The initial spec

A year ago I built my second rig and I thought I had learn my lesson from my previous computer (see Cutting noise on my old computer) when selecting the components. You bet...this was without counting on the fast pace in computer evolution. From my humble Athlon XP 1800+ I got an Athlon 64 4000Mhz and from a G4 graphic card got a 7800GT. Both require much more power to run and produce much more heat on the same scale! So after managing to reduce the noise level of my old box I had to do the same again with my new rig. My new computer spec is as follows:

Computer case: Antec P180.
Motherboard: Abit KN8-SLI nForce4.
Processor: Athlon64 4000+ San Diego.
Memory: Geil 2x1GB PC3200 Dual Channel DDR.
PSU: Tagan TG530-U22 530W.
Graphic card: XFX GeForce 7800GT Extreme 256MB GDDR3.
Hard disk: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 (250GB).
Monitor: Sony SDM-HS95P/R Black 8ms 1000:1.
Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse (version 1).
and recycled from the old computer:
- CD-RW: Mitsumi CR-485ETE.
- DVD-ROM: LGGDR-8163B.
- Floppy drive: Sony.
- Speakers: Creative Inspire 4400 (4.1).

A small but annoying problem take 2

After just one year CPUs and GPUs have improved dramatically but their thermal outputs have been slashed thanks to a smaller die as this is the case for the Core Duo processor class. I was therefore unlucky to have upgrade my computer a year ago because the need of about half a dozen of fans would not have been required! Anyway based on my previous computer experience I was still careful to choose some cooling solutions that did not create massive level of noise. For instance, I did not bother installing the retail CPU fan and choose the Artic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (pictured) which not only provide better cooling but is also much less noisy. Nevertheless the noise coming from my new box still started to irritate me. I could also feel the vibration of the case through the wooden floor. As you might expect I needed to take actions again...

Getting rid of the vibrations

Most new computer cases such as my Antec P180 now provide padded feet and hard-disk rubber grommets that supposably reduce the amount of vibration to be spread to the case and floor. My experience shown me that it does not work. Thus I decided to use the same method as with my old computer to stop hard-disk vibrations: suspend the damn thing. I therefore returned to my nearest hobby craft shop and bought some more standard elastic band 5mm width and 3 metres long. I know that it may sound quite a lot but after having read the sad story of quite a few people experiences about elastic band snatching after several months, I decided to double up the crossing pattern hence the length that I needed. I also had to decide where to put the hard-disk because the drive cage was not big enough again! I ended placing the hard-disk in a spare 5 1/4 bay too. As I've already said it might not be ideal to get rid of the heat produced by the hard-disk but I'm not doing heavy work requiring disk access for long period of time anyway. Below is a shot of my suspension work viewed from the front. It shows well the way I tied the disk. Even if you lay the case flat or move the case, the disk does not move a bit.

Next is the disk viewed from the inside of the case.

In contrast with my old computer case, the 5 1/4 bay in this instance has holes that are far apart enough to hold the hard-disk horizontally nicely.

The result is that vibrations have stopped all together and the only noise made by the hard-disk is the clicking of the head when reading and writing if you really try to listen to it because the case itself is damping most of the noise. This is a big thumb up for me and a must have in any case.

Getting rid of the fans noise

Fans are the most noisiest components in a computer. No one has invented yet a way to cool down the electronic components in silence even if some will tell you that water cooling is the answer. As far as I can see if you need 3 fans to remove the heat from your water plus still need an extra fan to ventilate other parts of the computer case, then that defeats the idea of a fanless computer! So where do you need fans:

for your processor.
your graphic card.
the PSU.
hard-disks.
the chipset on lastest motherboard.
for general ventilation of the computer case to cover small electronic components and CD drives.

Ok now I think you've got the picture...that's a lot of fans! Have a look at the inside of my PC.

My quest to make my computer more silent started by looking at the PSU but there is little hope to do anything about it because fans are built-in and it is generally not a good idea to open PSU cases and mod them. I know there are out there some who do but for me the only solution is to buy a PSU that has been recommended in Custom PC or other computer magazine. To that effect I bought the Tagan TG530-U22 PSU but after a year and all modifications in place it is now the most noisiest part of the computer.

Onto the fans for my hard-disk and CD drives: I can get away without any. So I did!

Antec P180 comes with 3 fans which speed can be set to low, medium or high. Unfortunately these are not the most silent ever and I decided to replace them with the excellent Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 12cm System Fan, 1000rpm. One of the top that expels hot air out.

One fan at the back that work in tandem with the fan at the front, just above the floppy drive, to create an air flow inside the case.

Trying to silence the graphic card has been more complex than anticipated. First I removed the stock fan (quite noisy when playing games) with Artic cooling NV Silencer rev 3 which was recommended on lots of web sites. However I struggled to fit in because my graphic card was not as long as the cooler and I resorted to cut part of it to fit in my case! The resulting decrease in noise level was noticeable but still not to my liking and after a few month the fan started to be noisier. The problem I though was that I could not exchange the fan for a more silent one and I started to think about fanless cooling solution for the graphic card or if not totally fanless using a fan of my choice on top (litteraly) of a radiator. This lead me to install Thermalright HR-03 Rev A as pictured below:

If you want to know more about this mod go to Fanless (and therefore noiseless) video card. In the present configuration I manage to get away without fan on top of this cooler.

Taming all those fans

Having done all that I could still hear those fans a little bit too much for my liking. This is mainly because they are spinning at full speed all the time which is good in the worst case scenario such as playing a video game but over the top when you are simply writing code while streaming music via the internet. A little bit of research on the web lead me to look at fan controllers. However most of them come as a box that is fitted into a 5 1/4 bay and let you vary the fan speed using dials. Yes this means you have to manually vary the speed of your fans which is for me a strange concept because I though computers were there to do the boring jobs for you. Hence I wanted a fan controller that will automatically vary the fan speeds according to the temperature of your CPU, GPU and so on! Fortunitaly there is such a product: mCubed t-balancer fan controller.

This box controls up to 4 fans using 6 temperature probes. Perfect as I have 4 fans. The only real downside is the amount of cables to install as you can see below

Even so, having setup the controller to a target temperature for each fan (click here for more details), the result is that fans are only spinning when required and so the level of noise has dramatically decreased. Most of the time during 5 minutes after boot-up, the only fans spinning are the one from the PSU! Which is why I can now say that these are the noisiest in my box!

The result take 2