Sounds like they have changed the design a bit. I have the T1 but the stand is loose.

Alså it should not be to difficult to change the internals of the psu casing with another one. Anybody have thoughts? If other PSU have gathered most of the components on a PCB and fastened to a plate, it should be possible just to move it from one PSU casing to the Silentium PSU?

What about Silentium T3, T4 and T5?

I just happened to browse around and saw that they had released not just one, but three new silentium cases (atleast they were new to me!).

They seem to use the same basic design and just altered some minor cosmetics. Anyone other differences?

I recently bought the Silentium T2.
The box came without installation instructions. Also, a reference to the online installation instructions was simply missing.
I found the screwless system really odd. And withouth clear instructions on how to use the screwless rails, they became damaged because of my attempts to have the DVD and HDD placed in the right position.
Personally, I consider (as many others do) that a product also includes the information about itself. Well, in this case, this information was completely missing.
Eventually, I managed to find myself the online installation instructions on the maker website. But it was too late, the screwless rails were already damaged.
I finally installed the floppy drive as well. But it was not firmly in position, on the contrary, it seems to be loose. I do not like this screwless system... I found it unstable.
A couple of words about the customer service: as you can imagine, I contacted the manufacturer customer service, who kindly referred to a dealer/distributor. This dealer/distributor was also kind, and referred me to a local dealer. But at that point I was feeling miserable, because of the waste of time, efforts, and money. Customer service did not solve my problem, but delayed it.
The case is somewhat silent, but is not extraordinary, in my opinion.
Guess what...my next case wont be an Arctic Cooling one...

Hello Dominic!, great thanks for actually trying to do something! I've added you on MSN, i don't know if you use that mail though....? I was really hoping to get some pictures or more detailed instructions of your mod! S

When i start the computer... it's absolutely silent... or as close to silence you can get with air-cooling... but then after about 10 minutes or so..the PSU-Fans spin upp...and there we go...the annoying hum.... so..if i could reach that initial fan speed , that would be nirvana for me!


The following can be found on Arctic Coolings homepage:
What is the difference in between the Silentium T-series (T1 to T5)?
The different models of the Silentium T-series vary o­nly in color and frontpanel

And, why are everybody saying that the door can't be taken off when the case is locked in the case-stand?
no problem for me, just unscrew, push it back, tilt the top, then the bottom, just slide it out towards the back of the case and, tada! congratulations, your side door is off, while the case itself is still standing on the stand!... The stand doesn't bother at all!

P.S.
SPCR, YOU ROCK!, no other reviewer said this was a more, "not silent" , pc-case... others claimed miracles... but now after purchasing the case and testing out where the sound originates from I was glad to see that you guys got the same results as me, contrary to other reviews.. where they said the case is practicly dead silent...

Not to forget, as SPCR said, it IS a silent pc-case overall... but noisy if you compare it to the silence you reach when the PSU-fans are spining at low RPM's...

Well, despite the negatives, this case looks interesting to me. Right now I have a system in an Antec Sonata. It sits under my desk and as far as I'm concerned it is totally silent. I've got an Asus A8V-Deluxe with A64 X2 3800+ in there, using the AC Freezer64. 4 hard drives, and I've installed the 2nd 120mm fan. My VGA card is pretty modest, ATI Radeon 9550.

Anyway, I'm thinking about building an HTPC around a Gigabyte GA-K8N51PVMT-9 when they become available and was looking for a decent case for it, and stumbled across this article. If these PSU fans are anything like the fan on my Freezer64 then I'm really surprised at the noise issues. I will note that these fans are very fragile; the first Freezer64 I ordered from NewEgg came DOA; the fan wouldn't rotate. Those ceramic bearings must not like being jostled in shipping or something. But I got it replaced, and the thing is totally inaudible.

Also need to look into the Antec Aria or any other good micro-ATX cases...

I dont have a Silentium, but I've looked pretty much into it, because I like the look and idea, and find it's a pretty finished product for a very reasonably price. But I havent bought it, because of only one (silent) HDD mount, and the PSU hum-problem.

But.

If I bought it, I would either change the fan wires for reverse rotation or switch to other fans, which can draw air UP from the PSU. Then I would make a hole in the side panel right next to the PSU fans and a duct for the PSU fans, which leads the air through the new side panel hole.

The cables from the front audio ports are way to short. They don't even reach the connectors on some (most?) mainboards that have the connector far back.

You'd be undermining the design, imo. We haven't don't it yet, but the only thing that seems worthwhile modding is to get into the PSU and pad the fan leads to reduce their voltage/speed. It would solve the problem. In <30C ambient temps, I doubt a small reduction in PSU airflow would have any serious negative effects, but the noise reduction could be dramatic. The case does a great job of cooling with the existing config, tho; I wouldn't change any of it.

I have the T2, but don't use it any more for a few resons:
- I had a SATA drive in the suspendend HD casing; the SATA connector touched the case and transmitted the vibration to the side panel. I was looking for SATA cables with shorter rigid connector end, I found one shorter than my original, but the problem persisted.
- I have an Abit A8n Ultra MB; the IDE connector on the MB is placed in such a way, that when if I plug in an IDE connector (for the DVD or secondary drive), that IDE connector touches the HDD suspension; again, transmitting vibration.
- I thought of modding the PSU fan voltage, but was simply afraid of doing so. I may reduce noise, but if I get around or modify the regulation of the PSU system, then what would happen during a hot summer? I sometimes have 35 C ambient.

For these reasons I replaced the T2 with an Antec SLK3000B. The noise difference is dramatic.

When replacing the T2 with the SLK 300B I originally thought of potentially looking deeper into the PSU fan regulation of the T2 (not simply slowing down the fans, but doing it intelligently) + using it with a different MB and PATA drive - building another silent system in it later for a friend of mine in the future - but alas, when I took out my HDD from the drive suspension system, the rigid plastic part broke. - So much about this case

The only good thing about this case for me was that I got it cheap - their distributer closed down their shop and sold out everything dirt cheep; this one was less than ~100 EURO; I can survive this financially. If I had purchesed it at the normal price, then I would have been very-very angry.

***

Some additional thoughts (after initially posting it):

The case is very small, it was difficult for me to install the MB. I had to push / force the MB into place with significant force; I was afraid of breaking something on it. (The reason for this was that - as already mentioned - there was no clearance between the IDE connector on the MB and the HDD suspension.)

Another problem (already mentioned in another post): the case door was sometimes loudly resonating. It was enough to gently touch it to get it silent - but then, after a few minutes it started again...

So my evaluation: great idea, bad design (not enough clearances at multiple places); crappy implementation (resonating door, rigid breaking plastic parts, loud PS even when idle).

I bought the silentium t1 thinking it - as stated in many reviews - would be virtually silent... but I get the irritating humming sound explained in your review. I'm sorry I didn't read your review before I bought it...

Still, I really don't understand where it is originating from. Stopped the psu fans for a few secs - the sound still there. Stopped the exhaust fans in the back - still humming. Tried the cpu fan - no luck, still hum hum. My best guess is that it is caused by some sort of vibration in the case. I don't know, I'm quite new to the "silent business". Any ideas? Do you guys have any tip on how to reduce vibration in the case?

Hello everybody.

Othello you made me smile because I saw for my inner eye you with right hand on the psu-fans, left hand on the case fans and stopping the cpu-fan with your nose tip. Muttering to yourself "where's that noise coming from?".

Here's what I did to get my silentium pretty quiet:

1. put bitumen mat and the side panel, top of the case and inside of the psu.
2. using rubber fan mounts for all four fans.
3. removed the fan grills.
4. running case fans on 5V (the two top ones not the two on the psu).
5. changed psu fans to papst fans (specified as 12dB).
6. cutting away the intake and output grill in the bottom of the case.
7. removed the motherboard io-shield.
   
   Not case related:
   
8. passive cooling of northbridge, a ordinary heatsink.
9. passive cooled gpu, heatpipe solution from gigabyte.
10. using zalman 7000B AlCu cpu-cooler running on lowest voltage.
11. acoustic management is enabled for the hard drive.
12. Cool and quiet enabled in bios.

Point 1,2 & 3 to reduce resonance and vibration. Point 6 &7 to help keeping things cool and reduce air resistance with that associated sound of air pressed/sucked through small holes.

I can hear a smooth whooshing sound of air moving in the case and air escaping the case. This is normal and how it should be in a air cooled case I think. The sound level of the computer, as it is now, is agreeable. The zalman 7000 is the noisiest component now I believe. I won't do anything more with the computer to get it more quiet as example modding the zalman ,because I think it would be more sensible to buy kvm extensions and putting the computer in another room. Maybe will do that in the future. Doesn't feel the need right now though.

If you own a silentium you may be interested in the mods described in this thread (not by me and in German).

Thank you SPCR and everybody else for a very informative website and a nice community.

Thanks for the tips!

I've discovered that my "humming problem" doesn't originate from the fans, but from my second hdd - the one not in the muffler. Some sort of vibration. High hum. When I touch the hdd the humming disappears.

Anyone have any tip on how to get rid of it???

You need to soft mount the drive. A search for "drive suspension" should turn up plenty of results.

Hello Othello, have you found a solution yet? I only use one hard drive in my computer but if, or maybe when, I need to add another one my first try would be to simple lay it in the bottom of the case on something soft that could absorb vibrations. Like a bit of thick soft backpackers sleepingpad, or anything else I could find around the house. If that didn't work well enough then I would try the more elaborate way of suspending it in the 5.25" or 3.5" bay below the DVD. I wonder what temperatures one would get having it there?

Merry Christmas.

i don't think padding down the voltage feed to the psu-fans will be a good solution.

the fans are thermally controlled from within the power supply. the only thing you will achieve with putting a couple of diodes in the feed to the fans is a kind of 'topping' of the fan-speed.

as soon as the fan-voltage is decreased a bit by the diodes the control-circuit will try to compensate for that (cause the temperature will increase) and increase the voltage to the fan to get the temps inside the ps down again.

My experience in modding 4 PSU's (and I'm sure MikeC modded a whole lot more of them) shows that indeed the fan controller raises the voltage to try to compensate for the higher temps. But it doesn't raise it till the fan is spinning at the same speed again.

This is quite logical too. PSU fan controllers are not programmed to keep the PSU at at one temp at all costs. They work with some temp/voltage curve.

i have indeed no experience with modding psu's. my rig currently is housed in a silentium t2 and indeed the psu-fans are a bit too loud.

my theory is what kept me from trying the mod. and not in the least of course also because the case is not so 'moddable'. i am considering the p150, but that one has psu-compatibility problems at the moment.

could you give an estimate how the rpm of the psu-fans would decrease, when putting 4 diodes (giving minus 2.4 volts) in the feed to the fans?

There are too many factors unknown (to me at least) to make an exact prediction. So the only avenue left open is experimentation. Since this case doesn't invite you to (dis)assemble the PSU setup too often, I would advise to not put the diodes inside the PSU itself. In stead I would extend the wire from the PSU fan controller to the fan to somewhere outside the PSU. Then you could build something like cmcquistion's fan-voltage-contoller-strip. Once you have found the right number of diodes you can solder a more compact version if the size of the terminal strip bothers you.

there might be another reason why the psu-fans run so fast:

because of the fact those fans have to fight rising heat. if the psu-fans run slow they probably will not be able to push the warm air down out of the case. you might get a runaway situation in which the psu overheats pretty soon.

i think the designers did what they did, because they had to.

Dominic, thanks for your post. I put my fans on a Zalman Controller aswell and got rid of the humming sounds when I put the fans all on low (PSU and case that is, CPU still temp controlled).

What I would be interested in is your temps. I have a Intel PD830 which unfortunately needs quite some cooling. With all fans on low I get idle temps of 38C for the case and around 50C for the CPU. Especially case temp has risen quite a bit since the mod. Full load would get temps of 40C and 58C (with the CPU fan spinning wild of course).

i did a similar mod too in the meantime; that is to say decreasing fanspeeds. i did not replace the silentium fans or change their mounting. i did however add 2 fans, that push fresh air into the case in the hope the silentium fans would not have to work so hard then. that does help, but not much. decreasing the speed of the psu-fans did most of the trick.

full report with pictures overhere:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=29112

small extract:

>>>
The machine is silent now; not quiet, just silent. On a distance of 3 metres away the computer can no longer be heard. These mods had a big
influence on the temps of the various components.

Idle at intake-temp 15c:

case top: 25
psu out: 35
cpu: 35
mobo: 34
gpu: 60
discs: 40

Both the gpu and the harddrives run hotter now as compared to the default silentium setup. The gpu 10C and the drives about 6 to 7 C. Should be no problem. The psu also is running hotter than before. One can feel pretty warm air coming out of the vents at the bottom of the case. I did a test with 2 instances of cpu-burn for 30 minutes and that gave the following temps:

case top: 30
psu out: 40
cpu: 54
gpu: 63
discs: 40

it seems arctic cooling has done a few revisions to the silentium t2 after spcr reviewed it in februari 2005. i bought mine in october 2005 and found the following:

- it's perfectly possible to remove the sidepanel without first lifting the whole case out of the base. just pull the panel a bit to the back with the handle at the back of the panel and it releases itself from the case after which you can take it out of the base easily;

- i measured the behaviour of the fan-controller in the psu, that controls the psu- and the case-fans. both pair of fans are controlled by more or less the same temperature-voltage curve. the psu- and the case-fans run at about the same speed.

Hi all
I'm building a new rig and have a question reguarding the PSU in my Arctic Cooling T2. I'm not sure if the 17A 12 volt rail will be enough for this setup, but I'm not an expert by any means so any advice would be appreciated. My spec is:

-T2 Case, Seasonic PSU 450 max 350w constant, 17A +12V
- Asus A8N-SLI SE nForce4 SLI 939
- Sata II WD 120g HD
- AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego
- Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200 TwinX 2x512
- BFG 7800 GT OC (425 core)

As most of you will know the T2 case and stock PSU come with only a 20 pin ATX connector. The motherboard needs 24 pin. So I am looking at getting a 20 to 24 pin converter tommorow (I havent been able to power up yet).

Someone has advised me using a converter will simply split the 17A 12V rail into two rails and the resultant power supply would be unstable for this rig. Can anyone shed further light on this please.

i'm running a rig with the following specs in a silentium t2:

asus a8n-sli premium
amd x2 4400+
4 gb corsair mem
wd raptor
samsung spinpoint
plextor dvd writer
icybox mobile rack
teac floppydrive/cardreader
enermax 2-channel fan-controller for psu- and case-fans
creative xifi xtreme soundcard
gigabyte geforce 6600 videocard with ac nv silencer
extra 70 mm sharkoon fan for the spinpoint

i just connected the 20-pin silentium power connector to the mobo (as described in the silentium manual downloadable from the ac-site), the 4-pin cpu-powerline to the connector near the cpu and the special pci-express power-line to the connector near the top pci express connector on the mobo.

works fine. rock-solid and stable. also when stressing the system with cpu burn-in, prime95 or whatever. it's a high-quality seasonic psu.

you don't need a converter cable.

You are the first person to tell me that and it seems you're right. So you plug the 20 pin psu into the 24 pin motherboard leaving 4 pins completely open?

I have already requested a returns number from the company but im undecided now. The problem with this case is its impossible to remove the PSU without modding. I will be upgrading to SLI at some point in the future and I dont think 350w constant / 17A 12V will be enough.

yes, the top (looking at mobo mounted in the case) 4 pins are not used in my setup. if you want to configure a sli-setup 350watt might be enough or not. it depends on which cards you are going to use. 2 geforce 6600 should be no problem, but 2 geforce 7800 with over 100watt each might be too much.

The T1 is selling for $60 + $11 ship over Frozencpu.com.

Pretty good deal.



http://www.frozencpu.com/cst-226

For anyone looking for information about replacing the fans in the power supply, jlovell has a good writeup with lots of photos located in this thread. Good job jlovell!

Arctic Cooling has updated it's cases. According the name-extension they are all Professional cases now.

For anyone interested:

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/pc_case2.php?idx=118&data=1&disc=

There seem to be 2 'muffled'/'silenced' hdd-locations now, the power-supply has a beefed-up 500 watt rating and the case uses the unique AC-fans with integrated suspension.

Where can I buy this case in the US???? I've looked through most of the dealers on Arctic Cooling's site and Googled it... No luck yet. Any help would be appreciated.