3700AMB & P4 2.8 Stock Silencing Project

len509 · Post by **len509** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:39 pm

My brother was impressed with the quietness of my Dad's computer I recently built him. I told him I could do the same thing to his system, although it would be a lot different since my Dad had a Duron 1.1 and he had a Pentium 2.8. So I made it a project to quiet his computer as well.

His original system:

Case: Antec SLK3700AMB w/stock PSU
CPU: P4 2.8 Northwood w/stock cooler
Motherboard: ABIT IS7
Video Card: Quadro4 750 XGL w/stock cooler
HDD's: Maxtor 120GB, Western Digital 160GB
RAM: 2x512 PC2700 Kingston ValueRAM
Northbridge: Stock ABIT Cooler (Fan)
Fan: Stock Antec 120mm

Replacements:

PSU: Fortron FPS300-60PN
CPU Heatsink: Thermalright XP-120
Video Card Heatsink: Aerocool VM-101
Northbridge: Cooler Master Northbridge Chipset Cooler (Passive Heatsink)
Fans: 2x120mm Mad Dog Whisperfans

Power supply cables were routed through the other side of the case. I also tided up the fan, USB, firewire, and IDE cables.

The stock Antec power supply was replaced with a Fortron FSP300 I had lying around. Not the best out there, but a lot better than the noisy 2 fan Antec p/s. Maybe I'll try to get my brother to go Seasonic. I would tell tell him to return the Mad Dog (medium speed Late Yoon) fans and get some Nexus ones. But I doubt he'd go for it for $17 each plus shipping. Makes me wish I would have got in on the $4/10 qty TekGems deal.

I cut the fan grills and lined the edges with uchannel / c-strip. I then drilled out mounting holes. I decided not to use the blue elastomer grommets after trying them out on spare fans with little success. Maybe I'll try again later. Instead I used zip ties and rubber washers. I'm aware you do not need to drill holes for the zip tie method, but the middle holes made for a straight pass rather then try to loop or bend the zip tie. It also gave me a reason to use my new Black&Decker Mini Drill / Power Screwdriver. A fan guard was also inserted.

The front intake grill was modded the same as the exhaust. But since the hard drive temps were pretty good to begin with, I decided to not put in a fan and tape up all openings to force intake air through the fan hole and onto the hard drives.

The hard drive cage was decoupled from the case, turned sideways, and laid out on some foam. Drive seeks was muffled only a little but at least the resonance was gone. I should try to get my brother to get some Nidec Spinpoints. Suspension would be better, which I might try out.

Speedfan is being used to slow down the fans to 40%. With both reduced to 720 rpms, idle temps at 20C are as follows:
CPU 39C
SYS 38C
HD0 26C
HD1 29C

CPU temp was the same as before, but of course the case now has only 2 low spinning 120 mm fans. HD temps went down nicely. System temp rose, which I expected with less fans and no intake fan. But I think its resonable.

Thanks for listening.

miyagi · Post by **miyagi** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:42 am

nice work.

len509 · Post by **len509** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:02 pm

Update.

Since I wanted to change my Dad's case, I conviced my brother to give him his and get the 3000B if I covered some of the cost. I also told him it would cool better and the heatsink could run fanless.

I Thought it would be interesting to post the temps before and after of the XP-120 fanless and ducted. The card vent was covered after experiments gave me higher CPU and hard disk temps.

CPU 35C
SYS 37C
HD0 29C
HD1 31C

Prime 95 load was 48C while the old setup went up to 53C.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:16 pm

What voltage/speed do you run the 120mm Mad Dog Whisperfans at?

len509 · Post by **len509** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 3:36 pm

The exhaust fan runs at the same speed as the previous setup. It used speedfan at 40%. About 720 rpms or about 4 volts.

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Sun May 01, 2005 11:32 pm

How well does the duct cover the CPU HS? I'm about to order a similar setup.

len509 · Post by **len509** » Mon May 02, 2005 1:32 pm

The duct covers the XP-120 pretty much perfectly, right in the middle of it.

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Mon May 02, 2005 1:36 pm

len509 wrote:The duct covers the XP-120 pretty much perfectly, right in the middle of it.

Nice! I hope it will fit as well for standard NF4/KT890 mainboards (not the DFI-layout with dimms on top and cpu in the middle).

I guess the duct is 80mm so it's quite a bit smaller than the XP120. There aren't any problems with that?