Snip off Antec exhaust grille ? Also Noise: 3000B vs P150.

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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farns
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Snip off Antec exhaust grille ? Also Noise: 3000B vs P150.

Post by farns » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:37 pm

Ok I have a slk3000b and a P150, the tricools on low (5v) are the loudest thing in there, can anyone say if snipping off the rear exhaust grill actually makes any appreciable difference in noise?
Im getting some Yate Loons which I understand from Mike reviews are marginally quieter at 12v than 5v Tricools.
Obviously the reduction in air turbulence would be significant if it was a high rpm fan but with a Tricool on low or a Nexus?

I snipped out the 2 x92mm intake grill on the P150 as it was totally useless being A: inside the case so out of range of poky things and B: there is a dust filter anyway.
But I dont really wanto snip the rear grilles unless it does make a difference as there are stray fingers and animals and stuff.

Also I have to decide on which case to keep :) as I have only one rig.
I have to say I did a basic test on both with near identical setups (both cases with HD suspension , with and without intake fans etc ) and I couldnt tell any difference in noise (front of case 1m away).....did anyone notice differently?
Obviously the 3000b is going to be noisier if u dont suspend the HD somehow, which I did.
For temp testing I raised CPU voltage, repeatedly ran 3DMark & P95 in a hot room with heater on thermostat to try and keep things even, and I noticed little diff except the 3000B kept vidcards 5c cooler because of the side vent.

A64s and C2D CPUs run fairly cool now, so for me I want a case to keep my high-end vidcard and HD cool with as low noise/airflow as poss.

Sorry, got on a bit of a tangent there, but a straight answer about the rear fan grille would be awesome :)

ultrachrome
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Post by ultrachrome » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:11 pm

Removing the grill from my Sonata didn't reduce noise or temperature. It just left jagged edges to cover and enticed my cat to play with the orange Nexus fan blades.

It might make sense on other cases but I don't think it buys you anything on an Antec case.

farns
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Post by farns » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:18 pm

Thanks, yep Antec fan grills are much less restrictive than most others.
I would definitely remove the grill off something like my old cheap case though which seemed to be more metal than holes :roll:
I just filed the edges round with a heavy file rather than covering.

I guess softmounting would create a little less air turbulence also, because of being a bit further from the grill.

Jumper
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Post by Jumper » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:36 pm

For me the biggest noise difference was putting two layers of self-sick vinyl flooring tiles on the side panels of the 3000B, which eliminated some annoying resonance vibrations.

ultrachrome
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Post by ultrachrome » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:37 pm

That worked nicely for my Sonata as well.

farns
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Post by farns » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:44 pm

Cool, Ill do that. I actually prefer my 3000B to the P150, its a bit roomier to work in, it looks pretty good and im not terrified of scratching it like the glossy P150.

The P150 HD bays are great though, pull out the ones you dont need for great airflow and they absorb vibration wondefully. If it wasnt for them I would probably take the 3000B every time.

aidanjm2004
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Post by aidanjm2004 » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:42 am

farns wrote:Cool, Ill do that. I actually prefer my 3000B to the P150, its a bit roomier to work in, it looks pretty good and im not terrified of scratching it like the glossy P150.

The P150 HD bays are great though, pull out the ones you dont need for great airflow and they absorb vibration wondefully. If it wasnt for them I would probably take the 3000B every time.
I would have thought the P150 would be a vast improvement over the 3000B. I have certainly found my Solo is much less noisy than my Antec SLK3000 black quiet edition. The key factors seem to be a thicker build (less wobbly or vulnerable to vibration) and much improved disk drive mounts which transmit less vibration to the frame of the case.

farns
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Post by farns » Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:53 am

Yep I actually said that the P150s HD mounting is much quieter, but that my HD is suspended in the 3000B and as that was the main noise source I now cant really tell any difference.
They both have the same exhaust fan so the P150s only silencing advantage now should be thicker panels afaik...
Like I say , suspend the HD in the 3000B and I cant tell the difference - can anyone else?

How did you find they compared thermally? Did you try identical systems in both?

aidanjm2004
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Post by aidanjm2004 » Mon Mar 26, 2007 2:11 am

farns wrote:How did you find they compared thermally? Did you try identical systems in both?
I did try identical systems (moved my main rig from the 3000 to the Solo) but I can't remember the temps from before to compare with after, so not really sure what one is better in terms of temps. I guess the Solo/ P150 is more cramped as you mentioned, not sure if that would effect temps. I guess they are both decent cases. I had four 3.5 inch hard drives in the 3000 (plus a notebook drive), so vibration became a huge issue for me. Moving to the Solo seemed to completely eliminate the vibration and associated noise which is amazing to me. But in your situation, with a single, suspended drive, I guess the two cases would be competitive in terms of silence.

kaange
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Post by kaange » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:55 pm

aidanjm2004 wrote:But in your situation, with a single, suspended drive, I guess the two cases would be competitive in terms of silence.
This is misleading. The SLK3000B can easily suspend 4 HDDs very simply due to the removable drive cage. All you need to do is place the cage on its side and either hang it or sit it on a bed of foam. It made a HUGE difference to my system noise level.

This is a very interesting thread for me as I was contemplating an "upgrade" to a Solo but it seems there is no benefit with the drives suspended. I had suspected this but the OPs observations confirms it.

Too bad the SLK3000B is no longer imported by our distributor :x

Jumper
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Post by Jumper » Mon Mar 26, 2007 8:47 pm

Honestly one of the things I have enjoyed the most about the SLK3800 (same as the 3000 except with a PSU) is making the little tweaks to go from 'dustbuster loud' to almost as quiet as my housemates P180.

So far:
-Axed front intake fan (HDDs stay < 45 anyway, cool enough for me)
-Rear tricool on low (to be replaced at some future point, but quiet enough)
-Suspended HDDs forward of original position, where the front fan was
-Thermaltake ND-1 + PWM fan control mod + custom duct extension to rear case surface on the 6800GT (15C cooler w/OC then at stock speeds w/stock cooler)
-Ninja
-2 layers of self-stick flooring tile on each of the large case panels ($10/30 tiles at the $1 store, anyone want some? lol)
-Used washers to push forward the front USB ports so that devices with shorter USB plugs work

To-Do:
-Re-suspend HDDs more neatly
-HR-05 SLI on Northbridge (stock fan fried a long time ago, surprised it still works...)
-Duct Ninja to the rear case fan for better passive operation
-Replace PSU w/Seasonic S12

That said, I am building in an NSK3400 for my family... Hoping to go with AM2 + Ultra 90 + 1 case fan + 1 PSU fan on a mATX board with a 3600+ X2.

farns
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Post by farns » Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:54 pm

IIRC the 3800 has the sideways HD cage so thats another point where it differs, Mike C found the 3000B cage was a bit cooler.
For the NB cooler you can go cheaper by getting a Zalman NBJ47, but its a tall passive heatsink that usually is in the way of vidcard, whereas the Thermalright one has fan capability and is out of the way.
I used a Zalman and just sawed off the 2 nearest rows of prongs to fit it under the vidcard, does the job lol and I can always ziptie a 5v 92mm fan to blow across the mobo, which will cool anything like that and the rest.

I really have to get a better suspension method too, theres some great threads here so Ill have to look, currently I just turn the HD cage on its side and sandwich with foam, no vibration but the foam keeps it fairly toasty so Ill try hanging it with elastic. I tried hanging but my way still vibrated a bit so Ill troll a few threads.

The infamous vinyl floor-tiles :D : I could search I guess but is their function to absorb side panel vibration or to block sound?

The P150 side panels have a really thin 1-2mm vinyl-type square stuck to them , which looks kind of token to me like "Ok we will stick this 50c thing on and charge $50 for Extraordinary Sound Deadening Properties" :lol: - maybe it does something, but to my uneducated eye it looks like a marketing gimmick.

Of course the P150 tile is really thin whereas you people are using actual floor tiles.

kaange
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Post by kaange » Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:00 pm

The 3800 has the same cage as the 3000. So does the 3700AMB. It's the 3700BQE that has the sideways facing cage. (thanks for making things so clear Antec :shock: )

How does the foam keep your drives hot? The air should still flow between the drives - it does with mine.

farns
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Post by farns » Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:44 pm

My mistake, soz.

They arent exactly hot, they are wide open to the 120mm intake (when I use it) just that I figured foam would trap heat or at least stop the HD cage exhausting some it in summer temps when things do get toasty without an intake fan.
I mean sleeping bags and stuff have foam in them!
Thus I wanto suspend them just by elastic or whatever without foam.

My goal is to do away with the intake fan in high summer, given I have a 7950GT (soon to be 8800GTS) thats not as easy as the granny PCs with onboard GFX you see so much round here :wink:

I forgot to say, I also removed the 3000B CPU duct and blocked the hole, but left the VGA hole open - I found this gave best noise/cooling.
If you had an absolute screaming hot CPU then the duct would help but for my overclocked A64 I gained 2C at best and it raised case temps a little.
My feeling with the P150 is that it may not cool VGA cards well and lets face it , for people with gaming cards its usually the video card that produces more heat than the CPU unless Im mistaken, which kind of changes the whole case cooling dynamic.
Be nice if SPCR would reflect this in their reviews, ATI cards run nice n toasty.

kaange
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Post by kaange » Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:44 am

Heh, I mixed up the AMB and the BQE in another thread so the stupid codes are fresh in my mind :wink:

I don't see how the cage sitting on foam will raise drive temps much - the foam doesn't wrap around the drives (imagine sleeping on a foam mattress without a blanket on top). Having the cage on it's side may actually help drive temps anyway as it is easier for convection currents to take heat away from the large drive surfaces.

Can you try running without the front fan and monitor the drive temps?

farns
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Post by farns » Sat Apr 28, 2007 9:33 pm

Sorry late reply haha - ok my "test setup" has gone but an undervolted 120mm intake makes little difference to my WD 5000KS (4-platter 7200rpm 16mb cache sata3.0gb/s) which sticks at around 35c.
I dont know the fan RPM but using a Sunbeam fan controller I have all fans as low as they will go without stalling on startup, so around 5v maybe.
Its pretty similar without the fan over a short period, longer than 1hr of intense HD activity in a warm room and maybe the intake fan would be needed.
This using the "foam-sandwiched sideways HD cage" suspension method in the SLK3000B.

P150 was similar temp using one of the HD trays.

Aside from that I noticed my old Seagate 7200.7 SATA 120gb (2-platter) is 9c cooler and I think perhaps a little quieter at idle, the seeks are quieter on the WD but idle noise is all I care about.
I am disappointed with the WD5000KS as it reviewed well here, but I guess its much better performance wise than the 7200.7 - I might swap it for a 1 or 2-platter drive.

Shusher
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Post by Shusher » Sat Apr 28, 2007 10:26 pm

I never understood people that cut into these nice cases so willingly, especially people that carve right into the polished SOLO finish sides/top. It's like cutting the sleeves off of a really nice leather jacket. :? Even if it increases airflow efficiency, it does so by so little, keeping the case "perfect" is much more significant to me. There are much more effective ways of lowering temps than cutting grills. (i.e. better heatsink, fans, internal flow, heat traps, etc etc)

If you're ever worried about grill resistance adding to noise, you can always add a couple of washers between the case and the fan.

Tephras
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Post by Tephras » Sat Apr 28, 2007 10:57 pm

Shusher wrote:Even if it increases airflow efficiency, it does so by so little
Read the third post in this thread.

farns
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Post by farns » Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:04 pm

Never noticed that, ok off with the grilles!

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Post by Sylph-DS » Tue May 01, 2007 5:44 am

20%? I kind of wonder what type of grill that was tested on. In my old case, there was one gril that litterally created a backdraft (the fan was supposed to blow out, but if you held your hand near the fan, inside the case, you could feel the blow almost like the fan was positioned the other way) In my Solo, on the other hand, the grills don't seem to change much.

Still, it's undoubted that a grill matters, but when you have pets, you may be willing to keep the grills in exchange for safety. I guess getting a classic 'external' wire grill would be better than antec's grills though.

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Post by ultrachrome » Tue May 01, 2007 8:48 am

I think mikec was referring to the "classic" wire grill. The Antec grill is pretty open and is also spaced 5/16" or so from the fan blades which might give it an advantage over a wire grill.

Theories aside, I de-grilled my Sonata with a Nexus at 12v and detected no change in sound or temp.

I would think that if my grill was lowering airflow by 20% then removing it would lower my CPU temp a degree or two but noted no change at all. Also Mikec's post is almost 3 years old.

farns
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Post by farns » Tue May 01, 2007 12:18 pm

I assumed the "wire grille" referred to those ones with the cross and concentric circles, like on PSUs - ie about as open as the newer Antec grilles.
I guess there wouldnt really be an audible difference at such low rpm but Ultrachrome when you said you noticed no difference in temps, what sort of case temps do you think you had then?
Just because Im running a 7900GTX and overclocked CPU and hot northbridge , with just the single undervolted 120mm case exhaust fan so perhaps it might be worth it for me to remove the grille?

Seems petty but I dont wanto get rid of it unless there is a bit of difference.

ultrachrome
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Post by ultrachrome » Tue May 01, 2007 4:12 pm

My temps were in the mid to low 20's. That was with a Nexus at 12V, approx 1000-1100 RPM. I'm trying to think how my component temps mattered since it's rooted to my room temp.

If running your fan at 1000 RPM or slower, based on my experience, I see no benefit to removing the grill.

Vidicio
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Post by Vidicio » Wed May 02, 2007 3:30 am

I doubt if you can get any benefit by removing the grill, but here's what I would do.

The grille causes noise in two different ways:
- Directly: Swooshing sound when there's notable air flow through it
- Indirectly: Slows the airflow, thus requiring marginally greater fan speed, which then increases the fan motor noise

I'm not an expert on this but I suspect that removing the grille makes most difference with very low air flow and shouldn't be considered a solution for decreasing the swooshing sound.

Before considering the grill removal, I would first experiment all possibilities for killing the fan motor noise:
- Using a quiet fan model
- Softmounting the fan, possible to new position (with optional ducting)
- Undervolting to minimal air flow
- Damping the case vibrations

If after that, there's still some swooshing sound, there must be also notable air flow and the fan motor noise is likely even more audible, especially when listening further away (because of the lower frequency). Then, removing the grill hardly makes any audible difference.

If, however, you can kill the fan motor noise only by undervolting the fan to speed which almost but not quite keeps the temperature at acceptable level and the fan grill is clearly the worst obstacle of the air flow (although there's hardly any audible swooshing with lowered air flow), it is possible that removing the grill eases the flow enough to allow quiet operation using minimal fan speed.

I ended up removing the rear grille of my Solo, but for me it wasn't that useful anyway.

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