Recommended Motherboards: From a Silence Perspective 1.1

gentonix · **Joined:** Tue Jan 10, 2006 8:20 am **Posts:** 47

The XFX 650i Ultra that I just bought is undervoltable down to 0.8V for the processor. Chipset or RAM cannot be undervolted. It has PWM control for the CPU fan which goes all the way down to 1% speed, and two manually adjustable fan headers for case fans. The northbridge is passively cooled too, but it runs a bit on the hot side. All in all, a decent motherboard for a quiet computer, if you can stand the heat from the northbridge (if possible use a CPU cooler that blows the air downwards like Andy Samurai).

jackylman · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:18 am

MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital, Socket AM2, AMD 690G chipset

Silence Features:
- Passively cooled north and south bridges
- CPU Voltage adjustable in BIOS from 0.800V - 1.550V in 0.025V increments
- BIOS can control CPU fan with PWM (Min fan speed adjustable from 0.0% - 87.5% of original fan speed in 12.5% increments)
- Speedfan only works on CPU fan header (if BIOS fan control is disabled)
- C'n'Q Enable/Disable in BIOS

Other Features:
- Integrated ATI X1250 video with DVI and HDMI connectors
- Realtek 8169 PCIe LAN chip
- Realtek ALC888 HD audio chip
- Fintek F71882F Super I/O chip
- Firewire (VIA VT6308P controller)
- 3 PCI slots, 2 PCIe-1x slots, 1 PCIe--16x slot for add-in graphics

BIOS settings:
- Memory Voltage from 1.80V - 2.20V in 0.05V increments
- DRAM Timings from CL3-CL6
- FSB/Memory Ratio (1:1, 1:1.33, 1:1.66, 1:2)
- FSB from 200 - 500 MHz

At the moment, linux support leaves something to be desired since lm-sensors doesn't have a driver for the Fintek sensor chip and the open-source ATI driver that many distros try to use by default doesn't support the X1x00 series yet.

UPDATE:
- The 1.4 BIOS updates the video BIOS, and this seems to fix the problems with linux detecting the video and using the appropriate driver when installing or running off a LiveCD.
- The 2.6.24 kernel will have a kernel module for the Fintek sensor chip.
- The board exhibits slight coil whine at idle while CPU is undervolted to <1.0V

Copyright · **Posted:** Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:20 am

Abit IP35 Pro should be on this list. 6 fan headers all controlled with the uGuru software that has custom presets. I love it. I can run all my fans at 5V and use autodrive to crank them up when I launch into my games.

Staats · **Joined:** Tue Jan 10, 2006 3:16 pm **Posts:** 22

I have used the IP35 Pro for over a month now. I am definitely enjoying the silence provided by the uGuru utility. The autodrive function allows different profiles to be loaded for different programs (Games, GIS applications, CAD - all user definable.) Really nice for gaming. I can tolerate more noise while gaming (considering I can't hear the PC over the gunfire.)

Great options in uguru for underclocking as well. For desktop apps, the ext. clock is set at 275mhz... For gaming, it is at 340mhz - all savable in the profile along with fan setup!

Silence Features:
Passively cooled North Bridge, South Bridge and Power circuitry
Underclockable via bios or Windows uGuru feature
Control of 5 3-pin fan headers & 1 4 pin cpu header
Awesome board - very stable.

kkant · **Joined:** Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:32 am **Posts:** 6

One board that should DEFINITELY be on this list is the Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6, for socket 775 Intel (nvidia 680i SLI board). Probably all the Gigabyte "Ultra Durable 2" boards should be here as well. The primary advantage is this: this board has no coil whine/cricket chirping noise at all when the CPU is under load. Even when overclocked. Many other motherboards have this problem, but this one doesn't. Plus, the board has passive heatsinks and it's rock-solid stable.

Silence Features:
- No coil whine or cricket chirping or squealing when CPU is under load
- Passive motherboard heatsinks
- Fan headers with undervolting capability and auto-speed control
- Undervoltable CPU voltage
- Underclockable

The board does have fan headers that you can undervolt through the BIOS and the gigabyte "eztune" software. However, I would recommend against using these, on any motherboard. The reason is that most (all?) MB fan headers use swtiching voltage regulation to control the fan speed. This causes an audible buzz in the fan, whenever the fan is run at less than 12V. You won't notice it much on regular loud fans, but if you run silent fans like Nexus, Noctua, S-Flex, etc, you will definitely notice this noise. It is better to use a standalone analog fan controller (or just use a resistor). I use the Zalman MFC1-Plus analog controller, and I can confirm that it does not produce the buzzing noise when undervolting.

wim · **Posted:** Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:25 pm

could you update this sticky please Operandi ?

victorpst · **Joined:** Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:47 pm **Posts:** 39

Copyright wrote:

Abit IP35 Pro should be on this list. 6 fan headers all controlled with the uGuru software that has custom presets. I love it. I can run all my fans at 5V and use autodrive to crank them up when I launch into my games.

thanx for the info.

can you confirm what is the fan voltage control range? i read somewhere else on this forum that the lowest voltage that can be acheived is 8V and not 5V as mentioned by you. oh and I am actualy interested in a dynamic range of 4V to 12V, if that is possible.

kkant · **Joined:** Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:32 am **Posts:** 6

victorpst wrote:

can you confirm what is the fan voltage control range? i read somewhere else on this forum that the lowest voltage that can be acheived is 8V and not 5V as mentioned by you. oh and I am actualy interested in a dynamic range of 4V to 12V, if that is possible.

As I mentioned above, if you are interested in silence, it is much better to use an analog fan controller than the switched motherboard fan headers.

victorpst · **Joined:** Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:47 pm **Posts:** 39

^ Ah very true. But till the time I have the finances to buy a good analog fan controller, IP35 Pro fan control is my best bet.

Can someone answer my question please? I should open a new thread I guess.....

kkant · **Joined:** Sat Jun 09, 2007 9:32 am **Posts:** 6

If you want to do it on the cheap, use a resistor or a variable resistor.

Zero noise, but less convenient than a regular fan controller.

Operandi · **Posted:** Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:02 am

kkant wrote:

victorpst wrote:

can you confirm what is the fan voltage control range? i read somewhere else on this forum that the lowest voltage that can be acheived is 8V and not 5V as mentioned by you. oh and I am actualy interested in a dynamic range of 4V to 12V, if that is possible.

As I mentioned above, if you are interested in silence, it is much better to use an analog fan controller than the switched motherboard fan headers.

If the board has the number of controllable headers and the ranges you need then motherboard controls is the way to go, at least in my opinion.

Operandi · **Posted:** Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:07 am

Alright, sorry for not updating this thread sooner

. I've been getting into the hobby of DIY speaker building which has consumed most of the little free-time that I have.

Anyway... MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital, Abit AN-M2HD, Abit IP35 Pro, and XFX 650i Ultra added.

Operandi · **Posted:** Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:19 am

kkant wrote:

The board does have fan headers that you can undervolt through the BIOS and the gigabyte "eztune" software. However, I would recommend against using these, on any motherboard. The reason is that most (all?) MB fan headers use swtiching voltage regulation to control the fan speed. This causes an audible buzz in the fan, whenever the fan is run at less than 12V. You won't notice it much on regular loud fans, but if you run silent fans like Nexus, Noctua, S-Flex, etc, you will definitely notice this noise. It is better to use a standalone analog fan controller (or just use a resistor). I use the Zalman MFC1-Plus analog controller, and I can confirm that it does not produce the buzzing noise when undervolting.

The buzzing you are describing comes from a poor implantation of PWM. I believe its caused by operating the switching frequency at too low of a range making it audible. It also seems to more of a problem with non ball bearing based fans, I'm not sure why.

If the board has a good PWM design however there will be no audible buzzing. I've set up a couple machines with Panaflo L1As running at equivalent 5v speeds off of motherboard fan headers with no ill-effects.

wim · **Posted:** Mon Oct 29, 2007 3:13 pm

surely out of the multitude of gigabyte P35 boards, one of them has the spcr desired features such as bios undervolting etc. ?????

gentonix · **Joined:** Tue Jan 10, 2006 8:20 am **Posts:** 47

Operandi wrote:

[*]Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3 -- ATX / AM2 / nForce 550 -- Chipset cooled by a "pretty large" heatsink -- BIOS control for CPU fan header, settings are on or off only. -- SpeedFan not currently supported -- CPU voltages down to 0.8V.

Same holds for Gigabyte GA-M52S-S3P.

Operandi · **Posted:** Wed Nov 21, 2007 10:25 am

MSI X38 Diamond, Platinum added.

PretzelB · **Posted:** Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:56 pm

Copyright wrote:

Abit IP35 Pro should be on this list.

I just did a clean install on an Abit IP35 and I'm upset it made the recommended list. On a boring install with XP it refused to shut down and would take two tries to boot. Looking at the Abit forum you will see lots of posts on the double boot problem. Seems like this existed up until just a few months ago with bios 13 or so. I had to flash the bios and reset CMOS to fix the problem, which I've never had to do with any board. I'm just floored that the board made it to production like that.

seraphyn · **Posted:** Sat Dec 08, 2007 7:45 pm

PretzelB wrote:

I'm just floored that the board made it to production like that.

Try the Asus P5K series, they have a raid controller, that after 6ish months into retail still doesn't work

Doesn't matter much in terms of silence though.

Rebellious · **Joined:** Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:53 pm **Posts:** 288

Info on 3 mobos from my recent experience:

GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H AM2 AMD 690G HDMI Micro ATX
Very poor fan control, does not belong on the good list, also posted elsewhere in the forums.

A8M2N-LA a.k.a. NodusM3 GeForce 6150LE Micro ATX
Made by ASUS for Hewlett-Packard and found in countless HP Pavilions. Excellent fan control, both fans fully controllable by SpeedFan. Board is seemingly not customizable, but when entering BIOS, if you press Ctrl+F10 instead of just F10 you'll get options that give you complete fan control, even better than Q-fan.

ASUS M2NPV-VM AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX
This board is nearly identical to A8M2N-LA (above) with only minor differences. Excellent fan control, CPU fan header is 4-pin PWM but works fine with 3-pin fans too. As already mentioned, settings are not customizable, though I wouldn't be surprised if you could enter BIOS with some key combination that enables more hidden options.

Several posters mentioned "coil whining". My Asus M2NPV-VM has some hissing noise in the main BIOS screen, and for 1-2 secs while booting Windows but not in Linux. Also had a constant hissing with the stock AMD CPU fan (PWM), but changing "PWMOUT clock" in SpeedFan fixed it. I'm no longer using the stock HSF, but there's still some faint hissing which may or may not be related to the 3-pin S-Flex fan. I sure hope it's just a design quirk and not a defect.

...

casebuyer · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 pm **Posts:** 116

so can gigabyte motherboards can interactively underclock successfully via sotware in xp

I consider buying a gigabyte p35 ga ds3l model

abit pro is great yet some connectivity issues might occur in cooling plates as far as I read in reviews

Zenigata · **Posted:** Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:59 am

Hi,
how good is the Asus P5K pro?

Thanks

littlematt · **Posted:** Sat May 17, 2008 9:03 am

Hi as per post elsewhere in this site I can confirm (after about a week of testing) that speedfan crashes the above MB. I tried the link mentioned for the DIY-street forum that discussed this topic but doesnt seem to work anymore. Smartguardian works fine however and keeps the fans pretty quiet anyway....

Cheers...

casebuyer · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 pm **Posts:** 116

gigabyte ep series with des seems nice

mw01908 · **Joined:** Sat Sep 10, 2005 6:44 am **Posts:** 11

I don't have this board - this is based on days of surfing for info but the
Gigabyte EP35-DS3L and variants should be on this list.

Has serial and parallel ports on back!!!! Undervolting ok
Will definately support CPU SLOW fan speed control in bios and reports of it supporting one of the two system fans with speedfan. In bios, you can only enable or disable "CPU Smart FAN Control". As for the "CPU Smart FAN Mode" you can choose Auto, Voltage or PWM. The fan control options are pretty scarce. "and reports of losing fan control with 2.1 bios.
So partial fan control. From what I have read this board is no worse or better than the Asus boards for fan control.
See http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... c&start=60

morkys · **Joined:** Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:26 pm **Posts:** 107

Is there going to be an update to the list at the top of this post? Is there another newer thread? Some of the boards on the list aren't available anymore.

jeekub · **Posted:** Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:45 am

Yep, an update would be really appreciated!

Operandi · **Posted:** Sun Jan 25, 2009 4:20 pm

I was thinking this thread has perhaps outlived it's usefulness since many of the issues that this thread address have largely being eliminated.

Almost all motherboards are passively cooled and since socket 775 and AM2 all boards have PWM control over the CPU fan. In my opinion those are most important issues.

That leaves BIOS level controls for system fan/s and CPU undervolting. For me the former is really the only one that interests me. Anyone else have thoughts?

yuu · **Posted:** Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:20 pm

EP45-DS3

Vcore 0.85
Mch Voltage 0.95 / 370 fsb, 1.05 / 440 fsb, 1.15 / 510 fsb, 0.85
Dram 1.45, 1.65 / 820 mhz

E8400 2333 0.88V @ 11 Watts Intelburn
Mch 1.05 -> 0.95 drops 2 Watts (1.6W - 80% psu eff) Ibt

E8400 3690 1.18V @ 41 Watts Ibt
Mch 1.15 -> 1.05V drop 3 Watts (2.4 watts) Ibt, estimated 12W / 1.05V Mch.
Dram 1.85 -> 1.65V drop 2 Watts Ibt (2x2Gb)

no controllable fans. resistors used for 1000rpm.

budong4585 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:43 am

Operandi wrote:

gustavs_a wrote:

>Common MB Problems for Silencers

Coil whining should be added to the list. Not sure if capacitors can also make noises. My last 2 MBs have made noises, so I think it's a common issue, but very overlooked.

Coil whine is pretty rare occurrence in my experience and is often the result of other components interacting in the system. For example Motherboard A + PSU B results may result in coil whine but Motherboard A + PSU C may be coil whine free.

i actually buy a new Coil whine for my cooling system , and it works...!

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iScape · **Posted:** Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:58 pm

Maybe I missed smth in the topic, but are there any suggestions for mini ITX boards?

Recommended Motherboards: From a Silence Perspective 1.1

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