schnee's quiet Coolermaster
Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:58 pm
Time to show off the rig. I've put a lot of work into making this a quiet machine... and SPCR's articles and recommendations have been essential.
First, the specs:
Coolermaster 110 (drool)
P4 2.4c w/ Zalman 7000Cu heatsink
Gigabyte 8knxp w/ Zalman passive northbridge heatsink
1gb PC 3200
ATI Sapphire 9600 (passively cooled)
DVD burner
2 x 120gb Seagate Barracuda HDs in Smart Drive enclosures
IDE cartridge drive
The case:
I love the Coolermaster 110 case - it's so classy and minimalist. The pictures really don't do it justice; the goreous brushed aluminum is reflecting the colors of the crappy white desk and ugly carpet protector.
The drives:
DVD burner, IDE cartridge drive, and two Smart Drive aluminum enclosures for the Barracudas. The enclosures act like heatsinks, so the drives stay cool, and are absolutely silent. I really should wipe off those fingerprints.
The inside:
The colorful mobo, un-sheathed power supply wires and extra USB/Firewire header wires make it seem a lot more cluttered than it really is.
Close up:
Zalman whoring - 7000Cu heatsink & fan-mate, passive northbridge heatsink, and 400w power supply. Gigabyte make fantastic motherboards, but whoever picked the acid-trip happy fun colors should be shot.
I've done a few other things beyond buying good hardware:
During the day, when there's a bit of ambient noise, I can't hear it. At night, there's a soft whoosh, but the whole thing - all 6 fans - is quieter than a single Panaflo L1A at 12v or a rev1 Arctic Cooling Silencer. It also stays cool - during a Prime95 torture test it gets to ~43c/30c CPU/case (ambient ~20c). I really can't think of any way to make it quieter without replacing major amounts of hardware.
Thanks SPCR!
First, the specs:
Coolermaster 110 (drool)
P4 2.4c w/ Zalman 7000Cu heatsink
Gigabyte 8knxp w/ Zalman passive northbridge heatsink
1gb PC 3200
ATI Sapphire 9600 (passively cooled)
DVD burner
2 x 120gb Seagate Barracuda HDs in Smart Drive enclosures
IDE cartridge drive
The case:
I love the Coolermaster 110 case - it's so classy and minimalist. The pictures really don't do it justice; the goreous brushed aluminum is reflecting the colors of the crappy white desk and ugly carpet protector.
The drives:
DVD burner, IDE cartridge drive, and two Smart Drive aluminum enclosures for the Barracudas. The enclosures act like heatsinks, so the drives stay cool, and are absolutely silent. I really should wipe off those fingerprints.
The inside:
The colorful mobo, un-sheathed power supply wires and extra USB/Firewire header wires make it seem a lot more cluttered than it really is.
Close up:
Zalman whoring - 7000Cu heatsink & fan-mate, passive northbridge heatsink, and 400w power supply. Gigabyte make fantastic motherboards, but whoever picked the acid-trip happy fun colors should be shot.
I've done a few other things beyond buying good hardware:
- All four 80mm case fans run at 7v. I'm lucky, my Papsts don't click.
- Dremeled out the restrictive grill behind the rear 80mm fan.
- The inside is covered with acoustic foam. I forget who makes it - it's 2 years old or so, better than PaxMate, not nearly as good as AcoustiPak. It did a lot to reduce vibration in the thin aluminum sides. Thump it and it sounds solid.
- The front case fans are on rubber fan isolators.
- The rear case fan is on rubber grommets (soon to be isolators).
- The wiring is routed out of the way of airflow.
- The case fan wires route to a single 'fanbus', which really cleaned up the wiring. I took out seven Molex connections that way.
During the day, when there's a bit of ambient noise, I can't hear it. At night, there's a soft whoosh, but the whole thing - all 6 fans - is quieter than a single Panaflo L1A at 12v or a rev1 Arctic Cooling Silencer. It also stays cool - during a Prime95 torture test it gets to ~43c/30c CPU/case (ambient ~20c). I really can't think of any way to make it quieter without replacing major amounts of hardware.
Thanks SPCR!