Silencing my PC

Stephen

My PC sounds like a jet engine, and I think its down to my crappy CPU HSF. (spire whisperrock thing that came in a komplett bundle)
My graphics card has an arctic silencer on it, and my PSU is an antec SL400 so I doubt they are the source of the noise. I ran the PSU by itself (just have to connect two of the pins on the atx power plug to do this) and it was very - very- quiet, but of course that was under practically no load.

SO i'm guessing I will need to get a quieter HSF and maybe a quieter case fan? I also have three hard disks but I'm not too concerned with them, the noise doesn't sound like one a hard disk would make.

Any recommendations? Something that will keep my xp2800+ nice and cool (not overclocking) without drowning out the sounds of far cry

the rest of my pc specs are in my sig.

Col_Loki

Ok main problems are most lightly ......

1) Your case fan/fans
2) Your CPU cooler as you said
3) Your NB cooler (a little fecker i mite add)

The Zalman 7000 is not compatabile with the NF7 but with a little snipping etc it apparently is........ had a great link to the mod but its either at home or lost.

What you could do is replace the Fan on your Spire with a nice silent one with a variable thingy attached. and also one of them for your case fan. The Zalman NB cooler (47j i think )........... and you should be nicely on your way to hearing the whine of your hard disks

Stephen

Ooh, i think i saw that zalman NB cooler on Hitide.
Yes, there it is: http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/257

Not too bad, only 7.90. I think I'd prefer to replace the spire hsf with something else entirely, it doesn't do a fabulous job of keeping things cool anyway! CPU idles around 45 degrees.

(Don't fancy chopping up a big zalman cooler to force it to fit either )

Col_Loki

Yea i know what you mean, but i think its only the clips which means it wouldnt fit onto an A64 system. And i think you have to do a bit of filling if you get the zalman NB cooler aswell.

Mite be a little expensive but what about the ThermalRights? You could get a cheap fan controller, 2 x Very quiet fans and adjust them to desires noise level? The Whisper rock isint a great cooler it must be said........ have had one and it is a little nosiey.

How about....

Fan Controller : http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/21_23_42/products_id/38
NB Cooler : http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/21_23_46/products_id/257


CPU Cooler either ......
Artic Cooler (Variable speed) ...... http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/21_23_46/products_id/235
ThermalTake Beast ........ http://www.hitide.ie/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/21_23_46/products_id/224

Id definetly go with Papst fans, there very good to keep down noise. The fan controller will ensure you get max cooling for the min noise.........

Explosive_Cornflake

Just for reference, that zalman NB cooler is €3.90 on jes. If your getting other stuff that may be of use to you.

Stephen

I've ordered a new HSF - Glacialtech Igloo silent breeze II, which looks decent enough and is supposed to be very quiet. Also ordered a tube of thermal compound. I was using one of those sticky pad things that came with the old spire cooler, so maybe this will help keep things a bit cooler too. Would the thermal pad leave any residue or anything that I would need to remove on the CPU core?

Col_Loki

Yea it should leave some crap behind it alrite. Nail Varnish remover / Acetone should do the trick. It might need a little scraping (with plastic or something that wont mark the core).

Havent heard much about the glacial tech stuff, let us know how you get on anyway!!

tman

sweet, i'll be ordering one of those northbridge coolers soon (the fecking fan on my nf7 v2.0 one makes an annoying noise when cold booting)
couple that with a zalman psu and i should be sweet for noise:)

Col_Loki

couple that with a zalman psu and i should be sweet for noise

What hard drives do you have? Because you might end up putting in a fan to stop the whinning (screech) of the hard drives when the other components are silent.

tman

160gb westy caviar, which i'm planning on replacing with a 200gb seagate.

having said that, i can barely notice an audible drop in noise levels if i have the hd set to power off when inactive

Col_Loki

Well when everything else is completely silent , you will wonder where the hell the noise is comming from. With a fan on making a little noise you wouldnt notice it but when the PSU & CPU & NB are completely silent you will notice it.......... and it will be annoying!!

Good choice with the seagate, i wouldnt rule out samsung either .......

WezzyB

I was going to order a Zalman 7000 Copper cooler (£32.50 ex VAT from ocUK) for my new computer, but then saw the XP2800+ Upgrade bundle on Komplett, which has the Spire WhisperRock IV (price on Kompett is €10.99), I decided to go for this, the reviews of the Spire WhisperRock IV say that it performs really well at keeping the system cool & quiet (not silent).

I'm got my parts from komplett yesterday and will be getting the case, Antec SLK3700 Quiet Black Edition, from pchealth today so hopefully it won't be noisey.

According to the manufacturers the ratings for the case & HS/Fan are:
Case: SLK3700QBE - 24.86dB(A)
HS/Fan: WhisperRock IV - 21dB(A)

I'll let ye know how quiet/noisey it is.

Btw the system spec is:
Antec SLK3700QBE, AMD Athlon 2800XP+, Epox Motherboard, 200 Gig ATA Seagate Barracuda, Nec 2510a 8xDVDRW-DL, Sapphire 9600SE 128Meg, 2 x 256 3200 DDR TwinMos Ram

Col_Loki

The whisperrock is prob going to be the noisiest thing in your machine. TBH you prob wont find it bad at all and will think its pretty quiet.

There are lots of fans etc out there , nearly all are louder than they say. Its not going to be a silent rig but should be pretty decent noise wise!!

WezzyB

Would an all Copper Heat Sink be much better?

Col_Loki

It depends on the design TBH but yea generally copper is a better heat conductor and provides better cooling. The Spire will be fine for running at stock speeds, but if your overclocking much you might want a new one!!

TacT

Had a spire hsf before I got my jet7+ -- It ran warm. Fine for stock but nothing more.

unkel

Originally posted by WezzyB
WhisperRock IV - 21dB(A)

21dB(A) is very quiet, I don't think the WhisperRock will deliver that for you when your pc is idle, nevermind under load and overclocked :dunno:

Let us know anyway...

STEFANMAN

earlier spire whisperrock where noisy alright,

but the whisperrock IV 21db is a great heatsink/fan and keeps even an xp3000+ cool and with the case closed almost not noticeable.

Its a good value for money anyway.

I used more than 40 of them this year.

They even come with a thin layer of thermal heat compound on them and no more pads etc. and it has a copper inlay.

Stephen

THe one I have is about 1 year old. It has a sticky pad thing rather than some other type of thermal compound.

Still waiting on the new cooler to arrive. I ordered the only tube of thermal compound Komplett had in stock, which funnily enough is made by spire. I still have most of a tube of Arctic Cooling stuff that came with my arctic vga silencer - would I be better off using that than the spire STARS7 stuff?

STEFANMAN

Originally posted by Stephen
I still have most of a tube of Arctic Cooling stuff that came with my arctic vga silencer - would I be better off using that than the spire STARS7 stuff?

Is it the thick or the little more liquid stuff?
I had enough trouble with the thicker stuff to apply onto the die.
The white spire compound is working alright, didnt tested more coz cpu was cool enough.

Stephen

Received the heatsink and fan today in work, along with aforementioned goop. Will install when I get home. I am not looking forward to removing the old heatsink, it was such a bastard to get it onto the clips in the first place.

TacT

you may find this quite interesting. good luck with that - it never gets less scary, no matter how many times you've done it!

Stephen

meh, I've already installed the new heatsink+fan. The spire stuff was a dark grey/silver colour, fairly thick too. The arctic cooling stuff was completely white. I used the spire product.
New HSF sounds a LITTLE quieter, and has a lower profile than the spire. Really got to get rid of that north bridge fan now, it makes such an irritating whine.

edit: and yes it was a complete bastard to remove the old HSF. I was terrified of bending the motherboard too much trying to get the thing off.

Stephen

Forgot to mention, the glacial tech cooler runs a bit cooler than the spire - CPU gets to about 50 degrees under load, it used to get up as high as 57 with the spire (according to my NF7-S 2.0, which doesn't have a great reputation for the accuracy of its temperature probes).

TacT

yeah, have a spire hsf with copper base here that I removed. It peaked 57/58C under prime95 at full load on an XP3000+ barton 10.5x200. Fine for stock - nothing more sadly. It's meant to be rated for 3200+ and upwards.