Super-silent Prescott 640 in a Coolermaster Centurion 530

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 4:56 pm

Hi all --

I've been promising to post photos of my newly-built silent rig for weeks now, and finally got round to doing it today. Before I go on, just a note that despite my username on this forum, I have no affiliation with Coolermaster at all (even though I dig their products).

Ok, so let's get to it.

* * * * *

This project started off harmlessly enough.

I had a fairly decent rig running a P4 540 CPU in a Coolermaster Centurion case. Then one day, on an innocent surf through the Web, I came across a site called Silent PC Review. This was interesting because for some time now I'd become irritated by the whining noises coming from my PC. At first I thought it was just a noisy CPU cooler, so I took the tentative step of replacing it with a specialist cooler, an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7.

From that point on I was hooked. My computer was suddenly much quieter, but now other noises started irritating me. The VGA fan, the PSU... I also started watching every degree of heat my CPU and other components generated.

As I read through post after post on this very forum, my mandate became clear: to have a silent PC I needed to build a silent PC. I'd spent too much time (and too much money) trying to work around my existing PC's shortcomings. With this in mind, I got to work on a new machine.

The components I used for the build were a mix of existing parts and new parts specific to this project:

> Pentium 4 "Prescott" 640 (new)
> Asus P5GD2 Deluxe mobo
> 2GB Corsair DDR2 RAM
> 2x Seagate 7200.7 160GB S-ATA 8MB HDD
> Coolermaster 4-in-3 device for HDD
> Asus GeForce 6600 VGA card with 256MB RAM
> Coolermaster Real Power 450W ACLX PSU
> Coolermaster Centurion 530 case

Cooling:

> Zalman CNPS 7700AlCU cooler (modified fan, 12V)
> Zalman VF700 cooler
> 120mm Coolermaster silent fan on 4-in-3 device (7V)
> 120mm Coolermaster silent LED intake fan (+/- 7V on Zalman Fanmate)
> 120mm Coolermaster silent LED exhaust fan ((+/- 7V on Zalman Fanmate)
> 120mm PSU fan (Coolermaster silent, temperature controlled)
> Arctic Silver 5 on CPU and GPU

Six fans and silent? You betcha!

(The rest of this post will be, as I'm sure most of you prefer, mainly pictorial. If you have any questions, please post a reply or e-mail me).

* * * * *

I started off with the most important part: the case. I looked through every vendor's catalogue before settling on a Coolermaster Centurion 530. This new case was much smaller than the CM Stacker I was eyeing, with similar features (vented front grilles) and other goodies (stealth drive doors anyone?).

Cable management was going to be the biggest challenge with this build. The next few shots show how it was done.

Time for a breather. To recap, I routed all the unused power cables through a hole in the mobo tray near the PSU, and hid them behind the tray. The power cables I needed were still too long, so I bunched them up and stuffed them in a basic switch box (from a hardware store), spraypainted black to match.

I used a round plastic loom to route the long cables from the top panel of the case to the bottom, and to tidy up loose bits and pieces along the way. Finally I used thin spiral wrap for the tinner cables, also routed through the plastic loom. Around the drive bays I glued acoustic foam, more to hide the underlying cables and components than reduce noise.

The two drives went in a Coolermaster 4-in-3 device, originally designed for the Stacker but which (with a slight mod) fits neatly into the Centurion.

The build complete:

The result: a cool-running high-spec PC which is almost totally silent. It sits under my desk, in its own cavity, and I can't hear it at all from where I sit. If I put my ear near the case I can hear wind noise from the fans, but that's to be expected. The hard drives 'suspended' in the 4-in-3 are still audible when they're angry, but otherwise almost completely silent. When the door to the PC cavity is closed I have to switch on my screen to make sure the PC's on.

Monitored temps:

> CPU idle: 40C
> CPU load: 62C
> Mobo idle: 29C
> Mobo load: 34C
> GPU: 42C

This is what it looks like from my vantage point:

Oh, and if you were wondering why the fan on the 7700 cooler looks transparent, as in these photos:

... then check out the thread on my Zalman mod in the Cooling forum.

* * * * *

I look forward to your thoughts and feedback, and thank every one of you that have contributed in your own way over the past few months to helping me build my dream machine.

CM

timmytimmytimmy · Post by **timmytimmytimmy** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 5:27 pm

Nice build, I like your cable management!

My suggestions on possible places to cut down the noise(if you are not happy with it):

- Have you tried removing the front intake fan- you could possibly cut down on noise there, with not much effect on temps.
- Remove the PSU fan grill and the grill on the HDD cooling fan- they may create a bit of turbulence noise.
- Possibly remove the HDD cooling fan, depending on the HDD temps.

I tend to take the viewpoint of cutting down on the number of fans in the computer- which makes silencing it (in my opinion) much easier. However, it looks like your case sits under your desk- which reduces the noise a lot. Mine sits right next to my monitor

Krazy Kommando · Post by **Krazy Kommando** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:28 am

nice looking rig. any pictures of it fired up? (besides the monitor shots that is

)

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:26 am

I have one shot of the Zalman 7700 lit up in another thread:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=25608

Krazy Kommando · Post by **Krazy Kommando** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:13 pm

oooo, pretty

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:38 pm

Very nice.
The stacker module is a device worth exploring. I got one myself and I am very pleased with it, both from an airflow (12 cm) intake and silence standpoint (suspended).

I see that yours as no "front plate" with holes. Mine had, and I had to remove it : what came at the expense of some signficant effort (and a little bit of blood too ....).

Was yours like that too ?

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:15 pm

Hi jjr

yep, mine had the front faceplate too. A real annoyance. Once you remove it you also have to be very careful with the fan, because the faceplate seems to hold it much tighter to the 4-in-3. In any case faceplate had to go - wasn't easy!

CM

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 7:59 pm

Actually, I had to leave the bottom part of it as one of the holes holding the fan was right between the face plate and border frame.
I saw on a picture you might have done the same.

But then I put the HD up and its right in the unrestricted airflow area.
Just needed on slot for the moment.

Too bad they use such a holding system and not just screws so you could easily dismantle / re-mount the fan .
I wonder what would happen if the fan dies on me ...
Probably would have to start criling holes into the frame to put a new one.

How did you fasten the back fan (it looks like you have a back fan on the stacker module, isn't it) ?

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 8:28 pm

Hi again

Actually I don't have a back fan...what I did was turn the stacker module around in my case, with the fan blowing onto the CPU area and drawing cold air in from the front over the drives. It actually works quite well. I did take all the faceplates off before realising the bottom plate held the fan hole! Luckily the pins holding the fan still manage to grip into the module. Stupid design if you ask me.

By the way, just keep those pins, so if the fan ever dies on you, you can replace it with another one using the pins. I experimented with using a clear LED fan on the stacker module and it works fine. The reason I kept the fan grille on the stacker module is because it acts as a spacer. You can't use the pins to hold the fan in place without it, it becomes too loose.

HTH.

CM

jjr · Post by **jjr** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:11 pm

Cooler Master wrote: Actually I don't have a back fan...what I did was turn the stacker module around in my case, with the fan blowing onto the CPU area and drawing cold air in from the front over the drives.
CM

Interesting mod ... actually this might be better than the fan in front.
Did you try both ?

Fan in front would improve the intake of fresh air but then the flow density is arguably reduced.
At the back it "tunnels" it more towards that the CPU but may end up taking some air from inside the case on the front.

However, this required unmounting the fan which I never realised was possible. I though the retention system was more of a "break to dismantle" style with that kind of clipping system. (Which means I had to remove the plates with the fan on.)
How did you do it ? Was it easy ?

Cooler Master · Post by **Cooler Master** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 7:19 pm

Remounting the fan is very easy, just be careful when pulling out the retaining pins that hold the fan in place because they're quite fragile.

You'll notice each pin has a small groove at the end; simply slide a thin object like a screwdriver tip through the groove, and gently pull the pin out. This will loosen the clamps that hold the pins in place and you'll be able to remove the pin from the fan.

Sounds quite confusing but it's easy once you get the hang of it.

by the way, you don't need to remove the fan at all; I just turned the whole unti 180 degrees. It fits just as well this way.