my system

creation · Post by **creation** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:47 pm

all the photos in this post are in here:

http://www.pbase.com/qwertgfdsazxcvb/inbox
I was getting annoyed with the PC noise recently, and decided to get done with it.

I have two boxes:
(1) Athlon XP Barton 2500+, nVidia nForce2 K7N2 board,
(2) XP 2000+

what I did:
(A)
first I decided to have a completely fanless PSU. I checked out one review from this site, and pulled out the 6 Mosfets from the PSU, bought a huge Aluminum heatsink for radio equipment from a local surplus store, for 5$, luckily, this heatsink even has many holes exactly the same size as the screws for the MOSFETs, so I easily screwed them onto the new heatsink. __take__care__ of proper insulation, keep the thermal rubber (blueish) between the heatsink and MOSFETS, or you can get electric shocked !! I connected the MOSFETS to their original solder points on the PSU board, make sure you solder them securely. ____also___, the space between the feet is quite small, so don't ___SHORT_circuit___THEM!! I also used a simple vacuum lead sucker before this to pull out the MOSFETS, turns out to be quiet neat. the old smaller heatsinks go to the converter and wires. I just super-glued them.
then It is finished !! I have got no time and material to fasten them onto chasis yet, so it just sits there, seperated by packing foam.

http://mk31.image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgf ... 5709.2.jpg

http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazx ... 5620.1.jpg

(B) now the CPU heatsink, I dont' really want to lower the CPU temp to fanatically low temp and reduce noise to absolutely zero ----- at huge cost. so I try to reduce noise as much as possible at a reasonable price. at first I
tried this heatsink from newegg.com:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 023&depa=0
because it was the highest rated one. but it turned out the noise isn't much lower than my AMD original HSF, and the temp actually went up 5C. so I dumped it.
I also bought a "highly aclaimed" fan from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 051&depa=0

turns out this isn't much better than the pile of fans I pulled out from my failed PSUs. I think there's too much hype about all kinds of fancy fans,
the merchants exaggerate how quiet they are, whatever fancy techs they use. but in fact, the only trick with quiet fans is --------- SLOW rpm!!! the noise from air flow can't be reduced because there is simply no research into modifying the shape of fan blades to reduce noise (or they are limited to
submarines and highly secret). a 10$ fan with fancy LED is no better than the fans picked out from my junk PSU.

one area where I think I could probably lower noise is lubrication: I peeled off the sticker on the back of my fan, and in the center, there is a rubber cap
( 4mm diameter), I pulled that out, then below it is the lubricant chamber, I dripped some olive oil in there (YES!! olive oil ) and the noise is reduced a lot. -----btw, these fans are low-cost, low noise sleeve-bearing fans. ball bearing ones take a little extra effort to pry open .

now I have some "quality fans". I try to set my eye on a good heat sink. basically the rationale is: find a REALLY big COPPER heat sink, as I did with my PSU. copper is important because its thermal conductivity is 400, while Aluminum is 237. in this respect, my original AMD heatsink is much better than the fancy MASCOOL HSF I bought from newegg---- the AMD one is copper, coated with cromium (you can find this by cratching it with a knife ).
I went to local store, found a ThermalTake silent boost, this is the cheapest copper heatsink I could find. there is some copper ones, buy they seem to be made by sintering copper power, which I suspect to have worse conductivity. If I had money, I would really go for a Thermalright SF97, because this one is a LITTLE bigger, and has thicker fins ( the TT one has really thin and unreliable fins )

I put the TT HSF on, but the noise is still quite high. damn, is this what they call 21db?? I pulled out the Fan from heatsink, and the noise is smaller, so the co-vibration by the system is important. then I glued 4 small pieces of packing foam on the corners of heatsink, then glued the fan. (at first I used super-glue, but that erodes the foam, so I later just used paper glue , "Elmers glue-all" ). this reduces noise a little. but it is still not ok, then I have to reduce RPM. I pulled out a 10om resistor from a failed PSU, cut down the floppy connector (4 pin) from the PSU, then connected the resistor to the red wire of the floppy connector, then I inser the 3 wires into the connector of the CPU fan. then I plugged the floppy connector onto the MB fan socket. the color codes on the resistor says 10om, but multimeter shows it to be 70, anyway. the resistor is about 3mm diameter, so I suspect it to be 1/4w or 1/2 w, so it should work OK.
with the resistor , the fan works at 1600rpm, virtually no sound!!!
btw, I use linux, the lm_sensors package lets you control fan speed with "fancontrol" script. but it doesn't seem to work, probably because the PWM on my MB doens't work. if it worked, I dont' need to use the resistor.

http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazx ... 5881.3.jpg

http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazx ... 6593.5.jpg

(C) I still have many fans left. and want to make use of them. I soldered 2 in series, so they each get half voltage, and I don't need resistors. (somebody say using the 7V voltage difference, I'm not quite sure aobut that) I bound them together with 2 wires, then glued them onto a piece of packing foam, then glued the foam onto case.

this helps to reduce temp by 5C, while giving no additional noise

(D) hard drive. the co-vibration with case is severe. I cut 4 pieces of U-shaped packing foam, and inserted the hard drive into the socket, then put them into the 5" bay. reduced some noise.
http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazx ... 6507.4.jpg

==================================
that's done, then for the other box, I pulled out the really crappy HSF, and it inherited the AMD original HSF from the 2500, I also soldered 80mm fans in series, glued one onto the CPU heatsink, put the other onto the PSU.
the HD is really sqeaky, so I put it into a cardbox, packed with packing peanuts, I know this is bad for heat, but let it be. I cut some holes on the box to let air flow.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:00 pm

Hello & Welcome to SPCR:

Unfortunately, none of your pics are working.

I could copy and paste 'em...

[Edit]This:

comes from this:

Code: Select all

[img]http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazxcvb/large/38245881.3.jpg[/img]

IHTH

creation · Post by **creation** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:17 pm

yeah, sorry, I don't know why it doesn't show,
just
[img]http://pic.com/your_pic_here[/img] right?

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:33 pm

You have to change the URL:s to:

Code: Select all

http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazxcvb/large/IMAGE.jpg

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:39 pm

creation wrote:yeah, sorry, I don't know why it doesn't show,

It's because the url is a webpage, not a picture, you need to either make them into links, or put in the url's of the images, eg.:

instead of

<img]http://image.pbase.com/u12/qwertgfdsazx ... 5709.2.jpg[/img]

smoothness · Post by **smoothness** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:32 pm

in all honesty, i'm amazed that neither you or your euipment hasn't been fried due to electrical shock - styrofoam packing materials transmit electricity, and the charge in a PSU will easily go through the insulators if provoked. i commend you on your efforts.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:59 am

The links in the first post must be incorrect.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:11 pm

That image gallery website doesn't accept direct links to the pics, a space at the end of the address will fix it.

EdT · Post by **EdT** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:14 pm

Your are MAD , look at the ugly heap of junk !

I got a more easier mod to make your PC quiet !, just drill a 1/2" hole in your closet door and throw your complete case inside it and there you got a total quiet PC with justs the keyboard coming out of it !