Quiet PC wanted

Forums › Desktop computing › Quiet PC wanted

ritchie

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#32431 16-Apr-2009 21:40

My father in laws new IMAC sits in his lounge and it just cannot be heard. I don't want a IMAC, I dont have the $$$ and while I appreciate that machine, I just can't be arsed figuring it out. My desktop on the other hand sounds like a hair dryer and just ps$$es me off big time.

Anyone know what it would cost to make a noisy box quiet and how to go about it - or can a very quiet machine be bought for less than $1K - I only need the box and while I need a graphics card, my requirements are minimal.

thanks

gehenna

8667 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3883

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#207404 16-Apr-2009 22:25

The cheapest way to achieve this without buying a new computer is to buy better fans. Check sites like ascent.co.nz for cooling fans that have tags like "silent" or "low decibel". the biggest noisemakers are standard cheap fans that sit on your case, and on your cpu. get a good quality cpu fan that has a heavy ball bearing in it. same for your case fans. bigger case fans usually spin slower and make less noise.

also replace your power supply with a low-noise one. dual fans is usually good for this as it keeps the psu cooler and means the fans inside it spin slower.

another thing to try is replacing some fans with heatsinks. for example if you have a northbridge fan try replacing this with a heatsink you can get them cheaply.

another big noise maker is the graphics card. you can usually get graphics cards with heatsinks instead of fans - this makes your graphics card completely silent. they're not overly expensive depending on your requirements. my computer in the lounge has all of these solutions in place and the loudest part of it is the hard drive when it clicks away and accesses data :)

Ragnor

8279 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 585

Trusted

#207415 16-Apr-2009 23:49

Open it up and identify what's causing the racket, is is case vibration? Small high rpm fans? Worn out bearings in chassis or cpu fans? Power supply fan?

Replace small high rpm worn out fans with larger lower rpm fans, google the 7v and 5v mod for slowing down high rpm fans. Look into case dampening material... etc

Unxious

34 posts

Geek

#208977 24-Apr-2009 10:36

The best recommendation I always give is to purchase a Zalman power supply. Next best thing is to purchase a HDD silencer kit. The thermal throttling on stock CPU coolers isn't actually that bad. Most noise comes from crappy PSUs and HDDs.

Any decent motherboard comes with heatpipes for the chipsets anyway

redjet

299 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#209005 24-Apr-2009 12:28

Extremetech just did a review on three quiet PC cases which might help: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2345623,00.asp

One of these plus an silent Zalman PSU should do the trick.

Red Jet Web Services
- Affordable websites for small businesses
- Google Email setup and Migrations

rhysb

435 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

Trusted

#209990 27-Apr-2009 22:04

ritchie, there's a lot of good stuff about silencing a computer over at Silent PC Review

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#211842 3-May-2009 08:48

Also have a look to see if there's any software from the manufacturer of your motherboard to control fan speeds dynamically (or they may be something straight in the BIOS). I found some for mine recently (an Asus board), that slows the fans down after power up (they initially go full speed for only a couple of seconds and then throttle back) and only increases their speed if the temperature increases. It made the world of difference, and although it's still audible, it's no-where near as loud as it used to be (and of course didn't cost a thing, unlike the hardware mods available to try and make a truly silent PC, which may still be your end goal).