Quiet Mid-tower

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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trader
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Quiet Mid-tower

Post by trader » Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:17 am

I am trying to build a quiet computer. Thus I am looking for a quiet midtower case which gives most value for money.

I would also like to have a quiet powersupplier (not sure what the real term is) with at least 400W power, and a quiet fan to the case.

The case will contain a P4 2.4GHz, but I don't think I will overclock it much since I'd like to have a very stable computer.

dgouldin
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Post by dgouldin » Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:29 am

If it's value you're looking for, pick up an Evercase 4252 from Newegg (without a power supply).

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a ... n=evercase

$33 for beige or $34 for black shipped. I can vouch for the quality of this case. I have one and am very happy with it as are a number of other forum members. I'm running mine with a Fortron P300XFPN 300W PSU (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a ... on=fortron) but it looks like they have a 400W version as well. This combo is an excellent start to building a quiet rig.

As you can tell, I'm quite a fan of newegg also! :lol:

trader
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Post by trader » Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:47 am

Thanks for your tip! However, since I live in Sweden it might be difficult to find that case here. And it seems pretty pricey. If it costs $34 in the U.S (or is it canada?) it will cost a lot more than that in Sweden :-(

This is a Swedish site that have a lot of cases. Do anyone see any good quiet cases here? http://www.datorbutiken.com/se/page.php ... =MidiTower

trader
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Post by trader » Mon Mar 31, 2003 9:49 am

Here is another site that is supposed to sell only quiet computer stuff.

http://www.whynoi.se/shop/productsByCat ... atalogID=1

Maybe you see something you can recommend in one of these to sites.

Thanks!

SpyderCat
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Post by SpyderCat » Mon Mar 31, 2003 10:19 am

trader wrote:Here is another site that is supposed to sell only quiet computer stuff.

http://www.whynoi.se/shop/productsByCat ... atalogID=1

Maybe you see something you can recommend in one of these to sites.

Thanks!
http://www.whynoi.se/shop/product.asp?intProdID=33 probably isn't a bad choice.
But first, determine if you can fit all your mods in this case.

NeilBlanchard
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slight correction

Post by NeilBlanchard » Mon Mar 31, 2003 11:56 am

Hello:
trader wrote:Thanks for your tip! However, since I live in Sweden it might be difficult to find that case here. And it seems pretty pricey. If it costs $34 in the U.S (or is it canada?) it will cost a lot more than that in Sweden :-(

This is a Swedish site that have a lot of cases. Do anyone see any good quiet cases here? http://www.datorbutiken.com/se/page.php ... =MidiTower
The prices are actually $21 for the beige and $24 for the black. And no this is not expensive at all! Many cases are $100 and over -- also without a power supply. The Fortron that David mentioned is a very quiet PS and it costs about $32, so the total is about half as much as some cases alone.

Point taken about what's available in Sweden! Also, you very likely do NOT need a 400watt PS -- a good quality 300watt can run all but the most extreme mid-tower PC's. That site you linked has a TON of towers -- and much of the descriptions are in Swedish? Many of the brands are familiar and some will be quiet. The biggest question with any case is how noisy is the PS? It can be a bit more money to buy these separately, but you can have better results (ie much quieter computer).

Are there any in particualr that you have narrowed your search onto?

Raygun
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Post by Raygun » Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:25 pm

Take a look at this; http://www.datorbutiken.com/se/datashee ... =CI-6A21BL its the same as the Antec 3700 with another PSU 300W. I think it is a HEC PSU. It is supposedly "quiet" but you might want to get another opinion than the reseller.

When I was looking for a new case I did some research on prices in Sweden and you can probably get a for a price < datorbutiken.com.

Anyway you might not really need a 400W PSU. I previously ran an Athlon 1.33 Thundebird, five 7200 rpm IDE harddrives, SCSI card, NIC, Sound Card, TV-tuner, a DVD, a CDRW, a couple of fans and a graphics card on a 350W Enermax PSU (Very loud). Granted I did not have a modern power hungry graphics card only a GF2 MX, but I never had a problem.
Last edited by Raygun on Thu Apr 03, 2003 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

trader
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Post by trader » Mon Mar 31, 2003 2:00 pm

Spyder,
that's the case I am planning to buy. I don't know if it is more quiet than the chieftec cases on the site, but it should be quiet. Does anyone know more about "magic fleece"? It should reduce the noice.

dgouldin & NeilBlanchard,
Sorry!! The prices är so low compared to the ones in Sweden so I accidentally added another zero to the price!! :-) $24, $34, or even $100 is close to nothing if it makes my computer quiet!

NeilBlanchard,
Are you sure I won't be needing more than 300W?? According to http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... /26003.pdf Look at page 8. There you see how a computer may theoretically use 280W. Of course not all the components will run at maximum strength at the same time, but anyway. And my computer will be much more heavy. I will have 4 harddrives and 1GB RAM and a 2,4GHz P4. Maybe overclocked. I think that needs 350W. But to be sure I figured I needed 400W. Comments?

Raygun,
I am running a 2,4GHz P4. I think it's more hungry for energy. Besdies, did you ever try to burn CDs while using other applications? I just figured that it will be fatal to have an unsufficient energysupplier.

So, are closing in to a final recommendation for me? :-)

Raygun
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Post by Raygun » Tue Apr 01, 2003 9:04 am

Yes, I have burned a CD at the same time as using other applications. Not heavy duty FPS games mind you. But normal computer use like 5 - 10 browsers windows, P2P application, Office programs. No problem. Never had any issues that I can track to the PSU.

The Athlon Thunderbird is one of the chips that dissipates most heat, right up there with the high end P4 and Athlon. Something like 70W. I am not sure how much juice each of the different processor need though, might not correlate with their heat dissipation?

A higher rated PSU can only hurt your wallet and possibly add somewhat to the noise level. I would probably stay away from the HEC PSU that is bundled with the box in my previous post, if Tomshardware got it right: http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/2002 ... es-08.html. It is not really a quiet PSU.

I am currently running a Antec Truepower PSU, mostly bought it because of its silence features. Its a great PSU. But after discovering SPCR, I might have bought another one... even less noisy.
Last edited by Raygun on Thu Apr 03, 2003 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

NeilBlanchard
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Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Apr 01, 2003 11:11 am

Hello:
trader wrote:Are you sure I won't be needing more than 300W?? According to http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... /26003.pdf Look at page 8. There you see how a computer may theoretically use 280W. Of course not all the components will run at maximum strength at the same time, but anyway. And my computer will be much more heavy. I will have 4 harddrives and 1GB RAM and a 2,4GHz P4. Maybe overclocked. I think that needs 350W. But to be sure I figured I needed 400W. Comments?
You should check out the sticky topic on this subject in the power suppy section -- many computers idle at 100watts or less, and peak under 200watts. Also, you could read the article on Dan's Data about this. (I'll try to find the link, and insert it later.)

Why are you using 4 HD's? (RAID array?) and yes, more RAM takes more power, though I still think that a good quality 300watt PS would manage just fine.

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