Addiction: Quiet PC
on 02.11.05, 06:36am in home theater, microsoft • comments (5)
I’ve found my latest addiction: Reducing the noise from my PC (in other words, how to make a PC not sound like a hairdryer). In some weird way, I feel like someone addicted to body art - every time I make a small tweak and make some progress, I start looking at ‘what can I modify next’.
It started last week when I asked if anyone had any suggestions for reducing the fan noise that was coming from my Sapphire Radeon 9600 that I had put into a new Shuttle case. There were some really good responses, but due to the space restrictions I ended up replacing the fan with a Vantec Iceberq 4. Just to boot (and after some additional reading on the Sudhian SFF Forums), I also decided to place a Zalman Fanmate on the new VGA fan.
Fired it up last night: Wow. What an amazing difference, and now the ICE cooler in the back of the Shuttle is the only noise coming from the box. Not surprisingly, I’m now on the hunt for a ultra quiet 80mm fan replacement, which will hopefully get the box to be completely silent.
Hearing the difference, I’ve decided that I’m done with computer noise.
After I do the same fan modifications to Liz’s older Shuttle box, I’m going to start on a campaign to end the noise coming from my homebrew Media Center. Based on David and Jeremy’s feedback, I’ve gone ahead and ordered an Artic Cooling fan and a Zalman CPU fan. Next up will be the power supply.
Jeff also pointed me to the Silent PC Review website, which I highly recommend if you want do quiet down your PC.
Brock Tice (February 11, 2005 @ 9:48 pm)
Vantec Stealth = Quiet 80 mm fan. I have four in my case and it purrs like a kitten. Or doesn’t actually, which is the point, right? I think they’re only $10 or less if you find them in the right places. Don’t want to spam, so if you’re curious as to a good place to get them, drop me a line.
Jeff Atwood (February 11, 2005 @ 10:31 pm)
You don’t need a fan on the 9600! Believe me, I know. Many come from the vendors passively cooled out of the box. And the quietest fan of all is NONE. Passive cooling is the holy grail for silent pc enthusiasts. For this video card, it’s trivial (due to very low power draw of the 9600), but for a complete system it is astonishingly difficult.
Good news is, the newer winchester A64s, and the Pentium-M dothan desktop systems (although pricey) run extremely cool. With a P-M, you could probably do an ultra-low airflow PC that would be inaudible from a few feet away, and the winchester A64s are relatively easy to run very quietly if you know what to look for.
> Vantec Stealth = Quiet 80 mm fan.
Er.. umm.. all I can say is, there are a lot of people on the SPC forums who disagree with you. Including me. I’ve used Panaflo L1A (Japan manufactured version aka japanaflo) for a long time, although I think a few contenders for the 80mm crown have emerged in the last year.
Steve (February 12, 2005 @ 12:14 pm)
Oh, I believe you on the 9600 - but, in all serious, the Iceberq with the Fanmate is almost completely silent (where I dont even hear it).
Steve (February 12, 2005 @ 12:16 pm)
80mm fan - I ended up ordering a Nexus 80 mm Real Silent, which have also had some great reviews (http://www.xtremecomputing.co.uk/review.php?id=76 )
Jeff Atwood (February 12, 2005 @ 4:04 pm)
> but, in all serious, the Iceberq with the Fanmate is almost completely silent (where I dont even hear it).
Still, why have a moving part and additional complexity in your system where there doesn’t need to be? There are plenty of video cards that DEMAND active cooling– you’re fortunate enough not to have one of them. I’d take advantage of it.