Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs installed

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Traditio
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Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs installed

Post by Traditio » Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:25 pm

Hi.

First post here, so hello to everybody.

My old and trustworthy 8800 GT has sadly passed away and I'm looking for a replacement. I'm aiming at something which can last at least as much as the 8800GT, which has been performing admirably well until the day of its demise. Only DirectX11 has prevented it from running everything I asked from it.

I had an Accelero S1 attached to it for almost its complete life. A lot of times, this made me wish I had an smaller card, and now that I'm in the search for a replacement I've found this little beauty: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 1GB, which has a length oh just 187 mm (or 7.3622 inches). It has a price of roughly 125€ ($169 as of today).

But with just a little more that (155€ or $210), I can get this Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost OC, with a length of 256.3 mm (10.0906 inches) and, apparently, a considerable amount of spare power over the 650 Ti OC.

My question is simple: will the latter fit my unmodded Antec Solo case?

Keep in mind that I have all my HDD bays filled with HDDs, including the one that is right in front of the graphics card. The 8800 GT + Accelero S1 fits more or less OK. AFAIK, it was ~220 mm (9 inches), but there is an extra inch or so to be added to it because it had 2 power connectors on the side (it was this Galaxy 8800 GT, the 512 MB version). The 650 Ti Boost has the power connector on the upper part of the card.

So, does a 256.3 mm or 10.0906 inches graphics card fit in an Antec Solo filled with HDDs without modding? Taking into account that I refuse to buy a new case, should I go with the 187 mm/7.3622 in. 650 Ti OC?

Thank you very much for your attention.
Last edited by Traditio on Sun Oct 13, 2013 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:44 pm

The magic number often stated is 10.2" max length. However, if all of your drive slots are full, with the 10" card, you may have a conflict with the gfx card's connector (if it's on the end) and/or the drives' connectors. You are the best one to determine this - open up your case and look :)

As for the 8800GT, even a HD 7750 or GTX 650 will beat it on performance. If that's all you need, those are two cheaper solutions.

If you like the GTX 650 TI, here's some alternatives. The Asus cards range from 8.4" to 8.9". The MSI versions are 8.7" to 9.25" long.


Of course, if there is a connector conflict, you could always delete a drive, eh?

Traditio
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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sun Sep 22, 2013 5:03 pm

CA_Steve wrote:The magic number often stated is 10.2" max length. However, if all of your drive slots are full, with the 10" card, you may have a conflict with the gfx card's connector (if it's on the end) and/or the drives' connectors. You are the best one to determine this - open up your case and look :)

As for the 8800GT, even a HD 7750 or GTX 650 will beat it on performance. If that's all you need, those are two cheaper solutions.

If you like the GTX 650 TI, here's some alternatives. The Asus cards range from 8.4" to 8.9". The MSI versions are 8.7" to 9.25" long.


Of course, if there is a connector conflict, you could always delete a drive, eh?
Hi, Steve.

Thanks for your answer. This 10.2" seems encouraging. The card is just there, and the connector is, fortunately enough, on the upper side of the card.

The 650 Ti has a 7 inches version, which was the first one to catch my eye precisely because of the size, but the 650 Ti Boost seems to be considerably more powerful than the 650 Ti and it costs just a bit more. The latter is 10.0906 inches.

I'm definitely going to make some measurements. One of my HDDs is just a 750 GB one. I can lose it.

I'll report my findings.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Abula » Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:25 pm

If you dont want to spend that much i would go with MSI GTX650TI Power edition, seems it was one of the quietest. Just for reference, there is a none standard smaller than reference GTX760, ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU Mini review, probably not as quiet as MSI GTX760, but for some cases that size matters and want good performance.

Image Image

Traditio
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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:58 am

Well, I did my measurements. The 10.2" reports were accurate. That is the exact space there is in the Antec Solo for a graphics card without an HDD in the bay adjacent to the graphics card slot.

It might fit if I remove the drives, but I'm definitely going with the 187 mm/7.3622 in. Gigabyte GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 1GB. It is the cheapest 650 Ti at my reach (and actually the only one). The simple process of installing it in a space so tight will make me suffer a lot. Not worth it, IMO.

It sports the so called "Windforce" cooling system. The fan is supposed to be a 10 cm one, but I have read about it being loud. Will it be possible to take my Accelero S1 Rev. 2 + Turbo module out of retirement and stick it to this card?

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:01 am

Traditio wrote:So, does a 256.3 mm or 10.0906 inches graphics card fit in an Antec Solo filled with HDDs without modding? Taking into account that I refuse to buy a new case, should I go with the 187 mm/7.3622 in. 650 Ti OC?

Uhm, just a side question: is the HDD suspended or not?

Traditio
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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:16 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Traditio wrote:So, does a 256.3 mm or 10.0906 inches graphics card fit in an Antec Solo filled with HDDs without modding? Taking into account that I refuse to buy a new case, should I go with the 187 mm/7.3622 in. 650 Ti OC?

Uhm, just a side question: is the HDD suspended or not?
No. All 4 drives are installed in their trays with silicon grommets. There are only 3 suspenders, and they have become loose from usage. But probably using any of the top or bottom suspenders will solve the problem, as will mounting one HDD in the 5.25" bays with an adaptor.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:37 am

Traditio wrote:
quest_for_silence wrote:
Traditio wrote:So, does a 256.3 mm or 10.0906 inches graphics card fit in an Antec Solo filled with HDDs without modding? Taking into account that I refuse to buy a new case, should I go with the 187 mm/7.3622 in. 650 Ti OC?

Uhm, just a side question: is the HDD suspended or not?
No. All 4 drives are installed in their trays with silicon grommets. There are only 3 suspenders, and they have become loose from usage. But probably using any of the top or bottom suspenders will solve the problem, as will mounting one HDD in the 5.25" bays with an adaptor.
Yes, you can use either a new elastic band (to replace the loose one), or (for the upper chamber) a Noise Magic adapter (I use it inside an NSK3480 and works marvelously, but there's some Scythe rails that works great).
Even right angle SATA connectors should help to save space and routing the cables neater.

For the card itself, maybe some of Radeon-series could be a viable option (just for example: an XFX HD7850 Black Edition should be around 9,2" or 9,5" - I didn't checked - with the PCIE connectors on the long side, and it can be cranked up easily to the level of a GTX 580: not to mention it's really quiet, for about the same price of a GTX 650 Ti Boost in Europe).

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:14 am

quest_for_silence wrote:Yes, you can use either a new elastic band (to replace the loose one), or (for the upper chamber) a Noise Magic adapter (I use it inside an NSK3480 and works marvelously, but there's some Scythe rails that works great).
Even right angle SATA connectors should help to save space and routing the cables neater.
These "Noise Magic" adapters sound interesting. I'm unable to find one through Google. Could you please paste a link to one of these?

Also, where can I get new elastic bands? From Antec? Generic bands?

BTW, I've just found none less than 4 GTX 650 Ti Boost from MSI which sit at just 220 mm or 8.66141732 in. They seem to be 1 and 2 GB cards with and without OC:

Image

They are a bit pricier than the Gigabyte cards, but my experience with MSI mobos has been top notch and I'm all for it. Besides, from the pics it seems that the power connector is facing the upper side of the card, and not the HDDs, so it may end up being actually shorter than my current 8800 GT.

Now I'd like to know how are these short 650 Tis noisewise. Any ideas? Hope so. This is Silent PC Review :lol:

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:30 pm

Traditio wrote:
quest_for_silence wrote:Yes, you can use either a new elastic band (to replace the loose one), or (for the upper chamber) a Noise Magic adapter (I use it inside an NSK3480 and works marvelously, but tlhere's some Scythe rails that works great).
Even right angle SATA connectors should help to save space and routing the cables neater.


These "Noise Magic" adapters sound interesting. I'm unable to find one through Google. Could you please paste a link to one of these?

I used the green one satisfactorily.
Traditio wrote:Also, where can I get new elastic bands? From Antec? Generic bands?

Generic bands works: the looser, the better. A tight band is useul just for drive safety.
Traditio wrote:Now I'd like to know how are these short 650 Tis noisewise. Any ideas? Hope so. This is Silent PC Review :lol:

As far as I know, the only MSI which I know as really quiet is the 1Gb Ti Power Edition (with the Cyclone II cooler).

Judging from past recent cards, the MSI GTX-650Ti Boost 2GB TwinFrozr is (should be) more aggressive on load (how much personally I don't know, but given the moderately higher TDP it could be not very much, and you can correct this behaviour with Rivatuner and the likes), while it should probably be less quiet at idle (this latter condition, if it's really true, may require a BIOS modding).
Any other MSI card (of whichever flavour, GTX-650, 650Ti, 650Ti Boost) more probably that not doesn't worth to mention, acoustically-wise.

I also appreciate the DC-II cooler from ASUS, but more probably that not - I didn't checked - the relevant 650Ti version may not fit in a Solo (as the GTX660 DC-II barely fits, I have it inside a Solo, but without any bolted drive): at any rate, I havent' used any ASUS GK106 card up to now.
As said for MSI, I don't think any shorter cooler works as quiet as those ones: but again it's only my educated guess.

Eventually, as I already told you, I won't give up on selected AMD cards: I personally tested two XFX, the cheap HD7770 Dual Dissipation GHz Edition and the already quoted 7850 Black, and they worth to mention, acoustically-wise, for the conscious gamer (the 7850 was on a Linux machine, but the 7770 under Windows 7 is easily controllable using SpeedFan).

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:01 pm

Traditio wrote:They are a bit pricier than the Gigabyte cards, but my experience with MSI mobos has been top notch and I'm all for it. Besides, from the pics it seems that the power connector is facing the upper side of the card, and not the HDDs, so it may end up being actually shorter than my current 8800 GT.

Now I'd like to know how are these short 650 Tis noisewise. Any ideas? Hope so. This is Silent PC Review :lol:
Look up about 7 posts in this thread.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:45 am

Hi.

I've returned home for a few days and finally had the chance to install and test the new card.

I finally went with the 220 mm/8.66141732 in MSI GTX 650 Ti BOOST. Price has been over 160 euros.

The card fits nicely. When I installed the card I was surprised of how big and bulky the Accelero S1 was. This made installing the new card with a regular sized cooler feel so comfortable that I was amazed not to be fighting with cables and HDDs to put the card in place.

The clearance after the card is installed is big enough IMO. I have taken a few pics to try to show it. I rarely take the cam to make any photos and it really shows in them. Sorry about that.

This is a general view of the case with the new card installed. If may look tight now, but I can assure you that this is nothing compared to the looks of the case with the 8800 GT + Accelero S1:

Image

This is a close up of the gap between the card and the nearby HDDs:

Image

Close up of the card and the PCI-E power connector. The fact that it is facing the side panel of the case and not the front of the case and the HDDs helps a lot for installing the card and clearing the area:

Image

Noisewise, the card is quieter than I expected, but there is a noticeable hum that wasn't there with the Accelero S1 + Turbo Module. The fan autocontrol settings are weird. The minimum possible speed the fan can spin at is 30% (around 1050 RPM). After a 15 minutes of burn-in testing (with MSI Kombustor), the card hits the high 70s (Celsius), but the fan never goes above 48% (~1500 RPM). The noise difference between 30% and 50% is just slightly noticeable.

I have performed the same 15 minutes burn-in test with the fan set at 100% (with MSI Afterburner) and the thing sounded like it was about to take off. According to GPU-Z, it was spinning at 3750 RPM. The temperature stayed in the low 60s. It is noisy, but it does its job. It is just weird that it doesn't spin faster on its own when the card is almost at 80 degrees.

I have some free slots on my rheobus. I'll maybe try it to see if I can get rid of the hum at low speeds, but I suspect that it won't go lower than those 30% 1050 RPM.

Regarding performance, the card has more power than I'll ever need. I'm not a gamer, but I've tested it with Battlefield 3 and the card is just insane. Everything at max settings and 1920x1200 and it was pretty smooth. I didn't measure FPS, but I'd say it was comfortably over 30. And this was in my 6 years old Core2Duo E6750 PCI-E x16 1.1 system, which was probably bottlenecking the card. Later I tried Crysis 3, but it was too much for my card/system.

Now I just wish I had some ImageMagick OpenCL-enabled binaries to put that power into usage.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:06 am

Traditio wrote:I have some free slots on my rheobus. I'll maybe try it to see if I can get rid of the hum at low speeds, but I suspect that it won't go lower than those 30% 1050 RPM.


The 30% limit is more probably that not a BIOS limitation (historically it's so) and, if it were true, then you only need how to mod the BIOS (I've done for 460s, there's a good guide on this forum) in order to lower the minimum fan speed: after doing that, you can use Rivatuner and the likes to build a custom fan curve that fits your needs (and maybe undervolting a bit the GPU to let it run cooler).

Traditio wrote:Now I just wish I had some ImageMagick OpenCL-enabled binaries to put that power into usage.


But for Open CL a Radeon card wouldn't have been better suited?

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:08 am

quest_for_silence wrote:The 30% limit is more probably that not a BIOS limitation (historically it's so) and, if it were true, then you only need how to mod the BIOS (I've done for 460s, there's a good guide on this forum) in order to lower the minimum fan speed: after doing that, you can use Rivatuner and the likes to build a custom fan curve that fits your needs (and maybe undervolting a bit the GPU to let it run cooler).

Yes. It is indeed hardcoded in the BIOS:

Image

It doesn't seem difficult to modify it and flash it back to the card, but I dislike the idea of having to use a third party app just to make the fan kick in when under load.

Is there a way to set the card to do it without having to run a third party app? Do those apps have a "set and forget" feature that will work if they are not running?

What if i just set the minimum speed to say 20%? That 10% difference from the original 30% will be carried on through the whole curve or will the PWM adjust itself according to the temperature of the card? I just don't want to have the card at 80º and the fan at 40% when the default speed for that temperature is 50%.

I can accept (and even expect) a bit of noise when the computer is under load. I just want it to be silent when idle.
quest_for_silence wrote:But for Open CL a Radeon card wouldn't have been better suited?
Probably. I don't know. I never really thought about it. I had an NVIDIA which lasted nearly 6 years and was looking for more or less the same thing. I just felt naturally inclined to NVIDIA. Also, my main headache was the size, and the few ATI cards I looked at were quite big.

But anyway, I've never been able to get OpenCL working with IM's convolve function, nor in Windows neither in Linux, so it is not that important.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:13 am

Well...

I've just modded and flashed the BIOS of the card. I had the minimum fan speed set at 15%. Back at Windows, the monitoring utils said that the fan speed percentage was 20%, but the actual RPMs moved between 1050 and 1080, which are the values the fan spins at 30%. It must be hardware set to that.

Besides, the 10% differential is indeed carried over. I burn-tested the card and the fan was working at ~40% when the card reached 77º. Normally it is spinning at over 50% with that temperature.

I flashed back the stock BIOS. I guess the rheobus is the only thing remaining if I want to tame the hum...

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Abula » Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:32 am

It really depends on how are the PWM design, here some examples of fans that can reach 0% PWM but they still spin, and some that cant get to 0% or they will stop,

Image

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Oct 09, 2013 5:07 am

Traditio wrote:Well...

I've just modded and flashed the BIOS of the card. I had the minimum fan speed set at 15%. Back at Windows, the monitoring utils said that the fan speed percentage was 20%, but the actual RPMs moved between 1050 and 1080, which are the values the fan spins at 30%. It must be hardware set to that.

Besides, the 10% differential is indeed carried over. I burn-tested the card and the fan was working at ~40% when the card reached 77º. Normally it is spinning at over 50% with that temperature.

I flashed back the stock BIOS. I guess the rheobus is the only thing remaining if I want to tame the hum...

Well, I'm not a mod expert to tell you what exactly doing: I'm quite puzzled by the fact you set 15%, read 20%, and check 30% (as on my Gigabyte and ASUS cards what I set is what I read and monitor), so at first outset I am led to think that something may have gone wrong in the backing-up/modding/reflashing process. The further fact that you observe now a 40% load value, instead of 50%, let me think that you may have changed the wrong registry value (changing the controller behaviour but not the minimum "hardware" rotational speed).

Even Abula is right, as there's a logic onto each PWM fan, broadly speaking each fan behaves differently: therefore, if there's sort of an actual minimum speed "built-in-the-fan", then currently I don't think that changing the controller could give some real benefit. Otherwise, if you just changed the wrong BIOS value, it could work: just take note that sometimes GPU heatsinks don't use standard PWM fans.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Wed Oct 09, 2013 12:53 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:Well, I'm not a mod expert to tell you what exactly doing: I'm quite puzzled by the fact you set 15%, read 20%, and check 30% (as on my Gigabyte and ASUS cards what I set is what I read and monitor), so at first outset I am led to think that something may have gone wrong in the backing-up/modding/reflashing process. The further fact that you observe now a 40% load value, instead of 50%, let me think that you may have changed the wrong registry value (changing the controller behaviour but not the minimum "hardware" rotational speed).

Even Abula is right, as there's a logic onto each PWM fan, broadly speaking each fan behaves differently: therefore, if there's sort of an actual minimum speed "built-in-the-fan", then currently I don't think that changing the controller could give some real benefit. Otherwise, if you just changed the wrong BIOS value, it could work: just take note that sometimes GPU heatsinks don't use standard PWM fans.
Well, I just took this Kepler BIOS Editor, changed the relevant field (see screenshot), saved the BIOS file and flashed it back. The saving and flashing process seems to have gone OK, so, if there is a mistake somewhere, it should be in the BIOS editor. I can try to change the value with some other tool, but I won't return home until october 18th.

I agree that the fact that the rotational speed at load is decreased by a 10% seems also to point to the edition of the wrong value. Obviously, I'm not going to blindly hexedit every 30 in the ROM file to 20 and flash it to test. I'll need a reliable BIOS editor for Kepler-based bioses.

Any advice?

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Oct 09, 2013 4:04 pm

Traditio wrote:Any advice?


Well, afaik, on several old Fermi gen cards, using visual tools usually didn't work: it was mandatory to use an hex editor, looking for a specific string (then it was '47 04 01 21 00 06 26 C4 09 20 00 00 22'). Unfortunately I'm not aware of which could be the new string for Keplers, if any.

After some skimming, I think that your editor actually changes the fan speed range registry, but it doesn't affect the minimum fan speed which is ruled by a related but different (and unknown) registry. A possible workaround could be lowering clock and voltage at the relevant idle/2D state, and see if then the new percentage you set actually works: about that, maybe you can send a message to the forumer lodestar, as he may have some useful hints on that, or you may try to contact directly the tool's author.

Or you might re-use your Accelero... sorry, couldn't resist ;) I can't help more.

EDIT: perhaps you might try to drop a message to CrazyNutz (to know whether or not he found out a way to do what you want), http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... r-Unlocker

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sat Oct 12, 2013 3:29 pm

Ok. I'm done with this (and not entirely unhappy).

I've contacted Svet. It turns out that 650 Ti Boost cards are not supported in his program, but he has been kind enough to send me no less than 3 different patched bioses. And all of it has been in a lapse of no more than 3 o 4 hours since I first contacted him.

The first bios he sent me acted like the bios I edited with Kepler BIOS Tuner: fan percentage lowered, but RPMs at the default values. The second bios broke percentage readings. GPU-Z showed 0% fan speed percentage and default RPMs. The third one bricked the card. It gave no video signal after a cold boot. Luckily, my old card is still able to output a video signal and I have been able to flash back the default bios.

After I reported the results to him, he said that he has never seen a cooler go below 1000 RPM and that it is possible to make fans go over their max RPMs, but decreasing the fan minimum percentage doesn't usually have the expected effect on RPMs. Also, he says that the newer NVIDIA 7xx series cards have some advanced stuff for RPM control, but that there might be always a hardware barrier for that.

Good news is that after that I digged into the PC. I stopped by hand every single fan in the computer (including the PSU one) and it turns out that the dominant source of noise in my PC is the rear 120 mm fan, which is an almost 6 year old Nexus Real Silent). If I turn it and one of the front 92mm to the minimum power with the rheobus, the computer becomes almost silent at 2-3 meters. The graphics card fan is not entirely silent, but it is very very quiet and I'm not touching it atm. It sounds more or less like one of the 92 mm Nexus I have on the front, but with an slightly higher pitch. I'm getting new 92 and 120 mm fans and maybe once I have that sorted out I'll look into it. I thought about sticking the Accelero, but I think that it is not rated for a TDP as high as this card's.

Thanks everyone for the help.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:36 pm

Traditio wrote:Ok. I'm done with this (and not entirely unhappy).


Which are your actual current readings about all of the fans?

Traditio wrote:I thought about sticking the Accelero, but I think that it is not rated for a TDP as high as this card's.


If you wanna go fanless, it's not advisable (IMHO); but if you have a spare slot, a fanned S1 should handle even more.
Last edited by quest_for_silence on Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:02 am

quest_for_silence wrote:Which are your actual current readings about all of the fans?
I don't understand the question. What do you mean?

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:15 am

Traditio wrote:
quest_for_silence wrote:Which are your actual current readings about all of the fans?


I don't understand the question. What do you mean?


You said:
Traditio wrote:Good news is that after that I digged into the PC. I stopped by hand every single fan in the computer (including the PSU one) and it turns out that the dominant source of noise in my PC is the rear 120 mm fan, which is an almost 6 year old Nexus Real Silent). If I turn it and one of the front 92mm to the minimum power with the rheobus, the computer becomes almost silent at 2-3 meters. The graphics card fan is not entirely silent, but it is very very quiet


So I'm a bit puzzled about what you're hearing to, and therefore which the actual fan speeds are (I'm wondering questions as: "If the dominant noise comes from the Nexus, how can you notice the video card?", or: "Silent at 3 meters? You can be out of the room while hearing it at 3 meters!", and so on).

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:58 am

quest_for_silence wrote:So I'm a bit puzzled about what you're hearing to, and therefore which the actual fan speeds are (I'm wondering questions as: "If the dominant noise comes from the Nexus, how can you notice the video card?", or: "Silent at 3 meters? You can be out of the room while hearing it at 3 meters!", and so on).
I can notice the video card because I have a rheobus which allows me to silence the fans. Besides, the tonality of the video card is slightly higher pitched than that of the fans. Usually, I have the fans at full blast, which is 1100 RPM for the 120 mm Nexus (I think, because I'm not monitoring it) and 1400 RPM for the 92 mm. The 2 92 mm are monitored. One of them spins at the rated 1400 RPM, but the other is at ~1050. Probably because of the rheobus. Silent at 3 meters means that I can't hear any noise coming from the case at 3 meters distance. Usually I sit at ~1 meter distance from the case. If I walk 2 meters away, I can't hear it. My room is way bigger than 3 meters.

edh
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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by edh » Sun Oct 13, 2013 4:47 am

Why not reuse the Accelero S1 on the new card? It can handle the TDP and will make it completely silent. You might need to find some RAM or VRM sinks but it will be a wonderful free solution. If you're not looking at doing this work yourself then please at least don't throw the old cooler away - it'll be useful to someone!

Traditio
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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sun Oct 13, 2013 5:36 am

quest_for_silence wrote:If you wanna go fanless, it's not advisable (IMHO); but if you have a spare slot, a fanned S1 should handle even more.
edh wrote:Why not reuse the Accelero S1 on the new card? It can handle the TDP and will make it completely silent. You might need to find some RAM or VRM sinks but it will be a wonderful free solution. If you're not looking at doing this work yourself then please at least don't throw the old cooler away - it'll be useful to someone!
I thought that the 650 Ti BOOST was way hotter than the 8800 GT and that the Accelero won't be able to handle it. Good that I was wrong.

I'd gladly reuse the Accelero. However, it is showing his age. There are some bent fins on the right edge (because I've used them to accomodate the Turbo Module cable and forced them a bit. The heads of the screws to secure it are also destroyed because of the screwdriver I used to fasten them). I'd install it if I were able to get some spare screws.

Another question is if the holes in the Accelero will fit the holes in the new card. I haven't been able to find info about this on the Internet.

I have here some VGA RAM heatsinks from Zalman. According to the blister, the model is ZM-RHS1. It's better to use them or to recycle the ones that came with the Accelero? The Accelero ones look thicker and bigger. Will they stick fine to the RAM chips with some cleaning and thermal glue?

Will Arctic Cooling send me a new set of screws if I email them?

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:36 am

Traditio wrote:I can notice the video card because I have a rheobus which allows me to silence the fans. Besides, the tonality of the video card is slightly higher pitched than that of the fans. Usually, I have the fans at full blast, which is 1100 RPM for the 120 mm Nexus (I think, because I'm not monitoring it) and 1400 RPM for the 92 mm. The 2 92 mm are monitored. One of them spins at the rated 1400 RPM, but the other is at ~1050. Probably because of the rheobus. Silent at 3 meters means that I can't hear any noise coming from the case at 3 meters distance. Usually I sit at ~1 meter distance from the case. If I walk 2 meters away, I can't hear it. My room is way bigger than 3 meters.


Well, definitely your system isn't conceived to be what I would call a "really quiet" one, but rather it looks like versed towards obtaining sort of a constant, not extremely low, but benign sound signature.

So, about your place (home, office, whatever), I was not interested in walking through it: my consideration about hearing the system at 3 meters, "You can be out of the room", translated by Google in spanish, would maybe sound: "a una distancia tal que se podría estar fuera de la sala" (as the listening distance for evaluating "a really quiet" rig usually fell far short than that).

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by Traditio » Sun Oct 13, 2013 11:15 am

quest_for_silence wrote:Well, definitely your system isn't conceived to be what I would call a "really quiet" one, but rather it looks like versed towards obtaining sort of a constant, not extremely low, but benign sound signature.

So, about your place (home, office, whatever), I was not interested in walking through it: my consideration about hearing the system at 3 meters, "You can be out of the room", translated by Google in spanish, would maybe sound: "a una distancia tal que se podría estar fuera de la sala" (as the listening distance for evaluating "a really quiet" rig usually fell far short than that).
Probably you are right. When I put the system together I had indeed a silent PC in mind. Hence the Solo, the Corsair HX620, and the Nexus fans, which were universally recommended here back in 2007/2008. With the Accelero and the Freezer 7 Pro, it has been effectively silent for most of the time *at idle*. Inaudible at any distance. Now the weak spot lies in the graphics card (low "weeeeeeesh") and the fans (which are almost 6 years old and emit a low "wooooooosh", specially the rear 120 mm one). During the day (for example, now, almost 21:00, with the noises from the street, the neighbors, the TV on the other side of the house, etc.) I can't tell if it is on or off, and I can reach the case with my hand if I tilt my ass a bit from the chair. In the silent of the night you can indeed tell it at <3 meters.

It is indeed "a constant, not extremely low, but benign sound signature", but I hope that bringing back the Accelero and getting new fans may put it where it once was. It should be noted that the fans are at full blast only during the hotter seasons or when I'm going to do something that may rise temperatures. I do it because I have the CPU cooler fan set to start rising the speed once it reaches 40ºC, so it's a bit of a trade off: fans at full blast (which are not noisy at all) so I can delay the noise from the CPU cooler as much as possible. When it's cold I always have them at the minimum speed the rheobus allows. The feeling of not being able to hear the computer is very pleasing.

BTW, how did you guess that I am from Spain? How is your spanish that good ("a una distancia tal que se podría estar fuera de la sala" is a pretty complex construction) if you are from Italy? Are you a wizard? :lol:

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Re: Antec Solo: Max graphics card length with 4 HDDs install

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Oct 13, 2013 2:30 pm

Traditio wrote:It is indeed "a constant, not extremely low, but benign sound signature", but I hope that bringing back the Accelero and getting new fans may put it where it once was. It should be noted that the fans are at full blast only during the hotter seasons or when I'm going to do something that may rise temperatures. I do it because I have the CPU cooler fan set to start rising the speed once it reaches 40ºC, so it's a bit of a trade off: fans at full blast (which are not noisy at all) so I can delay the noise from the CPU cooler as much as possible. When it's cold I always have them at the minimum speed the rheobus allows. The feeling of not being able to hear the computer is very pleasing.


Maybe a better CPU heatsink would help, IMHO.
About fans, usually while ageing a sleeve bearing come dry, so you may lubricate it (there are several posts about): anyway, 40°C for the CPU temp seems to me way low to start the CPU fan, I don't know which your processor is, but I mean you could safely accept even higher temps from it.

Traditio wrote:BTW, how did you guess that I am from Spain? How is your spanish that good ("a una distancia tal que se podría estar fuera de la sala" is a pretty complex construction) if you are from Italy? Are you a wizard? :lol:


Nowhere near: you linked something spanish, sport a latin nickname, talk about euros, so you have to write from Spain, don't you agree?

About the translation instead, italian and spanish can be very similar, so this helps a bit, along with a minimum of experience, to sort out a tad more decent translations from Google; at any rate, the very same phrase in italian would be: "ad una tale distanza che si potrebbe essere fuori dalla stanza", which is very close to the spanish sentence, as you may see.

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