My reasonably quiet Solo build

ironfist · Post by **ironfist** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:52 am

First i'd like to thank all the people who write here for the wealth of information made available, and ofc the reviwers at SPCR. I've wanted to do a really silent desktop for a long time and now I think it's as close as it gets with conventional products

Components are:

AMD Athlon64x2 4850e processor
Abit AS78H motherboard
2x1Gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 800 RAM
Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM 2.5", 160 Gb harddrive
Zalman ZM360B-APS PSU power supply
Antec Solo
Thermalright HR-01 Plus CPU heatsink
Noctua NC-U6 chipset cooler
Noctua NF-P12 800 RPM fan

A look inside, forgive the poor cablegami:

The only mods I've done was take out the fan cage that was in the front of the case, and replaced it with a very fluffy, airy filter cloth that's used in spray-painting booth inlets, and taping every other hole in the front and back shut with aluminium ventilation tape.

In a very quiet room I can still hear a faint whir from the harddrive and a very smooth rush of air through the intakes in the sides of the front panel but it's not nearly enough to distract and the refrigerator on the other side of the wall drowns it out easily when running.

Temperatures are 32 C idle, 46 C load for the CPU and the chipset stays around 44-45 C most of the time.I have the U.L.N.A. adapter for the fan installed and it runs at 540 RPM give or take. Curiously, I got worse temps with a NFP12 fan running at 960 RPM and pushing a lot more air out the back of the case(while making a lot more noise too).

If there are any questions I will be happy to answer.

Seems like I can't post images in the first post on this forum, they will follow shortly.

ironfist · Post by **ironfist** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:54 am

Photos:
inside:

desk:

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:04 pm

Quick question about the orientation of the CPU heatsink - is that orientation due to the mobo mounting clips not allowing you to mount it in the other orientation or is it because the other orientation would interfere with the noctua chipset heatsink you've mounted or if the other orientation would not fit under the PSU?

I was under the impression it would be better to mount the HR-01 in the other orientation (with the long edge facing the rear exhaust).

donu · Post by **donu** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:36 pm

The RAM would be a little cooler if the sticks were not right next to each other.

baconandeggs · Post by **baconandeggs** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:58 pm

donu wrote:The RAM would be a little cooler if the sticks were not right next to each other.

maybe the OP needs to run them like that for dual channel?

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:00 pm

simple- i like

if i were to build a pc right now- it would be freakily similar to what you've done, except i would get a 500gb scorpio blue and a smaller case.

what i'm most interested in is the psu, it's one of the lowest priced, low wattage, decent, 120mm fanned psus that are readily available to me.
you mention that the loudest parts of your pc are the hdd and some air noise, it is safe to assume then that the psu is pretty/very quiet?

Gojira-X · Post by **Gojira-X** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:15 pm

baconandeggs wrote:
donu wrote:The RAM would be a little cooler if the sticks were not right next to each other.
maybe the OP needs to run them like that for dual channel?

The Op is running that board in Single Channel mode. All the AMD chipset boards I have seen so far require you to put RAM in alternate slots (0 +2 or 1+3) to get dual channel to work.

ironfist · Post by **ironfist** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:07 pm

Gojira-X wrote:
baconandeggs wrote:
donu wrote:The RAM would be a little cooler if the sticks were not right next to each other.
maybe the OP needs to run them like that for dual channel?
The Op is running that board in Single Channel mode. All the AMD chipset boards I have seen so far require you to put RAM in alternate slots (0 +2 or 1+3) to get dual channel to work.

No, it's in dual channel mode.

ironfist · Post by **ironfist** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 4:10 pm

porkchop wrote:simple- i like

if i were to build a pc right now- it would be freakily similar to what you've done, except i would get a 500gb scorpio blue and a smaller case.

what i'm most interested in is the psu, it's one of the lowest priced, low wattage, decent, 120mm fanned psus that are readily available to me.
you mention that the loudest parts of your pc are the hdd and some air noise, it is safe to assume then that the psu is pretty/very quiet?

It's more quiet than the Enermax Modu82+(425W) I have in my HTPC, I'd say it's near dead silent.

JamieG wrote:
Quick question about the orientation of the CPU heatsink - is that orientation due to the mobo mounting clips not allowing you to mount it in the other orientation or is it because the other orientation would interfere with the noctua chipset heatsink you've mounted or if the other orientation would not fit under the PSU?

I was under the impression it would be better to mount the HR-01 in the other orientation (with the long edge facing the rear exhaust).

The backplate and mounting clips only work this way(the text i edited out of this post was concerning my old heatsink, I'm a bit sleep deprived at the moment and mixed things up in my head)

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:48 pm

ironfist wrote:It's more quiet than the Enermax Modu82+(425W) I have in my HTPC, I'd say it's near dead silent.

good to know and very impressive.
the zalman site points out that they're using a good fan- a nmb-mat made by NMB-Matsushita, so i was only really worried about the controller.
it's also 80-plus, although it isn't officially certified- i assume this is to lower costs.

..... the perfect silencers psu?