Sshhhh...did you hear that?

[~Yuckfou~]

No? good!

I'm putting together a new PC. All the bits have arrived, just need to allocate some build time. Was going to do it this weekend but Mrs Yuck has now "allocated" my weekend for me, damn relatives!
Antway I'm going for silent, I mean really quiet. As a result I've not got the very latest and hottest products but it should be easily enough to play HL2 D3 etc.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939)
Asus A8V Rev.2 Deluxe (Socket 939) Wireless Edition. This has no Northbridge fan, instead it has a fairly chunky heatsink.
Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler, anyone got one of these?
Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W PSU
Gigabyte GeForce 6800 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (Double heatsink/heatpipe and no fan!)

I'm guessing the noisiest thing in the box is now going to be my 2 x 7200rpm drives. I'll let you know if all this has been worth it.

 

[TdC]

you could try mounting the drives on gaskets of some sort to reduce vibration noises Yucky. also, while I don't have that precise cooler I've had zalman coolers for ages and they kick arse imo.

 

[Tom]

Quietpc do a hard drive box that gets rid of a bit of noise. It won't fit SATA cables though.

 

[~Yuckfou~]

I seem to remember some mountings that held the drives in suspension, kinda held by rubber bands, but I can't find it. I will also change the power settings so that the drives switch off if not in use.
The cooler fan is variable speed, so under low load I can turn it to "silent running", my current setup sounds like a hovercraft


I'll have a look at that quietPC stuff later at home, ta.

 

[Gef]

My PC sounds like a jet fighter taking off, I just turn the music up, sod paying for all these fangled quiet PC solutions

 

[Dillinja]

My PC sounds like a jet fighter taking off, I just turn the music up, sod paying for all these fangled quiet PC solutions

Same here.

I find the noise that my PC makes to be kind of soothing anyway.

 

[.Wilier.]

The cooler fan is variable speed, so under low load I can turn it to "silent running", my current setup sounds like a hovercraft

Ive got the full copper flower in my Acrylic case, and its pretty fucking great tbh.
You will probably find that even on full speed, you wont hear it.

 

[~Yuckfou~]

Oh my god this is quiet!

 

[SoWat]

This month's Computer Shopper has quite a large section on quietening PCs, might be worth taking a gander as they mention some HD soundproofing thingies.

A quiet PC has a lot of appeal for me too... so I'll be looking at this in the New Year.

 

[Tom]

I'd be very happy if someone did a good cooling fan for the 6800GT tbfh. Mine is the Aeolus 6800GT.

 

[Brynn]

Im thinking about getting sound proofing

 

[Clown]

I'd be very happy if someone did a good cooling fan for the 6800GT tbfh. Mine is the Aeolus 6800GT.

Did you not like the Arctic Cooling solution?

 

[Tom]

Whats that then? Have you got a link?

 

[smurkin]

Did you not like the Arctic Cooling solution?

Yah....I have one on my 6800...its not silent, but its a massive improvement on the stock cooler - and the cooling is just as good if not better.

I got mine from overclockers.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Arctic_Cooling.html

 

[Clown]

Yeah, what smurkin said. Sorry, I went to sleep. I found that I can't hear it from inside my Antec Sonata case, and it keeps things much cooler so allow for more overclocking.

Yuck -
My setup is centred around silence, or low noise. I've got fan controllers on my high speed fans, so I can turn them off at night, and just keep the CPU one at low speed. Look for SilenX fans as they make quiet fans, but a price. The case makes all the difference. My one uses padded brackets for the drives, and has rubber gromets as fixtures for the fans and uses rubber feet for the case to stop that vibration which causes that tinny hum. My heatsink/fan combo is probably one of the quietest and coolest around. Thermalright SP97. I don't think they make them any more, but any of the Thermalright heatsinks are pretty much very good anyway. Certain ones lets you chose a fan to go on top of it, so just chose the quietest fan. I have a 10k rpm hard drive in my Sonata, and to be honest, thats the only thing that I can really hear at night. A constant bassy hum. I think there are some enclosures or something you can get for them, but I already have tinitus so it doesn't bother me
Then you can get loads of foam or something and stuff that in all the spaces in your case to help absorb the sound. You can line your case with that shit, and stuff the spare drive bays and some other random places depending on how itchy your bum is. I haven't done this because mine's quite quiet already.

My other solution was easy. I set up a server in the hallway downstairs and run it remotely with VNC. Now I can leave stuff downloading overnight and turn my computer off if I'm not charging my iPod.

 

[Cyradix]

Yup, get an Antec Sonata. I bought mine about 6 months ago and I'm very happy with it!

 

[Tom]

Thanks for the replies. I just had a look at the quietpc site, and found something I think is new (couldn't find a 6800 fan before)

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/vgamb.php#vf700

I've got a Zalman PSU and its bloody excellent, so I'm minded to buy another Zalman product. It says that I need pushpins around the GPU, I'm not exactly certain they are what I think they are, so heres a piccie of my card - can anyone tell me if its ok for this Zalman VF700?

 

[Clown]

Arctic Coolers are the best, and they will fit on any 6800GT.

 

[smurkin]

mmmm, Zalman looks nice...doesnt seem to vent out of the case tho.

 

[Tom]

Ordered the Zalman

 

[~Yuckfou~]

Ordered the Zalman

It's similar in design to the CPU cooler I bought. I had a problem fitting that because there was already a backplate on the mobo. This stopped me using the Zalman backplate. I did an improv job and used washers on the mounting bolts to get the spacing right. Managed not to crush anything and seems to work perfectly Now that it's "settled in" it's running even cooler too. Think I'm going to moderately o/c the CPU and graphics.

 

[Tom]

Just installed it now. You have to remove everything, including the heatsink from the CPU. Then you install the brace (its not so clear, but it goes on the back of the card).

Be careful with the RAM heatsinks, the glue is pretty weak, although Zalman says it cures once exposed to heat.

'tis very quiet. Now I think I may order a CPU fan.

 

[Tom]

Much bigger than it looks from the website! Don't buy one of these if you have only 2-3 expansion slots!

Its also showing a 10 degree C drop in temperature (its now 51), which is rather excellent, although I can't oc it any more than I already had it at.