Gaming PC silenced! (a.k.a. Black D8000)
Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:21 pm
This post is for all you people out there who have PC's you use mainly for gaming, video editing, etc. but hate it when your done gaming and your PC is screaming next to you. Before this project, I was using a computer I purchased from www.alienware.com. It had 6 case fans in a Chieftec Dragon case, 2 intake, 2 exhaust, and one side panel fan, not to mention the videocard fan, cpu fan, and psu fan, and let me tell you, that thing could make some NOISE! During my gaming sessions or at LAN's the noise didn't bother me in the least but when I was sitting at home trying to type a paper, surfing the web, or trying to sleep the noise level was unbearable. This past Christmas I purchased myself a Antec Sonata, an Athlon XP 2500+ as well as a gig of ram in the hopes of upping my performance while taking away alot of the noise. After I put everything along with my new hardware into the Sonata I was very impressed with the noise level (being I was used to hearing 6 80mm case fans screaming away at 12V, one 120mm fan running off the fan only connectors on the Sonata was almost inaudible). However, after a few months, I was still not satisfied with the noise level and that is when I came across the SPCR forums! I was very impressed with what Katana did with his PC in the Do-it-Yourself section of the site so I decided to mirror what he did as closely as possible. I ordered a D8000 case from www.coolcases.com which came with stock everything including two 120mm globe thermally controlled case fans, I got the AcoustiPack Deluxe and some silicon grommets from www.siliconacoustics.com, and got the VGA Silencer rev. 3 from www.newegg.com. When I received all the new parts, the first thing I did was put the VGA Silencer on my 9700pro. This was pretty easy except for the fact that my stock heatsink on my Powercolor 9700pro was expoxied to the card so I needed to heat it up with a heat gun and then pull it off. I booted up and everything was fine (no artifacts in 3DMark03 or in UT2K3) so I then got to work preparing my D8000. I first cut out all the grills with my tin snips and then cleaned it up with my dremel. I dremeled some custom mounts for my case fans, and then very carefully cleaned out my case with the help of a shop vac and a high pressure air tank that my dad uses to clean out filters for chainsaws, cars, tractors, etc. Following Katana's mod to the front intake, I dremeled out the restrictive plastic and glued some modders mesh in there I painted black. With the case mods completed, I carefully applied the AcoustiPack Deluxe on the top, bottom and both of my case doors. With my case mods completed, I began to transfer my components from my Sonata to my D8000. Everything worked out great for the first few weeks except I began to notice one slight problem:
Since the PSU had no fresh air coming in from the sides of the case (like my old Sonata) the fan was speeding up to compensate for all the warm/hot air it was receiving. To me this got to an unacceptable level so I ordered up a 350W Fortron Aurora PSU from www.newegg.com. After installing my new Fortron I was very surprised to see that it was LOUDER than my old Antec TP380W PSU. This is because even though you have a manual control knob at the rear of the PSU to decide how fast you want the fan to run, that fan is ALSO temperature controlled so with all the hot air in my case being forced into the PSU, it sped up to probalby about 7-8V which was way too fast for me. On a whim, I decided what the heck, I'll just mod my Antec TP380W PSU with a Panaflo L1A. I went downstairs, soldered the L1A to the PSU fan connector wires and threw her in the case. All said and done this mod was very successful! However, after feeling the very hot air that was coming out of the PSU I decided that it was too dangerous to risk losing my PSU and possibly other components due to it overheating. I made a PSU duct out of cardboard that I taped into an emptry 3.5 bay in the top of my case (I cut out an empty bay cover with my dremel and glued some modders mesh in it) and my PSU now exhausts only slightly warm air, and when I open up my case and touch it from the side and bottom it is mostly slightly warm but sometimes when it's cold in my room (70F or lower) the PSU is COLD to the touch. Problem solved! As of now I am VERY happy with how this has turned out. At night (I leave this computer on 24/7) this is nearly inaudible, I have to strain to hear it. During the day when I'm not sleeping, I dont even notice it is on. Anyways, enough of my blabbering, onto the pictures!
EDIT: I've been modifying my case alot recently, so I guess it's time to give it the old update. What's new in my case now is the bird-house mod (much thanks to Bluefront for this idea) the front USB ports added to the floppy cover, and I changed my PSU duct from taking up one 5.25 bay to two.
Here's my case from the front:
The inside of my case:
The inside right part of my case:
This is a close up of the top part of my case:
Here's three different angles of the inside of my birdhouse; it houses two Samsung SP1213N drives:
This one shows you my psu duct that has been modified countless times
This is a close up of my front usb ports. I cut the hole in the floppy cover with my dremel, and then glued/taped the connector in place.
For temperatures I get 42C idle, 54 full load on my CPU, and 29 for case temp (ambient room temp of 72.7F). I only have one computer so I use this for everything; mainly gaming. I play UT2K4, Far Cry, Halo, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Splinter Cell, Doom III among others. I also use this for school work (MS Word), E-Mail, and watching DVD's, and websurfing. I leave it on 24/7 and at night during the spring/summer the crickets outside my window along with the wind and all those other nature sounds drown out all noise from my PC. The only time I can hear it is if I am sitting directly next to it and I have no music playing with my windows closed; this happens mostly in the winter. At night during the winter it is just a dull rush of air/whirring I hear that sounds like one huge fan running VERY slow. Any comments, suggestions, questions, are welcome![/img]
Since the PSU had no fresh air coming in from the sides of the case (like my old Sonata) the fan was speeding up to compensate for all the warm/hot air it was receiving. To me this got to an unacceptable level so I ordered up a 350W Fortron Aurora PSU from www.newegg.com. After installing my new Fortron I was very surprised to see that it was LOUDER than my old Antec TP380W PSU. This is because even though you have a manual control knob at the rear of the PSU to decide how fast you want the fan to run, that fan is ALSO temperature controlled so with all the hot air in my case being forced into the PSU, it sped up to probalby about 7-8V which was way too fast for me. On a whim, I decided what the heck, I'll just mod my Antec TP380W PSU with a Panaflo L1A. I went downstairs, soldered the L1A to the PSU fan connector wires and threw her in the case. All said and done this mod was very successful! However, after feeling the very hot air that was coming out of the PSU I decided that it was too dangerous to risk losing my PSU and possibly other components due to it overheating. I made a PSU duct out of cardboard that I taped into an emptry 3.5 bay in the top of my case (I cut out an empty bay cover with my dremel and glued some modders mesh in it) and my PSU now exhausts only slightly warm air, and when I open up my case and touch it from the side and bottom it is mostly slightly warm but sometimes when it's cold in my room (70F or lower) the PSU is COLD to the touch. Problem solved! As of now I am VERY happy with how this has turned out. At night (I leave this computer on 24/7) this is nearly inaudible, I have to strain to hear it. During the day when I'm not sleeping, I dont even notice it is on. Anyways, enough of my blabbering, onto the pictures!
EDIT: I've been modifying my case alot recently, so I guess it's time to give it the old update. What's new in my case now is the bird-house mod (much thanks to Bluefront for this idea) the front USB ports added to the floppy cover, and I changed my PSU duct from taking up one 5.25 bay to two.
Here's my case from the front:
The inside of my case:
The inside right part of my case:
This is a close up of the top part of my case:
Here's three different angles of the inside of my birdhouse; it houses two Samsung SP1213N drives:
This one shows you my psu duct that has been modified countless times
This is a close up of my front usb ports. I cut the hole in the floppy cover with my dremel, and then glued/taped the connector in place.
For temperatures I get 42C idle, 54 full load on my CPU, and 29 for case temp (ambient room temp of 72.7F). I only have one computer so I use this for everything; mainly gaming. I play UT2K4, Far Cry, Halo, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Splinter Cell, Doom III among others. I also use this for school work (MS Word), E-Mail, and watching DVD's, and websurfing. I leave it on 24/7 and at night during the spring/summer the crickets outside my window along with the wind and all those other nature sounds drown out all noise from my PC. The only time I can hear it is if I am sitting directly next to it and I have no music playing with my windows closed; this happens mostly in the winter. At night during the winter it is just a dull rush of air/whirring I hear that sounds like one huge fan running VERY slow. Any comments, suggestions, questions, are welcome![/img]