Hi all,
I have a system somewhat similar to what I saw posted on here earlier (http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=33900), BUT, with a few important differences.
First, the system, as-is:
P4 2.8Ghz HT w/stock Intel cooler
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe mobo (fanless)
2.5GB Corsaire RAM
3 video encoders: 1 professional half-length PCI card, 2 consumer-grade regular-sized PCI cards
Pro sound card (also half-length PCI)
Matrox G550 (yeah, I know, no 3D performance, but I don't need it here, just as long as I have fanless dual-monitor goodness)
4 IDE HDDs (2 Seagate 320GB, 1 WD 120GB, 1 Maxtor 120GB)
4 SATA HDDs (4 Seagate 300GB)
2 optical drives (not real concerned about noise on these)
Antec SX1240 case (big-ass case, computer weighs 71 lbs)
Antec True 550 PS
7 case fans of varying types, all speed-regulated either internally or by PS
As configured, it runs 48dB(A), 53dB(C) @ 1m. This wasn't a problem where I used to work, but in my new office, it's terribly noisy.
There's a noise peak at ~110Hz, a hump at 200-400Hz, and a high shelf at ~10KHz-20KHz, with the hump at 200-400Hz being the most pronounced.
I know the old 120GB drives are some of the louder sources of noise, especially in the higher frequencies and probably will be replacing those with the 320GB Seagates soon, as I'm needing more capacity again. After those, the drone of the case fans appear to be the next-noisiest items...BUT, with a system like this, I truly need good cooling.
The new office's AC measures at ~12dB(C), which is outstanding, but really makes the PC even more noticable. I'd like to get this system under 25dB(A), but have a more realistic goal of ~32dB(A), and I'm open to most ideas, BUT, I'm not handy at all with woodwork, nor do I have tools for it.
I was eyeing the Antec P180 case, but not sure if it'd be able to handle the amount of crap I'm going to want to shove into it, BUT, it does sound like it might have the cooling requirements. I'm open to suggestions. One other slight problem is that the system is sometimes subjected to warmer ambient temps (~85F) when the AC shuts down for the weekend. The aforementioned noise measurements were taken at 75F. It's been awhile since I've come in on a weekend, but the system is substantially noiser at the higher temps.
Silencing the 71 lb (32 kilo) beast
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NeilBlanchard
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Greetings & welcome to SPCR!
That is a major challenge, to be sure: just fitting eight HD's is a challenge, and keeping them cool is another...Seagate HD's can run warm.
The case is obviously the "fulcrum" point: it must have lots of space (for suspension most likely), and have excellent air flow. All the fans need to be at least 92mm, or better yet 120mm. You need to get rid of the stock HSF and probably the Antec PS, too.
Is 2.5GB of RAM enough? Wouldn't you rather invest in a 4GB+ 64bit system? Hey, I can't think if 8GB of RAM is out of the question for this rig, and wouldn't that negate the need for some of the HD's?
That is a major challenge, to be sure: just fitting eight HD's is a challenge, and keeping them cool is another...Seagate HD's can run warm.
The case is obviously the "fulcrum" point: it must have lots of space (for suspension most likely), and have excellent air flow. All the fans need to be at least 92mm, or better yet 120mm. You need to get rid of the stock HSF and probably the Antec PS, too.
Is 2.5GB of RAM enough? Wouldn't you rather invest in a 4GB+ 64bit system? Hey, I can't think if 8GB of RAM is out of the question for this rig, and wouldn't that negate the need for some of the HD's?
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Longwalker
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You won't have much luck quieting that many HDs. If you can, replace your eight current drives with three 750GB units. You could also look at remoting most of your storage over a gigE NAS or SAN. Leave a quiet boot drive in the system but put the rest of your drives in a ventilated closet somewhere.
Next step after taking care of the drives would be to upgrade to a more power efficient processor. C2D or AMD-anything.
With the drives and processor taken care of, you should be able to get rid of most of your fans without roasting the system.
Next step after taking care of the drives would be to upgrade to a more power efficient processor. C2D or AMD-anything.
With the drives and processor taken care of, you should be able to get rid of most of your fans without roasting the system.
Good comments everyone, and they've got me thinking about things. Basically, I had 2 Seagate 300GB drives go tits-up, so this system's going to be off-line for a few days while I do data recovery & rebuilding, so I might as well investigate quieting it down a bit...
8 HDDs initially appears to be overkill until you see how they're being used. The 4 SATAs are being used for a RAID 0+1 setup, 2 IDE are being used for incoming encoding, 1 IDE is used for the swapfile / long term storage, and the last IDE is used for the system drive.
I've pondered the 750GB HDDs, but at ~$0.55/GB for a 750GB drive vs. $0.29/GB for a 320GB drive, I'll gladly take 2x the storage for approximately the same price. I also need the performance. The pro video card pushes 100Mb/sec (22 hrs/terrabyte) for a single stream, more when you start to add additional layers of video. If I wanted to run full uncompressed HD video through here, it'd be about 960Mbit/sec (2 hrs/terrabyte), which is just obscene. I'm sure a fiber channel setup could handle that, BUT I have no real need/desire for that. Would a gigE NAS be able to handle the load? I don't do 960Mbit, but it's not unusual for me to push 200-300Mbit/sec when going full-throttle.
As far as changing out the entire system, I'm not 100% opposed to that. I've often pondered splitting the system into 2 (or 3) separate systems. After much tweaking & hacking, this system is amazingly stable despite the sheer mass of conflicting hardware crammed into it. Other than convienence, it's not mandatory that the satellite encoders sit on the editbay computer; at the same time, the streaming encoder doesn't need to be on the main system either. It's very handy to have everything on one system, but not an absolute requirement. Despite all that I ask of this system, the CPU usage tends to idle around 25% when I'm just doing casual things on here, goes up to about 60% when doing something a bit more intensive. The add-in cards do most of the gruntwork (and probably put out most of the heat.) I have the video rendering PCI card ducted out to the back of the computer with a slot cooler, consistently putting out a nice stream of heated air there.
The one problem I DO have with switching to a new system is the lack of PCI slots (or just lack of slots in general) on the newer mobos. I'm using 4 of the 5 PCI slots on this motherboard, with the "spare" slot being taken up by a slot cooler for the rendering card. PCIe versions of these cards aren't available yet for some of the ones I use....and are terribly overpriced ($2k+) for others of them.
Just thinking "out loud" here... If I yanked the satellite encoding and threw those in a new machine, that'd take 2-3 HDDs + 2 PCIs out of this box. The encoding box could live anywhere in the building, since the software for it is actually written to be used remotely via TCP/IP.
FWIW, here's a noise profile of the system. Ignore the crap below 100Hz -- I just snapped this pic with thunderstorms in the area & generator running. It appears that most of my system noise is probably fan noise. The drives didn't even show up this time around.
8 HDDs initially appears to be overkill until you see how they're being used. The 4 SATAs are being used for a RAID 0+1 setup, 2 IDE are being used for incoming encoding, 1 IDE is used for the swapfile / long term storage, and the last IDE is used for the system drive.
I've pondered the 750GB HDDs, but at ~$0.55/GB for a 750GB drive vs. $0.29/GB for a 320GB drive, I'll gladly take 2x the storage for approximately the same price. I also need the performance. The pro video card pushes 100Mb/sec (22 hrs/terrabyte) for a single stream, more when you start to add additional layers of video. If I wanted to run full uncompressed HD video through here, it'd be about 960Mbit/sec (2 hrs/terrabyte), which is just obscene. I'm sure a fiber channel setup could handle that, BUT I have no real need/desire for that. Would a gigE NAS be able to handle the load? I don't do 960Mbit, but it's not unusual for me to push 200-300Mbit/sec when going full-throttle.
As far as changing out the entire system, I'm not 100% opposed to that. I've often pondered splitting the system into 2 (or 3) separate systems. After much tweaking & hacking, this system is amazingly stable despite the sheer mass of conflicting hardware crammed into it. Other than convienence, it's not mandatory that the satellite encoders sit on the editbay computer; at the same time, the streaming encoder doesn't need to be on the main system either. It's very handy to have everything on one system, but not an absolute requirement. Despite all that I ask of this system, the CPU usage tends to idle around 25% when I'm just doing casual things on here, goes up to about 60% when doing something a bit more intensive. The add-in cards do most of the gruntwork (and probably put out most of the heat.) I have the video rendering PCI card ducted out to the back of the computer with a slot cooler, consistently putting out a nice stream of heated air there.
The one problem I DO have with switching to a new system is the lack of PCI slots (or just lack of slots in general) on the newer mobos. I'm using 4 of the 5 PCI slots on this motherboard, with the "spare" slot being taken up by a slot cooler for the rendering card. PCIe versions of these cards aren't available yet for some of the ones I use....and are terribly overpriced ($2k+) for others of them.
Just thinking "out loud" here... If I yanked the satellite encoding and threw those in a new machine, that'd take 2-3 HDDs + 2 PCIs out of this box. The encoding box could live anywhere in the building, since the software for it is actually written to be used remotely via TCP/IP.
FWIW, here's a noise profile of the system. Ignore the crap below 100Hz -- I just snapped this pic with thunderstorms in the area & generator running. It appears that most of my system noise is probably fan noise. The drives didn't even show up this time around.