My Solo Project! [Pics]

Show off your quiet rig.

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Rackafella
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
Location: Sweden

My Solo Project! [Pics]

Post by Rackafella » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:09 am

Hey. Im kinda new here. Have been reading the forum for a long time but hasnt been making any noise :)

So here whats up. I bought some new fans and a Ninja. Thinking this will make my computer more silent.
And this is my story :D

The Setup:
Antec Solo
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
K8N Neo4-F (NFORCE4-A939)
Sapphire Radeon X1600PRO 512MB DDRII, PCI-E
NorthQ 4775-400BULK, ATX 400W

New silencing gear:
Noctua NF-S12-800 8dB(A) 59m3/h 800RPM
Nexus Real Silent 92mm, 19,2 dBa
Scythe Ninja PLUS
Arctic Silver 5


This is the new shit :D I got me some RAM too.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6504.jpg

This is the "before picture". I had no fans in the front and a standard AMD cooler. (The new RAM in place!)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6507.jpg

I replaced the Northbridge fan with a passive cooler a long time ago, at once when I bought the motherboard.
Image

I knew that the ninja was big but I were still surprised how BIG it was :D (next to the right is the standard AMD cooler i used)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6515.jpg

I also knew when I bought the ninja that it was a gamble if it would fit or not on my MB. I had done some ruff measuring and I knew it would be a tight fit.
But I got a good deal on it so I took the chance.

And it DID NOT FIT!

These black towers got in the way for the Heatpipes
Image

Not willing to bend the towers too much I released my fury on the Ninja and this where the result (mod/original):
Image

I dont think it affected the cooling-effect that much and now it fits like a glove :D

Then on with some Arctic silver 5 coolingpaste
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6533.jpg

And TaDA! Both ninja and Nocuta in place :) The rubber fan holders where hard to get on especially the ones closest to the motherboard.
Image

Both nexus fans in place :)
Image

Hidden cables :D
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6550.jpg

Done for the day :) Arrows shows how fans shuld blow the air.
Image


So whats left? Well it isnt yet as silent as I want it.

-The graphiccards fan sound too much. I am planing some kind of passive cooling there too.
-The Fan in the powersupply have to be changed, it is not as quiet as promised. - DONE
-I want to close off the the area between powesupply and dvd-player somehow. to mimizie airflow area. - DONE
-I had problem with the Nocuta. Sometimes it sounds ALOT like an 5 year old broken fan "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a". - DONE
I have sent it back to my retailer to get it changed to a new one. And for now I have the Antec-fan back in there. Where NOT the Nocuta as I thought but The NorthQ power supplys fan that makes the noise!!
-All fans are still at 12v. Waiting to get the Nocuta back to optimize fanspeeds.
-Rearange IDE-cable setup. - DONE

-I am thinking in removing some of the pci-slots covers to get better airflow, what do you think, will it help?

As you see I also have two harddrives hanging one "slot" away from each other, beeing cooled by one nexus each.
Shuld i maybe put them closer together to get colder air from the upper nexus?

Temperatures?
Before this I had these (using speedfan and atitool):
IN CELSIUS!
Stress Idle
Core: 50 30
Case: 50 32
Temp3: 33 10
HD0: 34 33
HD1: 38 37

GPU: 76 56
Chip: 55 42

After this:
Core: 42 28
Case: 43 32
Temp3: 22 9
HD0: 28 28
HD1: 32 31

GPU: 70 55
Chip: 50 42

As you can see the result is a cooler computer :)

/R
Last edited by Rackafella on Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:26 am, edited 3 times in total.

F for Fragging
Posts: 46
Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:08 am
Location: The Netherlands

question for a Solo owner

Post by F for Fragging » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:44 am

Nice post, but personally I doubt if it's useful to have two fans at the front for a system like yours to improve the temperatures slightly, if the temperatures are already ok, 50 °C for a CPU isn't too much. Those fans will create more noise than just an outtake and a PSU fan. That optical drive looks a bit odd, I'd get a black one. SATA DVD Rewriters cost less than € 25 ($ 36) where I live.

There is a thing I've wanted to ask to a Solo owner, because I intend to buy a Solo as well for my new system. I intend to buy a GeForce 8800 GT and cool it passively with Arctic Cooling Accelero S1. Possibly I could use some extra airflow, but I don't want to use 92mm fans at the front, I want to use a 120mm fan. In this picture I saw in another thread on the SPCR forums, a 120mm fan on the back of the hard drive cage can be seen, cooling an Accelero S1. Even though the enclosure on the photo is an Antec P182, I want to do something similar with my Solo.
So, could you please take a look at your Solo, and tell me if there are any holes in the hard drive cage which I could use to mount a 120mm fan, or if there is any other way to improvise, maybe tie a fan to the elastic suspension of the hard drives?

amjedm
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Location: UK

Post by amjedm » Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:10 pm

Is that a HD and DVD on the same IDE channel?

What do you think of the NorthQ?

Ta.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:25 pm

i like the way you suspended that hitachi "deathstar"...i've got 3 of them here, two 40gb models, one 80gb model...one of them vibrates like you've never heard before...i have it resting on top of foam to make it better.

but you could knock out the lower of the two front fans in that system, the lower one is not in a direct path with anything that i can see. if you had a passive gfx card down there, i'd say keep it, but it really doesn't do anything but add more air to the case, which is just pulling in dust. airflow from a fan is not directly straight forward, so you wont be reducing the cool air to the graphics card by removing the lower fan.

i also noticed the DVD drive on the same IDE channel as the HD. what you should do is get an 80 wire conductor cable for the hard drive, and have the DVD drive on the existing cable on the secondary IDE channel, as the board clearly has two. it'll do two things for you 1) 80 wire conductors have a faster transfer speed than 40 wire and 2) isolating the DVD drive will decrease burn/read times, as well as increase the reliability of burning something. i see that you're running the OS on a separate SATA drive, however data will bulk up because read/write on a PATA cable is limited to one device at a time, putting them on the same cable wont make it more reliable if you're burning something from that drive.

hope that helps you out some...it'll do wonders to that system [which already looks nice].

Techno Pride
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Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:57 am

Post by Techno Pride » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:48 pm

If there're any cracks in the heatpipe, the gas will escape, rendering the heatpipe useless.

Considering that you don't have any temperature problems, it appears that you've done a great job hammering the pipes :lol:

Rackafella
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Rackafella » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:20 am

F for Fragging

Ok :)
I will not start experimenting with fanspeeds/removing fans until I get the Nocuta back but thanks for the tip.
The DVD+/-r was a gift and it works fine. So it will not be replaced as long as it still works. That would be a waste of good money.

Will check my case tomorrow for possible 120mm setup.

amjedm

yes it is!

The NorthQ does well. But I dont think im stressing it that much. I have not overclocked anything and I only have two harddrives.

BUT it is not as silent as I hoped. And I have found out that it was not the Nocuta-fan that did the "Duk-a-Duk-a-Duk-a" but the NorthQ-fan.
So im waiting to get the Nocuta back and then im gonna replace the NorthQ-fan with my Antec Solo-bulk-fan for the time beeing.
I have the 120mm-fan version of NorthQ 4775-400 (there is also an 140mm-fan version).

bonestonne

Both HDs hangs fine :) cant hear them at all. Except at start when the Hitachi make a very high pitch sound for like a minute.
But it is a very old disk so I can live with that for now :)

The plan is a passivecooled gfx card but I will test both with and without the lower fan.

The reason I have both DVD and Hitachi (150Gb) on the same IDE are to minimize the IDEs. Large ugly cables thats just in the way!
Both the HD and DVD works fine as it is and I dont use the DVD that much so it is not that big of at problem.
I will look at geting a 80wire IDE for the HD but it is really not a priority right now. Thanks for the tip :)

Techno Pride

Yep, no cracks :D

/R

LBadvance
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Post by LBadvance » Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:07 pm

If it were me I would desolder the capacitors and then do a wire mod to relocate it.

flatten heatipipes will reduce its heat carrying capacities. But if the temps all good, then there's nothing to worry about.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:46 am

Image
^flat ribbon cables aren't a hassle when you run them right. i have an 80wire conductor in a G3 case, lemme tell you, i didn't know they made them ~36" long until i pulled it out. works great too.

i have a passive graphics card myself, and it gets really toasty just running linux, so i have a 92mm fan in the 3.5" drive bays blowing at it, but you don't need a lot half as much as just a constant supply, as well as room for hot air to get pushed out.

Rackafella
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Rackafella » Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:59 am

OK, so I checked my boxes with old cables and found no less then three 80 wire IDE cables.
And opening the case I noticed that the cable already in the system where also a 80 wire cable.

The red one are the one I used alone first and I had two of theese blue cables (+ a black but it where too long)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6705.jpg

I connected the Red cable (shortest) at IDE1 direct to the HD and the Blue cable (a little longer) at IDE2 to the DVD-R.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6719.jpg

I hide the blue cable in the slot under the dvd-r and the red on the back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6721.jpg

Dont know if theres any real differens (that I have noticed yet) but it always feels good to optimize :D

F for Fragging

What I can see it shuld be no problem mounting a 120mm fan there if you remove some rubberbands holders.

This is how it looks like:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6709.jpg

From right to left its almost exactly 120mm measuing on the inside.
But it is higer so is wont be as much as a air duct as the picture you showed me.

Removing rubberbands holder gives these holes:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6712.jpg

But you will loose one slot to mount harddrives (you can still "hardmount" the drives without rubberbands there.).
Notice also that the cage is not that deep. The hard drives stick out like 4mm from the case while using 92mm fan in the front.
But if not using the fans you can easy fit the whole drive in there.

Hope it helped :)

This are the result after todays work. Not that much a differens, mostly recableing.
As you can see I still havent got the Noctua back.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6716.jpg

And this is my Solo in its natural habitat :)
Image

It got some space underneath and on the sides for the air intake. And it is a bit over floorlevel so it does not intake that much dust :)
Image

/r
Last edited by Rackafella on Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

chahahc
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Location: The Most Mexican Place in the U.S.A

Post by chahahc » Tue Dec 25, 2007 3:00 pm

Errm.....Couldn't you just rotate the ninja 90 degrees instead of taking out your fury on the wider spaced heatpipes? :? Maybe I missed something but just rotating the heatsink would probably have allowed the ninja to fit without hitting the capacitors.

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Tue Dec 25, 2007 3:44 pm

chahahc wrote:Errm.....Couldn't you just rotate the ninja 90 degrees instead of taking out your fury on the wider spaced heatpipes? :? Maybe I missed something but just rotating the heatsink would probably have allowed the ninja to fit without hitting the capacitors.
That's K8-system, it doesn't allow rotating. Just 180 degree rotations.

chahahc
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Location: The Most Mexican Place in the U.S.A

Post by chahahc » Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:25 pm

Ah yeah. I knew there was something missing out on my logic. :lol:

Rackafella
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Rackafella » Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:08 pm

chahahc and thejamppa: Thats right, only 180 degree rotations are possible :D

So its been a while... I had alot of trouble with this computer, not silence related. Turns out the new RAMs are corrupted...

I have gotten my Noctua back now. I put it in the case today :) And at the same time I modified the power supply a little:

Original and Opened:
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6902-03.jpg

I did some cutting in the back to open for better airflow but dont know if it does any real difference :)
Image

I replaced the original fan with the Antec 3-speed fan. And at the same time removed the inside fan grills (Whats the point of those?)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6907-8.jpg

Then I cut open the front fan grills. Cant see the point of those either.
Image

The Noctua in place :)
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6915.jpg

Then I Had to rearrange the cables Again in the case :) I am very pleased with the result.
http://climbing.huligan.se/rackafella/IMG_6910.jpg

The new-cut non-fan grills
Image

I got some volt-adaptors with the Noctuas. Does anyone know how strong the resistors are in those?
The box only say "Ultra-low-noise adaptor".

/R

Rackafella
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 10:37 pm
Location: Sweden

Post by Rackafella » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:17 am

I have tidy up the thread a little bit, making some images to links instead so it wont take forever to load :)
They still work thou.
I have also done another thread about silencing your mouse that is a great mod :)
viewtopic.php?t=46390

But to the real update:

Now I have finally separated the area above the DVD in the case. I think this will slightly increase
the airflow in the case, maybe :) if not its given me a nice cable pocket!

I did this by slaughtering an old broken cd-rom.
Like this one, but not this one, this one works :)
Image

I removed all insides just keeping the bottom with sides and the top.
Image

I did cut out a part from the top to run cables through. This I now know where unnecessary because I could just have run the cables on the back of it. And the hole did get all to big.

Then I used double sided tape to put the two parts together.
Image
Image

It where placed just above the DVD to serve its purpose: close of that area!
Image

A great place to put unused cables :)
Image

The 3-speed-changer for the fan in the power supply
Image

The hole that where unnecessary:
Image

The whole thing! I have redone the cabling again, as usual :) and swapped places on the two HDDs.
Image

I still haven't been able to do anything about my graphic card witch are the most noisiest part in the case now.

FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:49 am

Put a S1 or HR05 on that Graphics card and it'll be much quieter and probably cooler. Very nice system. It also inspired me to try and tidy some of my cabling in my SOLO once i get my TR backplate for my ninja. Currently my cabling can only be described as "horrific". :lol:

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