Quieting a PC

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Smily

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Howdy all,
How many have a silencer box to stick there pc in while recording. I was thinking of a square box with 2 inches of foam all the way around with front vent holes and rear holes with a baffle of some sort. I need to make the family room dead quiet and I think this is where most of the noise is coming from.

Thanks,

Smily
 
in expanding your options ...
MaximumPC Magazine has a (how to ) make your pc quiet in the July 2002 issue

Guidance
 
If you search the building studio and display forum, you´ll find a post that gives you the blueprints for such a box. Beware that adequate ventilation is of outmost importance if you dont want to fry your computer. Or you could buy one especifically designed for this and fork out about $500. The choice is yours.:D
 
The noisiest part of a PC is usually the CPU fan.

If you can cut its noise levels down you should have a substantial reduction in noise levels.

Ideally upgrade your heatsink and use a 80 mm fan, it should cut down your noise levels. At a minor performance hit, install a software cooler which will help cut down the temperatures when the CPU is idle.
 
Sangram, what Heatsink have the best quietness/cooling ratio, because I´ve looking around and have really found no definite answers, also I looked around for the Noise Control Silverado, and have found no retailer that carries it.........
 
You actually need to a bit of work on this one. Lemme know what processor you have and which mobo. A lot depends on the chip you wanna cool, and how much real estate is available to fit the HSF onto.

Go to Directron (ww.directron.com)

The have an extensive range of Heatsinks.

Select the Thermalright AX-7. It's a brute but comes without a fan. Add a low-speed, low noise Vantec 80 mm case fan to it. This should give you a setup sufficient for an Athlon XP 1800+, or in a pinch with a software cooler, a 1900+ as well. You might have to assemble and install the cooler yourself, no problems with that I hope.

If you don't want to go to all that way, A Thermaltake Volcano 7+ (note the +, it's critical) is your best bet. It has a nice speed selector and is pretty quiet on the lowest setting, and can keep some heavy-duty chips cool.
 
I wanna go with Ahton 2100 and either with Soyo Dragon Ultra or Asus7v333 as mobo. i´ll check the link you sent. Any other suggestions?
 
Sangram, now that you mention it, I read some post about someone here who had the Thermal Take Volcano 7+ and that it wasn´t that quiet....
 
For the 2100+ the Volcano 7+ should be just fine. All the heatsinks should fit the Asus no problem, just check the Soyo once but I don't think it should be a problem.

Apart from the Thermalright, a good option for you would be the Alpha PAL 8045. This too, needs to have a fan selected and assembled.

Look at the Coolermaster HHC-002 or HHC-001 but they will be slightly noisy, you can replace the fans with quieter models. I would suggest a 60-80 mm adapter on these an then a nice quite Vantec Stealth 80 mm case fan. Should get you decent temps.

Go to dansdata (www.dansdata.com). This crazy Aussie (actually all of them are a bit wonky and I love that!) has compared some 200 coolers for performance. Now he doesn't have P ratings on the comparison but absolute conductivity figures, but it's a very good comparison and you can really get a wide choice and he's also paid some attention to the noise levels. The guy is a goldmine!

Sorry for the broken link in the post above. www.directron.com

Sang
 
yeah the 7+ is noisy at default settings. There's a switch that you can use to back off the speed, I believe it's pretty quiet at the lowest speed.

It's the Volcano7 that's the killer. It's supposed to regulate fan speed depending on chip temperature, the control is supposed to be automatic so you get a quiet fan when the system is idling and it speeds up under load. The ideal situation in theory. In practice, it didn't work wll at all and users were faced with screamers.

Remeber the heatsink has little to do with the noise. It's the fan on the heatsink. If your heatsink is noisy, a fan change should help. In general there are two things to remember: the faster the fan, the more noise it generates (rpm/Db) and the larger the fan, the more air it moves at a given speed (cfm). You should ideally look for sub 20dB fans with at least 25 cfm for the 8045 or the AX-7. Anything above 20 dB will be loud. You need a large fan so it can move large quantities of air at lower speeds (and therefore lower noise).

The heatsink removes the heat from the chip. The fan removes the heat from the heatsink. It looks like one process, but it is not. One way to lick the noise problem is large heatsink, slow and large fan. The majority of builders use small heatsink, hi-speed small fan which generate a lot of noise.
 
So I understand that there are some heatsinks that one can change the fan, so if I find it too noisy, I could always change the fan?
 
Sang, could you post the specific link on Dans page for the cooler reviews, it is just that I´ve looked around the site but only find individual reviews and no comparison between all the models...
 
Actually, yeah (sheepish grin) there's no comparison as such but each cooler on the right bar has a c/W rating near it. That'll be your guide.

I would say look at the top few coolers. about .5 to .6 should be fine.

All the 6 pages have individual cooller reviews.
 
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