My Silent Silentium T2 Rig

sanse · Post by **sanse** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:48 am

Yes, a silent system afterall!

I did the psu-mod to the silentium t2. That is to say i cut the wires from the psu to the psu-fans and the case-fans and soldered new connectors to
them. Male-connectors to the fans; female connectors to the psu-feedwires.

It's not necessary to dismount the psu completely. Only pulling the outside rubber-bands of the harddisc-silencer gives enough room to cut the wires to the psu-fans and put new connectors on them.

As a second step i placed a 3.5' fan-controller in the middle 3.5' bay. It's an enermax 2-channel controller with 2 fan-wires and 2 temp-sensors.

One of the sensors i stuck inside the psu to feel it's outstream airtemp. The other tempsensor was mounted above the motherboard and measures the temp of the air flowing into the top silentium case-fans.

The third step was the final silencing of the second harddrive, that is mounted in the lower 3.5' bay. I fixed rubberstrips to the bottom-edges of
the drive and to the sides and then placed the drive in the bay. I secured the drive with a piece of 'button-elastic' and a zip-tie.

As a last step i paid much more attention to cable-management now. I managed to get the main 20-lead power cable out of the airflow to the
psu-fans. Additional power-lines are now routed differently to the right of the t2-silencer-box. The sata-cables are zip-tied together and are also
for the most part not in the direct airflow-path. The wide ide-cables to the dvd-writer and the floppy-drive were mainly hidden behind the 3.5' bay and on top of the dvd-writer.

At the moment the silentium psu- and case-fans are connected to the fan-controller through wires containing 3 diodes (you can see them in the last
picture) giving a voltage-drop of about 1.8 volts on top of the voltage-drop the fan-controller provides. Both fan-speeds are turned down; the
case-fans at the lowest speed. The psu-fans a bit higher. The silentium fans don't give a tach-signal, but i estimate the psu-fans are running now
at about 800 rpm at the most and the case-fans at about 600 rpm. The 2 push-fans also run at about 800 rpm.

The machine is silent now; not quiet, just silent. On a distance of 3 metres away the computer can no longer be heard. These mods had a big
influence on the temps of the various components.

Idle at intake-temp 15c:

case top: 25
psu out: 35
cpu: 35
mobo: 34
gpu: 60
discs: 40

Both the gpu and the harddrives run hotter now as compared to the default silentium setup. The gpu 10C and the drives about 6 to 7 C. Should be no problem. The psu also is running hotter than before. One can feel pretty warm air coming out of the vents at the bottom of the case. I did a test with 2 instances of cpu-burn for 30 minutes and that gave the following temps:

case top: 30
psu out: 40
cpu: 54
gpu: 63
discs: 40

I'm not sure if the machine is thermally stable during heavy gaming, but i don't do that. If i would do that occasionally i could turn up the
fanspeeds. For the time being i'm going to see how the machine behaves during different loads and different intake (room) temps. Maybe i'll
replace the 2 push-fans by larger 92 mm ones and have them controlled by the fan-controller too. They are now controlled by the mobo on fan-header cha1. Another setup might be connecting the fans to the psu again through the diode-wires to get some sort of automatic temp-dependent behaviour back. The soldered fan-connectors give all freedom now to experiment.

The second harddisc in the lower bay is completely silent now. No more hum; not even with the vastly reduced fanspeeds.

Curious about any comments and suggestions!

And now for the pictures:

Silentium harddrive silencer partly dismounted

New connectors to silentium fans and psu-wires (male for fans; female for psu-feedwires

Rubber strips to be mounted on harddrive

Rubber strips stuck to harddrive

Harddrive with rubberstrips mounted in lower 3.5' silentium bay with elastic and zip-tie

Temp-sensor of fan-controller stuck into psu to feel psu-out-temp

Enermax 2-channel fan-controller between floppy and silenced harddrive

Total view of system; fanwires still a bit messy and experimental; improved cablemanagement

epiphane · Post by **epiphane** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:33 am

Can u direct some light into u'r puter either with a flash or lamp & retake the pics? It would help in viewing what u've done.

Cheers
peter

sanse · Post by **sanse** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:06 am

epiphane wrote:Can u direct some light into u'r puter either with a flash or lamp & retake the pics? It would help in viewing what u've done.

Cheers
peter

hmmm, the pictures were taken with a flash. what kind of lamp should i use? i thought the essence of what i did was visible.

while thinking about a way to better better pictures can you tell me what is not clear so i could explain?

epiphane · Post by **epiphane** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:18 am

Sometimes there's a adjustment on the flash or camera that might direct more light deeper into the system...even just a desk/table pointing into the puter would help.

No biggie...if u'r happy w/ 'em leave it be.

Cheers

sanse · Post by **sanse** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:44 am

now, after a few days of silent use, it's become clear how silent the stock amd x2 4400+ cooler actually is. when stressing the system with 2 instances of cpu-burn the system is still silent despite the fact the cpu-cooler fan runs at about 2500rpm then. the cpu-cooler can not be heard at this rpm with the case closed. the ramp-up i heard before must have been solely caused by the silentium psu- and case-fans.

so, no need to replace the stock amd heatpipe-cooler. it's silent and efficient enough.

sanse · Post by **sanse** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:32 pm

i measured the rpm's of the silentium fans. it shows that they run at 500 rpm, when the fan-controller is turned all the way down. between the fans and the controller are 3 diodes giving a voltage-drop of about 2 volts.

so the fans are now running on a voltage near 4 volt; just like the adda-fan in the neohe psu of the p150.

the passively cooled videocard is next. when this thing gets a ac silencer on it, then all the heat of this gets blown out of the case. should give lower temps for the case itself, the mobo, the cpu and the harddrives.