I must note this is my first build.

I was readin up on some motherboard reviews for the p965 chipset and it appeared that asus deluxe wifi version was pretty good but it also allowed you to connect 5 fans to it. I think abit also allows you to plug 4-5 fans into it.

Is it easier set up your fans with this mobo?

I prefer Asus, others prefer Gigabyte.

The high-end Asus boards have five fan headers, in three groups, that can be speed-controlled by SpeedFan. This makes for much tidier wiring and system simplicity, since no FanMates or such are needed.

But in general for a quiet system you want fewer fans, not more. With a C2D and a Ninja, lots of people get by with only two fans. I used four only because of my aggressive overclocking and because they are spinning so slowly.

I've read all your silent overclocking articles and I thought your CPU cooling could be improved a little with almost no effort.

You have the nexus fan directly on the ninja heatsink; if you put it at a small distance using a shroud, say 3 or 4 cm you, would improve the cooling getting a better distribution of air over the ninja. You would have to extend a little the ninja duct inside and add a new wall at the top of ninja. As the you would hit memories you would have to make sidewalls extensions slant a little going farther from the motherboard.
I think you should add a bottom side to shroud. If this side ends before reaching the ninja you could divert some air to VRM by regulating its shape and by giving the nexus some small inclination to motherboard.

Now as I write this it occurs to me that you would also need to give some airflow to the chipset heatsink but that should be easily managed, altering the shape of the shroud

Nice article cmthomson. I read it long time ago, but it is now that I have a very similar system to yours and I would like to ask for your opinion to my problem. My system is a 6600 conroe, in a P5W DH Deluxe, with 7900 GT, P180B and phantom.

I'm having some trouble with the phantom fan. I have the switch in the phantom in the position "2". In this position in my old antec sonata the fan never turned on (it had a fan blowing in a ninja in a push-pull configuration with the case fan in the sonata).

But now with a nexus in the lower chamber for psu cooling, running at 500rpms in idle the phantom fan kicks in. I'm only using a hard disk in that chamber and I don't think it is adding much extra heat. When I'm gaming then the fan increases the rpms as well as the rest of the system and then I don't know if the phantom fan is working or not because the noise is covered by the rest of the system.

My problem is that I don't want the phantom fan to kick in when my system is idle (about 100W draw from the outlet)

What solution would you recomend me?

1) Move the phantom switch position to the last position, hoping that the psu will be reliable in spite of being working at a higher temp

2) try some ducting/blocking. Maybe I could block the holes surrounding the psu in the back of the case, hoping that the air would travel through the psu

3) Using higher rpms in the fan (this I would like to avoid)

4) Other solutions/suggestions

Thanks

cmthompson,

Excellent article. I learned a lot, but have a few questions regarding "quiet and cool" that I'm hoping you can help me with. I am not an experienced computer builder, so any tips you can provide are welcome.

I am planning on building a new computer in the next few months. This computer will be the main computer in my house that my wife and I use. We are not gamers, and we do not do any video editing yet (need to buy a camcorder first!). The most intensive task the computer will be used for is processing RAW (8MB+) photo files from my Canon 30D DSLR camera using Photoshop CS2. Other than that, it will be an e-mail/Internet/MS Office machine.

I am looking for a set-up that is quiet and that I can feel good will meet my needs for the next 3-5 years. My parts list right now happens to be much the same as yours:

- Antec P180B Case with Nexus fans replacing the stock Antec fans
- Antec Phantom 500W PSU
- Asus P5W DH Deluxe Mobo
- E6600 C2D CPU
- Four 1GB Sticks of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 RAM
- Gigabyte GeForce 7600GT fanless GPU (Silent Pipe II)
- On-board sound (may use the SB Audigy card from my current computer)
- 3 WD Raptor 36.7GB drives (one for OS/apps, two for Photoshop scratch disk in a RAID array)
- 1 WD Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB SATAII Drive for data
- 1 Seagate ST3500601XS-RK 500GB eSATA external drive (external data backup)
- Windows XP Pro SP2 (not venturing to Vista just yet)
- CD/DVD/Floppy drives from current computer
- LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers from current computer

Here are my questions:

1. With 3 Raptors and 1 Caviar drive in the lower chamber, will the single Nexus fan in the lower chamber keep things cool enough to prevent the Phantom's fan from kicking in? Will it need to spin fast to the point of being audible?

2. I assume that the Phantom 500W PSU is enough juice... correct?

3. Do you think I will need to run the three upper-chamber Nexus fans in order to keep the upper chamber cool if I use a Scythe Ninja on the CPU without a fan?

Thanks for any help/insight you can provide.

Jason

There would be some advantage to having the fan spaced further from the Ninja, but the advantage is minimal. This is because the Ninja is so large and so efficient, that a couple of centimeters of spacing really wouldn't make much difference.

This idea might have helped with cooling my 830D, but my Conroe runs so cool that the Ninja is able to cool it with only the slightest of drafts...

I have never run my Phantom on any setting other than "3", and the fan has never come on unless I deliberately starved the air flow, even with my 325W Pentium D system.

I think you have a problem with air flow. Your Phantom should never get hot with the system you've described. Make sure the top of the power supply is completely open (along with the case openings) so that the Nexus fan is able to provide a smooth air flow over the top heat sink of the power supply and out the back of the case. Here's a photo of what that part of my system looks like:

Well, I wouldn't run so many disks. A pair of large NCQ disks will give you very good performance without much noise. But yes, a single slow Nexus can keep even four disks reasonably cool in the bottom of a P180.

A 500W supply is all you'll ever need unless you go crazy and build a system with two 8800 graphics cards.

The only reason to have three fans in the top chamber would be to run them at extremely low RPMs like I do.

Boy I can attest to the model railroader comment. I went and saw an exhibit that was wonderful, but even with no construction I couldn't believe how time consuming it was, despite all these new automated functions from my day, trying to control trains with no help from RF devices that control speed and direction.

It's a great hobby when your doctor informs you that your immortal.

Another milestone...

"Superquiet Superclocked" just passed 250,000 reads...

Hope at least a few of those learned something useful.

what are the white dividers made from? and from where to acquire such things? the ones separating the gpu heat from the cpu and etc.

also how does the white diver above the gpu stay a top?

Hi,



(emphasis is mine)

Thanks Neil. [Wow, "superquiet superclocked" is pushing 350,000 reads!]

The plastic is styrene, available at many arts and crafts stores (locally I get it from TAP Plastics). If you don't find it right away, ask a model railroader; everyone knows one, or knows someone who knows one...

The large graphics/cpu divider is held up in four places: at the back panel by a bump in the case, in the middle by the little tab that sticks down onto the graphics card, near the front of the case by resting on the foam that surrounds the fan in the lower part of the chamber, and on the side panel by foam that presses against it when the panel is installed. There are a couple of photos in the article that describe this.

In a less elaborate design than mine, you could install a less-perfectly sealed divider with some cable ties or elastics to whatever anchor points present themselves.


As time goes by, system power consumption has been dropping steadily, and the elaborate perfectionism of my system has become esoteric and unnecessary. Still, it was fun to do and remains a source of satisfaction.