I have tried several ways to make a quiet pc but with no luck. <BR>Is water cooling expensive ? Is it easy ? and does the PSU still use a fan or is it cooled via water ?? <BR> <BR>Please post - thanks, jg1234 <BR> <BR>( glad to be aboard the new forum ) <BR> <BR>_____________________________________________________________________ <BR>details for those that want them! <BR> <BR>Quick History ( My room is 10 x 10 and gets hot sometimes ) <BR> <BR>1. Built a pc with PIII 600 zalman flower 6000cu fan/heatsink, 5400 HD in silent drive case and used 250 W Q technology Ultra Quiet PSU from Quiet PC. 32MB Geforce Card - heatsink only. After 1 hour of gameplay - the thing is loud. BIOS was updated and everything. <BR> <BR>2. Bought a "Decibel" PC from CapTech distributors in Sweden. PIII 1.1 Ghz, 7200 Seagate Barracuda IV, 32MB ATI Video ( heatsink only ), 230 Q tech PSU. Heatsink was "ducted" to PSU. Still noisy. <BR> <BR>Before I go any further I am asking for advice. I think I will need some thinking outside the box. I considered distancing the box with a KVM switch but can't do that with my current setup. <BR> <BR>
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Just guessing here: the commonaility in the 2 systems is the Q-tech PSU. The fan sped up over time in the Captech system, too? If so, it is likely the effect of the thermistor in the PSU getting hot & speeding up the fan. You could try a PSU mod, but you should know that voids warranties & can be shocking. <IMG SRC="modules/phpBB_14/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> <br> <br>BTW, you say your room gets hot sometimes - how hot, exactly?
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MIke, <br> <br>My average room temperature is between 83 - 88 degrees Farenheit. <br> <br>The circulation is poor. I think that may be my real problem. I am considering adapting the design of the Captech by using a lower cpu - around 600MHz PIII . I am trying to find products to do this. I posted another message to help with that. <br> <br>Thanks - and good job on the site !!
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Hi folks - I did some investigating on the Decibel. One, I should say that the consruction was excellent. <br> <br>The noise was the Seagate Barrucuda IV. It was encased in a "silent drive" but you could hear it. Maybe it was damaged in the shipping ??? <br> <br>Also, you are right. I have very sensitive hearing - so that dosen't help. <br> <br>I finally reached a compromise. Very carefully, I replaced the HD with a Seagate 20GB 5400 RPM I had from an old computer. I put that in the "silent drive" case. I then removed the PIII 1.1 ghz and replaced that with a PIII 600. The heatsink is ducted to the 230 W Q tech PSu and everything works great. I can still hear it - but at this point it's more a question of my sensitive ears than the machine. It makes me wonder with the new cpu's - will we ever be able to have a quiet PC ??? I really think it will take water cooling or fanless PSUs - I hope to build one someday with the help of this site and others. <br> <br>regards - jg1234
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Instead of replacing your CPU (which you apparently have already done, but I'll offer this anyway): <br> <br>"In order to bypass the need for a CPU fan, clock your processor down one or two steps and have a nice heat sink. I was running a Celeron 366mhz @ 366 mhz and I could still handle the heat sink after 4 days, but I clocked it down to 300mhz to be safe. Your mileage may vary on this and you may need to check the interior temperature after months continuous use to get a true gage of how it's doing." (<!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://www.ltsp.org/contrib/fanless_howto.html" TARGET="_blank">Citation</A><!-- BBCode End -->) <br> <br>Since you're already going down in processor speed, it would seem possible to get the lesser speed <!-- BBCode Start --><I>and</I><!-- BBCode End --> run it fanless. Which would seem a plus. <IMG SRC="modules/phpBB_14/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> <br> <br>If your HDD noise is still bothering you, you could follow up on this idea mentioned at <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://www.7volts.com/quiet.htm" TARGET="_blank">7volts.com</A><!-- BBCode End -->: <br> <br>"Active Sound Reduction using active sound canceling technology is an interesting idea. If you are interested in building an inverse sound generator, here's a website with <!-- BBCode Start --><A HREF="http://www.headwize.com/projects/noise_prj.htm" TARGET="_blank">plans</A><!-- BBCode End -->." <br> <br>I really don't know much about this, but if you could set up a cancellation field right around the hard drive (in order to silence the specific frequencies you're having trouble with)...well, in the theoretical compartment confined by my 4-walled brain, it seems like it could help. <IMG SRC="modules/phpBB_14/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> <br> <br>_________________ <br>--> dvis.