First silent system... Did I forget anything? Fans?

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Miranda
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:21 am

First silent system... Did I forget anything? Fans?

Post by Miranda » Mon May 16, 2005 5:27 pm

Hello all...I have been researching parts for my silent PC for over 6 months now, and I think that I am finally ready to pull the trigger! By day I am a Java programmer who telecommutes, and by night I play many hours of World of Warcraft with my boyfriend, so my goal is to build a quiet yet powerful PC for both programming and gaming.

My current PC that I built is screamingly loud at about 60 db @ 1 foot from the front grill. I am slowly going insane with the noise since I sit in here 12+ hours some days! It's a full tower case with stock case and CPU fans and stock power supply, and I am just ready to make it smaller and quieter (and faster of course! :)) I'm even ready to let go of my SCSI habit!

Since I am replacing the whole kit and caboodle, not just upgrading things, I just want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything in my proposed setup as far as silencing goes (I know I've got things covered parts wise...I've left off the DVD, sound card, and speakers from the list as they're not too relevant):

Case: Antec SLK3000B
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
Motherboard: Asus A8N-E
Memory: Corsair PC3200 1GB
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA
Video: BFG GeForce 6800GT
PSU: Seasonic S12 430W
Fans: ??? (question below)
Heatsinks: Thermalright XP-90, Zalman VF700-Cu, Zalman ZM-NB47J
Noise Reduction: AcoustiPack pre-cut for BQE, NoiseMagic NoVibes 3, Acousti silicone fan gaskets for 120mm

My question about fans is... has anyone heard/read anything good about the new AcoustiFan DustPROOF fans? They look good from the descriptions, but of course they are going to make them sound good, otherwise they wouldn't sell many! :) I was going to go with the Nexus fans (2x120mm for the case and 92mm for the XP-90) but the AcoustiFans are tempting because they come with three-speed cable so that you can easily undervolt them.

I chose the 430W S12 over the 380W because I didn't want to get too much more powersupply than I need, and I know that the higher wattage ones are a different design, but I did want some room to grow...I'm planning to possibly overclock the CPU a little bit. Nothing too outrageous.

I chose the Seagate over the Samsung drive because honestly, Seagate's always been good to me, and I'm hesitant to leave the brand I trust for a slightly quieter drive. I'm hoping that the NoVibes helps make the drive quieter, and I'm planning to remove the drive cage and mount the NoVibes onto the base of it, as I saw someone else on the forums here do, so that it will get plenty of airflow from the front intake.

Thanks in advance for any replies! This is a great forum...I have learned so much about quieting my computer! :)

Green Shoes
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Posts: 477
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Location: Nashville, TN

Post by Green Shoes » Mon May 16, 2005 5:34 pm

Greetings and Welcome to SPCR!!!

That list looks quite good, actually; eerily similar to the build I just made. A few suggestions:

If you want to save yourself a few bucks, just suspend the HDD in one of the 5.25" drive bays, or even in the empty space below the bays. It works arguably better than the drive enclosure, and is much cheaper. Since you're not getting four optical drives, you should have plenty of room for that.

That's another thing; I didn't see any optical drives listed. Do you already have a DVD/CD drive? NEC and Samsung are two quieter brands to look at if you haven't. I personally would suggest a DVD-rom drive (not a burner) for better safety when reading copy-protected discs, but you can also add a burner (what I did); both drives together were under $100.

For the fans, Nexus are a very good choice or (if you can find them) Yate Loons. As far as the fan controlling goes, the 120-mm case fan that comes with the case already has it built in...but I am bypassing that and using the excellent Nexus NXP-205 fan controller (see some comments in this thread. It's under $20 bucks at bestbyte.com.

Other than that, everything looked pretty good. Enjoy your build!

Miranda
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:21 am

Post by Miranda » Mon May 16, 2005 5:43 pm

Thanks! :)

I have a Plextor PX-716A for the optical drive and am getting a Creative Audigy2 ZS sound card, and Logitech Z-2300 speakers...I just left them off the list since they weren't too relevant to the silence part.

I will check out your drive suspension and fan controller suggestions. I wasn't too keen on dangling the drive in the space below the bays but I'll give it some more consideration. :)

m0002a
Posts: 2831
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:12 am
Location: USA

Post by m0002a » Mon May 16, 2005 5:45 pm

Green Shoes wrote:I personally would suggest a DVD-rom drive (not a burner) for better safety when reading copy-protected discs.
Could you elaborate on this? I am not familar with that issue,

Green Shoes
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Posts: 477
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2005 6:41 am
Location: Nashville, TN

Post by Green Shoes » Wed May 18, 2005 5:30 am

m0002a wrote:
Green Shoes wrote:I personally would suggest a DVD-rom drive (not a burner) for better safety when reading copy-protected discs.
Could you elaborate on this? I am not familar with that issue,
I have just known a few people who have had problems getting copy protection on games to read with DVD-RW. I think it is limited to games at this point b/c they are the only copyrighted discs that need to be shipped on DVD. There aren't too many doing it, to the best of my knowledge, but check the Amazon.com reader reviews for something like Myst IV and you can find quite a few people reporting that problem. It might just be limited to a specific type of DRM (I'm not familiar with the types used on DVDs, I couldn't really say). Never had this problem myself, but then I've never only had a burner before, either.

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