My 560 Ti runs at 1440 rpm at idle and is at the lowest speed and it is too loud for me to sleep with it on. I contacted EVGA and told me that is the lowest it will go. In order to go silent I need some options. I was thinking to use sound-absorbing foam, but idk if it will do the job. My case is the CM HAF 922 and is a very open air case. I might be able to build some box thing around my computer to lower the sound, I don't know if this is a good idea. I believe the best thing to do is to either go with a silenced case or to get a quiet VGA cooler. I need some help about choosing the option that is the best way right now. I will be SLI'ng in 2-3 months and those aftermarket VGA coolers seem to use too much space. I found that if I use another 560 Ti with its stock cooling, I have 1/4" of clearance between it and my psu, idk if an aftermarket cooler will fit, unless there is one that will. Just need some help choosing an option here, thanks.

This is my motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157271

As you can see above, there seems to be limited space below the second pcie 3.0 slot.

Thanks. I was leaning towards the Silverstone Raven or the Corsair Obsidian 550d as a case, if I must change the case.

How about flashing the BIOS of the card so that you can go below the 40% minimum fan speed?

Several guides out there on how to do it, just read through them carefully.

I don't believe another case or sound isolating foam would dampen the noise level enough. I once read a review here at SPCR (not sure if it was here or another review site) of some aftermarket foam and the impact was minimal. It seems to me, and the reviewer, that quieting a noisy setup can only be achieved by replacing the components or their coolers.

So I would recommend buying an aftermarket cooler for your GPU.

+1 : at 30% it would actually be much quieter.

Do you fold (or do something in background) with it?

The fan can reach 30% speed. It still runs at 1450 rpm. I don't think flashing the bios is a good idea because if I go lower than that, the gpu temp might not be stable at 20-25%.

My HAF 922 case is a very open air case with holes and mesh everywhere. The reason I said changing the case might be a good idea is because I can get a case with blocked vents, no holes, and completely silent. I had feedback on the Obsidian 550d that even during gameplay, the graphics cards are extremely silent.

I am leaning towards getting an aftermarket cooler like this one, but I don't know if it's a good idea because I will SLI, and I have about 1/4" inch to spare between the stock cooler of the graphics card and the power supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835426026

If you look here on my motherboard, you will see there isn't much space between the usb and header ports and the second graphics card slot. That's why I don't know if getting an aftermarket cooler is a good idea, unless it is about the same height of the stock cooler.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157271

The pc is just left on idle and I do not do anything to the case, the pc is beside my desk with nothing around it or anything like that.

It's a groundless worry: providing it's doable, then you would just have an higher idle temp.
It's a trade off: less noise for more heat. The (new) GPU temp will just "stabilize" at an higher level than before (providing you won't stop the fan), and either you won't have an higher load temp (cause you are lowering just the idle fan speed).

You may use Fermi BIOS Editor 1.55 to do some tries: check any tutorial on it.

Eventually you may easily undervolt the GPU using any Rivatuner-derivative (such as Afterburner or EVGA Precision) in order to lower the relevant temperatures.
Just for example, I run all my GTX 460s at 0.862V with no issue at all.

If it's just left on idle, then you can simply sleep (S3) it, can't you?

Otherwise, try to flash the BIOS for a lower idle fan speed: in the worst case, you will stop the fan. In the second worst scenario, it wouldn't happen anything.
Just re-flash the original BIOS (so back-up it before doing anything) if any try don't work. Run the flash off an IGP or with a second discrete graphics.

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try. I checked it out, but I don't quite understand how to open my graphics card's BIOS in the editor or how to back up my current one. It looks like it's a .rom file or something, but I don't understand how to obtain this.

Please look for some comprehensive guide with Google (for flashing/editing Nvidia BIOSes with FBE, Nibitor and/or other tools). There's maybe something suitable on xtremesystems.org.

Personally I use nvflash to extract the graphics BIOS on the PC: then I create a copy of that file, edit it with Fermi Bios Editor (FBE), and eventually I use again nvflash to flash it on the card.
If anything should go wrong, then I re-flash the card with the original "downloaded" file.
Please, take note that to perform everything safely, it's strongly advisable to run off another graphics.

Nvflash doesn't seem to work with Windows 7 64 bit. I see it is used as a bootable, will it work then?

Mazchazo, for me it works like a charm and I use Windows 7 64 bit: maybe you're looking to some guide which is a bit outdated.

You do not need to create any bootable media providing you are using the newer version of nvflash (I'm sure 5.100.0.1 is already enough, 5.105 is also newer, 5.118 is the newest) because it fully supports flashing in a 64-bit Windows environment.
A USB bootable media with nvflash and the original vBIOS come just handy if you have some problem after flashing and you don't have a second graphics (IGP o discrete).

So, providing you downloaded (for esample from TPU) the latest nvflash, you just need to run a cmd as administrator and, starting from the dir when you extracted it, run nvflash to extract the vBIOS (which will be extracted in the very same directory where nvflash actually is).

The entire process is a three step one: nvflash --save saved.rom ---> then make a copy with a different file name, for example edited.rom, and edit it (or let it mod by some other else): eventually write it back to the card ---> nvflash --protectoff ---> nvflash edited.rom

If anything should go wrong, just re-flash the original saved.rom

However, this is my strong warning: if you are unable to understand what to do, don't do anything.

I think it sounds simple enough. However, when I run nvflash as administrator it says nvflash directory not found. I just open nvflash.exe regularly, and it says "This version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're using..."

My nvflash version is 5.117.01. I don't know why it's doing this. I tried using it from CMD by running as admin, and I get "Unsupported 16-bit application" "This program or feature cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of Windows...."
Same thing happens with the 5.118.

I tried running nvflash through cmd, still doesn't let me. and yes I did run cmd as admin. Idk what is going on.

How about shutting down the PC while sleeping?

Agreed

Well if you are wondering why I need to leave the pc on is because of some overnight game botting. This does use low graphics power, near idle. I am looking to figuring out why that nvflash application doesn't work for me, because if I can flash the card's bios to make the fan speed run at 20-25%, that will be great. I am also looking to change the case, if I still have problems. I will change to a fractal design full tower, the case's design is made to supress a lot of noise. I am going from a CM HAF 922 to a fractal design, there is LOTS of difference in noise level. If I am going from like a case like the antec p280 to a little bit quieter case, of course there's not much difference, but going from a case with holes and mesh everywhere, is a big difference.

This. A system that is switched off is MUCH quieter. Plus with the money you'll save on electricity you will then be able to make it quieter in operation too. Leaving systems running when they are doing nothing is very wasteful.

I think I need to be a bit more detailed. The PC's graphics will be on near idle, but the cpu will not, so the PC will actually be used overnight for this program I have that does some overnight game botting. I said idle because the graphics card will be used near idle. My problem is within this noisy fan of the graphics card because even on idle it is noisy. I might change the cpu cooler too, idk, we'll see, it seems okay for now.