Most sensible cooling option for my setup?

[Traveller]

Hi quest_for_silence.

HW - Silencio 550 case and two 120mm stock fans at the front, Turbine Master rear fan, OP650 PSU, Hyper TX3 heatsink with Gelid Silent 9 92mm fan, no graphics card at present but there will be something similar to the GTX260, hard drive is just a test one at the moment but will be Spinpoint F3, no software.

The pc is definitely quieter than my old one, however, I can still hear it outside the room even with the door closed. I wouldn't describe it as 'noise', it's just a very smooth, soft whirr.

Thanks.

[Abula]

I would probably start undervolting the stock fans, see if you can drop rpm down to where you cant hear them, the goal should be to go as low as you can while still all your components are with in the manufacturers recommended temperatures. If you cant drop them low enough then i would go with new fans, Scythe, Nexus, Noiseblockers, Noctua make some of the best fans.

[quest_for_silence]

You missed to describe your software setup: how do you control your fans? At which speed they actually spin now?
You have to start from here to get a quiet pc.

Personally on Windows I use SpeedFan and/or above average BIOSes (Abit, ASUS, DFI, MSI). With Linux you may use fancontrol.
If you rather an hw solution you may use a rheobus, like a Scythe Kaze Server or a mCubed T-Balancer (these two are my favourites, but you may use any effective one).

At any rate, generally speaking almost no one of your parts seems a particularly quiet one, but surely they are workable.

[Traveller]

Thanks for your reply Abula. I think I was naive in thinking that things would be quiet without adjusting anything. I haven't tried altering any settings yet. Thanks for the advice.

Hi quest_for_silence. I just logged in to post that I had forgotten to mention that all the fans are 3 pin fans. The CPU came with a 4 pin fan, but I changed it to the Silent 9, which is 3 pin. One of the front fans and the rear fan are 3 pin fans, however, are connected via the big molex adapters to the PSU. The other front fan is connected to SysFan1 on the motherboard. It was mentioned that connecting anything to SysFan2 would slow the speed of it.

'almost no one of your parts seems a particularly quiet one'

Haha. Thanks for the advice, I'll have to see how workable they are!

[quest_for_silence]

Thanks for your reply Abula. I think I was naive in thinking that things would be quiet without adjusting anything. I haven't tried altering any settings yet. Thanks for the advice.

Hi quest_for_silence. I just logged in to post that I had forgotten to mention that all the fans are 3 pin fans. The CPU came with a 4 pin fan, but I changed it to the Silent 9, which is 3 pin. One of the front fans and the rear fan are 3 pin fans, however, are connected via the big molex adapters to the PSU. The other front fan is connected to SysFan1 on the motherboard. It was mentioned that connecting anything to SysFan2 would slow the speed of it.

'almost no one of your parts seems a particularly quiet one'

Haha. Thanks for the advice, I'll have to see how workable they are!

I didn't want to offend: if you give a look to reviews around (first of all the ones onto SPCR), maybe you can better understand what I wanted to say. As an example, the CM fans should be affected by an evident ticking noise.

Some first, scattered notes.

Well, the fans on the molex shouldn't be so: as a rule of thumb any fan needs an header.

But first of all I would install a temperature monitor, such as SpeedFan or OpenHardwareMonitor to observe the several temps (CPU, chipset, et c.).

Then I would try disconnecting those two front intake fans, and then observe how temps change.
If that change is small, more probably that not you can get rid of the front fans.

Always use a stressing software (like OCCT, CpuBurn, Prime95, et c.) to really determine the thermal headroom of your system.

The Gigabyte board could be not SpeedFan friendly, usually the most flexible option. In that unlucky case, you have to rely onto BIOS (again, not one of the most flexible around) to fine tuning the fans speeds. I hope you are experienced with system utilities , as SpeedFan, as they are not obvious or too much intuitive to set up.

You have to check onto the manual if you have to do some special set for the CPU fan header: just for example, often on MSI board you have to tell into the BIOS that it's a 3 pin fan, or the header will run that fan at full speed only.
I'm not a supporter of your TX3, as I do not appreciate such smallish heatsinks, but it deserves some serious try in order to get the things quiet.

I also didn't understood what the SysFan2 does (I'm too lazy to download the relevant user manual): but you could get a 3 pin split adapter as the Silencio fans are 1w each, and so you may run them synchronously with just one header (SysFan1 or 2), if in case.

Ok, let's stop for now (I'm sleeping at the keyboard): maybe you can do some experiment and give us some feedback.

[Traveller]

Hi quest_for_silence. Sorry I haven't posted back, I have been busy dealing with other issues concerning my cpu, graphics, operating system and all kinds of other problems! Have taken note of your comments, thanks. Will post if I manage to get things any quieter.