Quiet PC modding - for cheap

po0k

From 7volts.com http://www.7volts.com/quiet.htm

On this page is a very interesting method for quietening your drives - for cheap
Combine that with speed-modded fans, lining on the chassis and well organised airflow layout and the computer should be nigh-on silent.
*Unless you have a raging Marvin of a 15000rpm SCSI drive....

koneko

Dude I've posted that link like twice in the last month

Another idea for a quiet case. If you're stuck with slightly noisy fans, and still need the cooling, get those soundbarrier foam layers. Turn your PC into a padded cell

Or get watercooling dammit!

po0k

watercoling isn't silent.
You have a pump and fans for the radiator aswell.
Might be quieter then having 4 120mms all over the place, but it won't be silent.
And I know that 'quiet PC' threads are common, but that site genuinely has some good ideas, which may be expanded on.
The foam lining part I'm kind of reluctant to get into, maybe at the edges, but not over the majority of the case - unless I get the airflow all nicely setup and efficient like.

Gerry

I've put foam on one side of the case, and also all around the 5.25 bay where the hard drive sits. No increase in temperature yet.

koneko

I wouldn't call a very very quiet buzzing in the background noisy though, I'd take watercooling over a bunch of fans any day

All depends on the parts themselves though. Cheaper pumps and so on will be noisier, but overall it's pretty quiet. Though that site is pretty good too.

Gerry

Watercooling with a bunch of fans though? Or entirely passive watercooling, with no fans, and a huge radiator?

koneko

No huge radiator ATM I'm afraid, though the black ice ones look yummy. But there's no way I'm forking out 70+ Euros for a radiator.

Just a simple one, with some nice (not too noisy at all) little fans, does the job very nicely. Only prob is my case is a bit small right now (fixing that soon when I start my next case mod), so the radiator is mounted on the side of the desk with a big screw

I've pimped the 7volts site loads, to everyone, it's great. Found another site like it with a few tips but I lost a lot of my links a little while ago so I'm still digging that one up.

I'll shut up now.

BabyEater

Read that page and i seen the part about "Isolating the CPU heatsink fan" i remember seeing this on
http://www.overclockers.com.It seemed simple enough so i went ahead and done it .
It did improve things and along with the 7v mod its a lot quieter.

dpajur

Originally posted by koneko
Dude I've posted that link like twice in the last month

Another idea for a quiet case. If you're stuck with slightly noisy fans, and still need the cooling, get those soundbarrier foam layers. Turn your PC into a padded cell

Or get watercooling dammit!

wow, i was just going to post a question on this when i saw the thread... where would you get the foam from in ireland? is there a shop somewhere in dublin that carries that kind of stuff?

i'm assuming you just stick it on to the case, or glue it... i have a full tower case and i'm not really mad into overclocking, i prefer a quiet case, but still, two fans (intake and power supply), cpu fan and the graphics card fan make quite a bit of noise... i don't even think noise is so bad as are the vibrations, which distort the noise and add another dimension of "randomness"...

these things aren't so bad to handle when you're playing a game or surfing - just playing some music takes care of that, but if i'm working i really want a quiet as possible system.

i've been thinking of watercooling too, but for me that would mean adding a water pump on top of all the noise sources in the case which doesn't make sense, especially not when it carries a price premium

hope some of you feel the same, i'm looking forward to any ideas you might throw my way.

po0k

your drives and possibly your speakers (depending on what they're resting on) can make alot of noise.
Apparetly Seagate Barracudas are quite quiet and still have performance on par with other 7200rpm drives.