help me quiet this noisy monster

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inimino
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help me quiet this noisy monster

Post by inimino » Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:27 pm

My computer sits on my desk, fairly close to me, and it's loud.

The time has come to do something about this.

I have a seasonic psu which is very quiet (not that I can tell) and some hard drives that are probably fairly noisy.

The loudest thing by far is the CPU fan, which is the stock AMD fan. I have an Athlon XP 2600+ on a epox EP-8KRA2I motherboard. Also rather loud is the miserable little fan on my nvidia geForce FX 5600.

I also need some more storage, and some of my hard drives are fairly old, so I'd like to replace them all with a raid array.

So, I want to replace the CPU fan and graphics card fan, and buy some quiet hard drives, maybe a raid enclosure. I want everything to be very quiet.

What should I buy?

DryFire
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Location: USA

Post by DryFire » Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:50 pm

The slk-800 is a good choice. Or just about any of the new thermalright products that'll fit socket A. (you could probably do some duct work with the SI-97 and eliminate a fan if you're willing).

The Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2 TC, Rev 2 is good and on the cheaper end.

I had an sk-7 and a 24v panaflo m1a @ 12v on my previous 2500+ setup, no complaints and it still allowed me to oc a little.

inimino
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Post by inimino » Sun Nov 14, 2004 9:49 pm

Thanks DryFire, I bought a SI-97 and a Nexus 92mm fan.

Any suggestions for the VGA card?

ONEshot
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Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 11:37 pm

Post by ONEshot » Tue Nov 16, 2004 8:45 pm

you dont have to ditch the card, just get the VGA silencer REVISION 3!

It's brilliant, I love it. Those stock VGA fans make a lot more noise than I had expected...

starcycle
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:36 pm

Re: help me quiet this noisy monster

Post by starcycle » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:00 pm

inimino wrote: I also need some more storage, and some of my hard drives are fairly old, so I'd like to replace them all with a raid array.

So, I want to replace the CPU fan and graphics card fan, and buy some quiet hard drives, maybe a raid enclosure. I want everything to be very quiet.

What should I buy?
it seems that seagate and samsung are the hard drives of choice around here. i couldn't find any nidec samsungs, so i just got another seagate and i'm really happy with them (an 80 and the new 160). the seek is a little louder than other drives i've had, but i don't really mind that as long as they don't whine.

btw, what kind of case do you have? you can get into "xtreme" measures like suspending the drives, etc. but the best method to do that will probably depend on the case, hd cage, etc.

inimino
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Post by inimino » Tue Nov 16, 2004 9:29 pm

The VGA silencer revision 3 says it is for Nvidia FX 5900 XT, will it work with the FX 5600?

I'll get seagates then, I've always had good luck with them.

The case is an old tower. At the moment I have more hard drives than places to put them, so the case stays open and hard drives are sitting on the desk next to it.

teejay
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Post by teejay » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:31 am

First things first: Welcome to SPCR!

I don't think the Silencer will fit actually because the 5900 uses another PCB layout (ut I am definitely no expert on the subject). I used to have a FX5600ultra and cooled it quite effectively by unplugging the on-board fan and suspending an 80mm fan diagonally below it, sort of like this:

Code: Select all

 |      |        ______________
 |      |_______/_____________/_
 |     /                       /
 |    /                       /
 |   /     videocard         /
 |  /                       /
 | /_______________________/
_|/ / / | __________    
 | / / /|/_________/\
_|/ / / |\         \ \
 | / /  | \  FAN    \ \
 |/ /   |  \         \ \  
 | /    |   \_________\/
 |/
 |
only with the fan more tilted to the plane of the videocard. I used a fan rated for 2500rpm at 4V in 2D and ~8V 3D... just kept an eye on my temperature sensor. Kept the gpu temp ~62 max in 3D mode, which was less than with the stock fan.

If your case has room in the bottom-front, you can add a low-flow fan and suspend a drivecage or something from your existing 3.5" bays with stretchmagic or bungee cord. Then you'd have room for more drives... or just put them on a piece of foam but for a permanent solution I'd be worried about cooling them.

inimino
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Post by inimino » Wed Nov 17, 2004 7:29 am

Thanks teejay :)

I will try putting a fan underneath then, or maybe get one of those heatpipe heatsinks that goes on both sides. As for the hard drives, the real solution is to just get a noisy fileserver and stick it in a closet somewhere. That's a project for another weekend though...

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