They apply just about all of SPCR's techniques into one basic and elegeant package.

Thanks for the reply Mike. I realize that something like this is a huge undertaking. No matter what you do someone isn't going to like it. It's also hard to choose exactly how to go about it. That's why I offered to help if need be.

well dang, your system looks like a very good example magic_p.

Heh, that's kind of a blind shot in the dark trying to balance looks, price and speed. I don't actually have it put together either. The case, PSU, fans, fan controller and mobo are still in the evil clutches of the UPS man. It all should all arrive by Monday.

The other parts going into that system are in my Dell Poweredge 400sc. It's loud even with a Panaflo L1A and a 92mm NMB fan. Mostly because I run Seti 24/7 and the NMB is temp sensitive and Seti causes it to speed up. Since it has no front intake fan I'm lucky to keep the CPU temps under 56C when playing games.

If it turns out as good as I hope it will I'll be adding to the gallery. It's going to be interesting to see a black case with black PSU and orange fans. I'm half considering buying some black paint and spray painting the interior black before I put it together to make the effect even more dramatic. It'd be really interesting to buy some clear UV spraypaint to carefully paint the fans and install a UV lamp. That could look sweet against a straight black interior paint job. Hmmm... the ideas are flowing now.

I would love to see the new(ish) Evercase 4292B reviewed to see how it stacks up against the 4252

The new Plextor PX-712A, I'd like to know how good the silent mode is and the general noise & performance.

Remember to email online stores and manufacturers for review samples of any product you'd like reviewed. I sent an email a few weeks ago to plextor requesting any model sent but particularly the SATA version of the PX-712A, PX-712SA.

I told them that recently an ASUS drive was reviewed and that I thought any Plextor model should be able to beat ASUS. If they could, they should send a review sample.

I also added my honest opinion that I didn't think any other review site would provide the useful info. that SPCR would.

It seems like market forces should reward SPCR with sample offerings of every product imagineable and it looks like they slowly are.

This would be more of an article than a review suggestion, but do you think it would be possible to write a "Cheap SilentPC?" Basically, a computer that costs less than $1000? For example, Anandtech has a guide on how to build a PC for just over $500 ("Weekly Buyer's Guide: Entry Level Guide").

A Silenct PC for your Grandma if you will (or Mom, if she's not as technically inclined as my own mother is), who would only use the computer to browse the web and email friends and relatives.

Maybe such an article could be an SPCR collaborative effort if needed.

I still think many suppliers/manufacturers lump on a bit of premium for low noise components which is IMO a bit of a cheek these days. If such an article as above was done, you'd probably have to do at least two versions (one for the US, Canada etc, another for UK and Europe) because of the price and availability differences.

I would like to see review of Qtechnology's QT-02350G PSU tested as this might be good alternative for Fortron/Nexus models sold in Europe. It looks like fortron based unit with activePFC and adda/papst fan.

I know it's a long shot ... but never know.

Is there any way anyone thinks we can convince HisTech or Sapphire (their "Toxic" range is supposed to be "quiet") or any of the other manufacturers to send in one of the new gen ATI's or NVIDIA-cards for silence-validation from us?

Not an entirely altruistic request, being a gamer, I know ... but one has to ask, right .

I appreciate these may have been requested before, but I'd like to add a vote for reviewing the following:

Lian-Li V1100 - is it quiet? Is it practical?
The Silverstone case pictured here.
The Zalman ZM80D-HP, CNPS-7700 (does it fit?) and the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer rev. 4, when they come out, including how cool they keep the GPU.

Thanks!

Can anyone testSilentium SPS420A?
Maybe for dual core and SLI or some other highend usage?
I can only find German reviews about that PSU.
Would be nice to know how the Silentium! CS 601 works out to.

Since it is recommended in fanless computers it is unlike other fanless PSUs that recommend good ventilation?
I dont belive for one second that the PSU only fits in that CS 601 case...

BrytaPlanka, you must have used the search function to find this old (aug 2002 - jun 2004) thread.
I am not sure it is "active" anymore.

I would like to see a HDD review of the new 3 platter 500 GB HDDs from Samsung and WD.
Are they more silent than the most silent 3.5" HDDs SPCR have reviewed yet?

But I am not sure it will help to post in this "old" thread.
A new thread on the subject should be more appropriate I think.
There is no point on letting everybody read all these old "obsolete" posts.

/ Alexander

Aha ok, your right, sorry about that...
Didnt look at the date on the last post.