Silencing an A64 machine.

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jdelo24
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Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:41 am
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Silencing an A64 machine.

Post by jdelo24 » Sun Jan 21, 2007 12:32 pm

Hi. I have an Athlon64 socket 939 machine, equipped with its stock heatsink and fan back home. It is housed in a Thermaltake XaserV WinGo tower with 4 case fans (1 rear exhaust (90 mm), 2 side intakes (90 mm), 1 front intake (80 mm) and when i played with it last month during my break, it was hella loud with all of them on. Of course, my goal is to make this rig a quiet and most importantly cool HTPC. I'll be coming home in a couple of months, but I want to get an idea ahead of time. Besides the rear exhaust fan, what other fans are really necessary to keeping my machine cool? Will it be fine just todisable the side intakes and front intake? From what I remember, my CPU was at about 35 C when watching movies. Any suggestions?

where?wolf
Posts: 198
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:10 am
Location: Southern Sweden

Re: Silencing an A64 machine.

Post by where?wolf » Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:27 pm

jdelo24 wrote:Hi. I have an Athlon64 socket 939 machine, equipped with its stock heatsink and fan back home. It is housed in a Thermaltake XaserV WinGo tower with 4 case fans (1 rear exhaust (90 mm), 2 side intakes (90 mm), 1 front intake (80 mm) and when i played with it last month during my break, it was hella loud with all of them on. Of course, my goal is to make this rig a quiet and most importantly cool HTPC. I'll be coming home in a couple of months, but I want to get an idea ahead of time. Besides the rear exhaust fan, what other fans are really necessary to keeping my machine cool? Will it be fine just todisable the side intakes and front intake? From what I remember, my CPU was at about 35 C when watching movies. Any suggestions?
Hi

You could try another heatsink first and some small mods. And maybe even other fan(s).

A cheap but more quiet and effective cpu cooler would be Arctic Cooling Freezer 64. This heatsink is rotateable. So you can aim the back of the Freezer, at the exhaust fan in the rear of the case. This will make the hot air from the cpu go the shortest way out of the case. The AC Freezer 64 fits most cases and is compatible with most motherboard brands.

Try dismount your side panel fans + the intake fan and seal the sidepanel fan holes with clear tape. (I guess this is a windowed case?) I dont think you will really need the 80mm intake fan.

Also seal all unnessisary holes and vents in your case.

Test what temps you get with just one exhaust fan? "Motherboard Monitor 5", is a good and free software you can use for this.

If you wanna regulate the fan speed with a software? Download Speedfan.
This requires of coarce that your fans are connected to the motherboard fan connectors.

If Speedfan, doesnt work for you for some reason? Get a couple of Zalman fanmate II speed regulators. Those are cheap and good.

If you wanna regulate more than 1 fan per Fanmate? Get a "Y" split fan cable adapter. 1 X 3 pin female and 2 X male 3 pin connectors.

Use some elastic straps for the exhaust fan instead of screws. This will kill vibrations from fan to case.

Nexus and Akasa amber series 92mm, are quiet fans if you wanna replace yours?

Mount your harddrive with rubber or silicone grommets between the hd cage and the hd. This will dampen some hd noise. Or try suspend the hd, using elastic straps like "Stretch Magic" 1.8mm or 1.5mm inside the hd cage.

Make sure all cables are out of the way from the fans. Especially if you have a broad IDE cable for the harddrives and cd drive? Fold those out of the way, or get round IDE hd / cd cables instead. Cables that is in the airflow path of the fans, is not good for the airflow thru the case.

Some thin foam or silicone strips between the powersupply and case will kill some vibrations. Use double sided tape for the foam strips. Just make sure the foam is'nt in the way of the psu fans or vents.

Is your videocard fan loud? Replace it with a Zalman vga cooler for ex. Just check the card compability with the vga cooler you choosed, at Zalman home first.

Place the case on something that will dampen vibrations from case to desk.

Hope this will be of any help for you?

jdelo24
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:41 am
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Post by jdelo24 » Sun Jan 21, 2007 3:52 pm

awesome. thank you for the tips! I didn't know you can mod so much to silence a pc and yet keep it cool. I never really noticed any vibration noise, probably because the jet-like fans are covering it up!

anyway, thanks a lot of the tips. i'll look into these when i get back home, or i'll e-mail my brother about these. Thanks again!

where?wolf
Posts: 198
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:10 am
Location: Southern Sweden

Post by where?wolf » Sun Jan 21, 2007 3:57 pm

jdelo24 wrote:awesome. thank you for the tips! I didn't know you can mod so much to silence a pc and yet keep it cool. I never really noticed any vibration noise, probably because the jet-like fans are covering it up!

anyway, thanks a lot of the tips. i'll look into these when i get back home, or i'll e-mail my brother about these. Thanks again!

You're welcome.

If you really dig into modding for silence. You probably can find more stuff you can do, that will lower the noise even more.
Reading posts, treads and articles here at the forum is a good start.

EDIT.

I looked at your case, and realized. That you can add some thin sound damping material to the upper 2/3 on the inside of the case front door too. The lower part of the door I think you should leave as it is, as it is in front of the air intake.

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