RoGuE's Silent gaming rig

Show off your quiet rig.

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RoGuE
Posts: 540
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:11 am
Location: Massachusetts, USA
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RoGuE's Silent gaming rig

Post by RoGuE » Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:50 am

Hey SPCR!

yep, I'm a noob to the forums. I've been reading this site religiously for the past year now, I am SUCH a fan. I just wanna take a sec to thank Mike Chin and the "staff" for producing such an informative and well done site.

I'm at work now so no pics at the moment, but later tongiht ill edit in my rig pictures.

I started out focusing solely on performance. When I built it and turned it on..my new computer sounded like a loud, humming, wind tunnel. Since day one, it's been an ongoing project to make it as quiet as I could...and I think it's been a sucess.

BASELINE:

e8400 OCd to 3.6
ASUS p5q running at 1600Mhz FSB
2gb of GSkill memory @ 1066 mhz
EVGA 8800GS <- overclocked the sh*t out of it
320 WD hdd, 500 samsung
all wrapped up in a Smilidon Raidmax case. (NOT SILENT AT ALL IN STOCK CONFIG!!!!!!!)
win xp pro sp3 / Ubuntu 8.10 dual boot

Silencing efforts:

+ Arctic Cooling freezer 7 pro
+ Zalman GPU cooler (forget the model number and im lazy)
+ removed all 80mm fans from operation.
+ suspended HDDs with bungie cables! ( this was the BIGGEST improvement becasue it elimintaed the pulsing and case resonance I was hearing 24/7)
+ cut open a big hole in the side panel for a 120mm Scythe slipstream 1200 rpm (controlled by speedfan from 0-1000 rpm)

Results:

@idle: virtually in-audible even in the quietest of rooms. scythe fan is set to undervolt to 0 rpm to improve life of the fan and pull in less dust while its idle most of the day (it is a negative pressure system when the fan's on..and just about 50/50 with it off.)

@gaming: gpu fan spins pretty fast so there is a quiet but annoying tonality to the computer while I'm gaming. I'm OK with this becasue I use headphones for my games, and can't hear a damn thing. The scythe fan took out a HUGE portion of the noise because it cools the gpu as well and it replaced a fast/loud 80mm annoyance.

Thanks for reading!

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Last edited by RoGuE on Fri Jul 17, 2009 11:57 am, edited 5 times in total.

Xobim
Posts: 44
Joined: Thu Dec 25, 2008 3:39 pm
Location: Dutchieland

Post by Xobim » Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:45 am

Pics or it didn't happen. ;)

Anyway, I'd like to welcome you to this site and community (?). Looking at the specs, your system is about as fast as mine, probably a little faster thanks to the overclocking. Good you silenced those harddrives. They continually produce the same amount of noise, even when all the fans go down.
But I don't call this a gaming rig, actually. A 8800GS is nothing compared to a GTX275, par example.

RoGuE
Posts: 540
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:11 am
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Contact:

Post by RoGuE » Tue Jul 07, 2009 10:55 am

haha ill work on those pics..

and you're right..but for the budget I was on it was as gaming as I was gonna get. Keep in mind I built this a year ago, and graphics cards have been changing faster than superman durring a robbery.

i don't do a lot of heavy heavy gaming, the game I play most is call of dudy 4 and my computer renders even the grassiest of areas @70fps or higher, with all settings maxed out and 4x AA. not bad for a $100 card imo lol ..like you said, the overclocking helped save me a bunch of money.

DAve_M
Posts: 198
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2007 9:58 am
Location: UK

Post by DAve_M » Wed Jul 08, 2009 2:15 am

Hmm looks badass ;) But not quite silent by spcr standards.

Have some pics of it ;)

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RoGuE
Posts: 540
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:11 am
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Contact:

Post by RoGuE » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:15 am

yeah i should really update those pics..They were taken before I completely removed that cross-bar thing with the 80mm fan in it. In fact, all case fans (3 total) are now 120mm.

and yeah..it's defflinatly not silent, but it's actually a lot quieter than it looks. inaudible for everything except gaming.

thanks for posting those pics..is it that I don't have enough posts for the img link to work?

DAve_M
Posts: 198
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2007 9:58 am
Location: UK

Post by DAve_M » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:03 am

RoGuE wrote:thanks for posting those pics..is it that I don't have enough posts for the img link to work?
No, if you try and quote my post then you can see how I did it with th [IMG] tags. The link needs to end in .jpg so all I did is delete the last part of the URL.

RoGuE
Posts: 540
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:11 am
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Contact:

Post by RoGuE » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:01 am

DAve_M wrote:
RoGuE wrote:thanks for posting those pics..is it that I don't have enough posts for the img link to work?
No, if you try and quote my post then you can see how I did it with th [IMG] tags. The link needs to end in .jpg so all I did is delete the last part of the URL.

Ohh thanks so much!

Xobim
Posts: 44
Joined: Thu Dec 25, 2008 3:39 pm
Location: Dutchieland

Post by Xobim » Thu Jul 09, 2009 12:11 pm

The green accents are very cool. Nice case and thanks for the pics!

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