I finally built a truly silent system without going through a lot of trouble or using really special components. Even with really good/expensive silent components I've had issues with electronic noise (my DH61AG motherboard squeals some when doing I/O, my Seasonic X power supply emits a high tone when in standby). So I figured I'd share the components:

- Intel DH77DF Mini-ITX motherboard
- Intel 3570K CPU (2 cores disabled in BIOS to reduce peak power, make the codes stay at 3.8GHz turbo)
- Rosewill RCX-Z90-CP heatsink (copper core w/aluminum fins)
- Raidmax ITX-0907-BP enclosure
- Fortron FSP300-60GHS-R 80 plus micro-atx power supply
- Sandisk Extreme 240Gb SSD
- 2 sticks of Samsung 2Gb DDR3 1600 memory (CPU-Z says that they are running at 1.35V)

The two components that matter the most are the DH77DF motherboard and the FSP300-60GHS-R power supply, the rest of the components were just personal preferences. In my case, the FSP300-60GHS-R sits at the bottom and I remove its top cover and fan completely so heat rises up into the enclosure. Similarly I remove the fan from the RCX-Z90-CP (it rubs a lot so it's not quiet even at slow RPMs). Then I mount an Artic cooling 120mm case fan (Arctic F12) running at 5V above the CPU heatsink where the DVD drive would go. It provides airflow to the CPU, motherboard and FSP300-60GHS-R components while gently forcing heat out of the enclosure.

There is no electronic buzzing in any situation. Standby power is 1W, idle at the Windows 7 desktop driving a 1080P display and connected to gigabit ENET is 21W. Load w/2 cores at around 3.7/3.8GHz is a little over 50W. 4 cores w/graphics comes to around 75-80W. Audio output is perfectly clean as seems to be the case with Intel motherboards in general.

The FSP300-60GHS-R is a good power supply. I've had a pair of them running 24/7 with the cover and fan removed as I did here for about a year. At the low idle power of Intel's Ivy/Sandy Bridge CPUs I actually get about the same measured power as my Seasonic X PSUs (21W is only 5% of my Seasonic X's rated load, to low to be in its ~90% sweet spot).

Anyway, this system is silent with any acoustic dampening. And it is fast, I didn't have to make performance tradeoffs to get it to be quiet.

Thank you for posting this. It seems to me that 'totally silent' 'low budget' systems like yours are the exception. Most of the silent systems here require expensive cases, coolers and power supplies. Yours looks like the kind of system that could be built with an i3-2100 for well under $500.

Cheers.

Sounds interesting. I am attempting to visualize it and can't. Can you post some pics?

Recently put a rig together with this board after my Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 buggered out on me.
It is the first MB I've owned that has no buzz or whine whatsoever. Quite pleased with it and yes, pretty much silent from arms length away.

- Intel DH77DF
- Intel 3570K CPU
- Intel X25-V 40GB SSD
- Thermalright AXP-140 \ Yate Loon D12SL-12
- 2 x 2GB Kingston HyperX LoVo 1.35v
- Seasonic X-Series Fanless 460W
- Currently Antec Solo with Yate Loon D12SL-12 Front\Back @ 5V

Can all PSU under low load like your system be modified in this way? Or just this particular unit? What happens if the PSU components become too warm?

Hi mikewu,
I am also interested in building a silent system with this DH77DF Mini-ITX motherboard and the Samsung 2*2GB DDR3 1600 memory (I suppose it is the Samsung low-profile MV-3V2G3D kit), but I am actually hesitating after I read about following "experiences" with DH77DF, related in the Intel Community forum; read this, more particular, read the David post: .

So please, would you mind to check and confirm that your system runs effectively with the Samsung memory at 1600 MHz (and not at a "downrated" 1333 MHz) and with a voltage of 1.35V. Can you also check for eventual discrepancies between BIOS RAM parameter readings and Windows tool RAM parameter readings (as several observed). Would you mind to share the results of your observations (and eventually: how you set memory parameters in BIOS to obtain the result).

Looking forward to read you.

how is your fan speed control with the Intel DH77DF? Can you control both 4pin pwm and regular 3pin fans with speedfan on it?