Mission Impossible! Cheap SILENT PC :o

Praetorian

Basicly I want to build a PC thats virtually silent.

I hate fans and noisy hard drives grinding away during the night!

It doesnt have to be lightning fast...600mhz + would be ok.

Ideal situation: Just one big heat sink on the processor (no fan), a new quite (or silent) power supply, and a new 5400rpm hard drive!

Am I being realistic? Is it going to cost me the earth? Your ideas and opinions please!

beserker

600mhz laptop would be cheap enough too.

just new on reg:

NEC puts Transmeta in silent desktop PC

Cake Fiend

I'd imagine you could sort something out with water-cooling and a nice big radiator or something.

Gavin

Get a Slot1 board with a large heatsink. No fan needed.
i've got a dual p3 450 with just large, bogstandard heatsinks on the chips. The only sound from the board is the psu fan and harddrives. You can pick up some cheap enclosures, i think in maplins.. though I have a feeling that these are designed for cooling as a pose to silence like the quietpc.com drive bays.

Also my slot1 board uses a very low PSU, 250w. I came across a completely silent ancient 150w the other day that I must try.

Apart from drive enclosures, I know a guy that bound up his harddrive in Rubber band and suspended it in the drive bay in the pc. Eliminates vibration and quiets things down a lot.

Gav

Saruman

sounds like a plan! I left my sys on last night downloading everything off TP 115 on europe online.. still going this morning before i left for work.. i did nto sleep the best as the fan his HUGE on this thing and very loud! So time to upgrade anyway and one with a smaller fan is in order.. anyone know of a good case for keeping the noise way down?

EvilGeorge

http://www.quietpc.ca/

There are loads of sites out there with different gadgets to silence things a bit.

I think a super quiet fan adn some of those hdd covers may make a difference.

Gerry

Dont' get a smaller fan, it will have to spin faster to move the same amount of air. Reduce the voltage on the big fan to reduce the noise.

irishgeo

there was a write up in computeractive about this i see if i can dig it up.
There were on about how you could buy this sound proofing and stick it to the inside of your computer.Magic Fleece is the name of it.

There also mention Hard drive cages etc here are some links:
http://www.chillblast.co.uk
http://www.quietpc.co.uk

sisob

Originally posted by Kevin
there was a write up in computeractive about this i see if i can dig it up.

issue 106

Praetorian

Thanks for your suggestions!

I was thinking, I might buy a low end P4. Running it without a fan will hamper performance but It wont crash because Intel have protected their CPU's from thermal death. In fact, even if you take the heat sink off, the P4 keeps going...obviously very slowly though!

I already have a laptop hard drive which is pretty much silent..so i just need a quiet power supply. www.komplett.ie have an Enermax 550W power supply which is supposed to be very good, BUT €190 is stupid money. Does anyone know anywhere in Ireland that sells quiet power supplies at a reasonable prices?

Ferror

A friend of mine put his computer in his attic and is using cable extenders back to his peripherals in a usable place.

It's completely silent and at the same time a supercooled uber-computer!!!

sisob

Originally posted by Ferror
A friend of mine put his computer in his attic and is using cable extenders back to his peripherals in a usable place.

It's completely silent and at the same time a supercooled uber-computer!!!

that was me supppper silent

oh and there is an article on silent cooling in one of the pc mags at the mo - worth a look

Gerry

Originally posted by Praetorian
Thanks for your suggestions!

I was thinking, I might buy a low end P4. Running it without a fan will hamper performance but It wont crash because Intel have protected their CPU's from thermal death. In fact, even if you take the heat sink off, the P4 keeps going...obviously very slowly though!

I already have a laptop hard drive which is pretty much silent..so i just need a quiet power supply. www.komplett.ie have an Enermax 550W power supply which is supposed to be very good, BUT €190 is stupid money. Does anyone know anywhere in Ireland that sells quiet power supplies at a reasonable prices?

erm, you don't want the p4 to be running next to its max temp the whole time. Consider getting some sort of fan for it, or maybe a massive heatsink.

As for the power supply, well how about just reducing the voltage on an ordinary psu fan? I run mine at 5 volts, and it is almost silent.

The_Conductor

Heat builds up in the case (unless you leave it open of course). One way to minimise this that does not involve the use of fans etc. is possibly a brushed aluminium case. Was looking at a gorgeous one by Lian-Li in Maplins on Jervis. It costs a small fortune though Might see if I can find it online cheaper.

BTW- If your going for an athlon processor you are not going to get away without a CPU fan. (Proud owner of one fried processor).

Saruman

m8 of mine got that case your talking about.. sweet... though not very big so limited storage wise... but very nice case!

The_Conductor

It comes in different sizes, all the way up to full server case- but I'm buggered if I'm going to hand over é400 for the case on its own. It doesn't even have a power supply in it...... rats.
Another thing I was thinking of- there are two types of fans out there- the whirring which is driving all of us around the bend seems to be from the ball-bearing fans. Anyone tried any alternate solutions, or have any wisdom to share with us?

Cheers.

Shane

Gerry

heat will still build up in the case, even if you leave it open (unless its next to a window ). Also, the aluminium cases will conduct heat out better, but if the warm air isn't being blown against the outside of the case, this will still not help you very much. Basically you need some air circulation, like some panaflo fans running on 5 volts or something. Even if you watercooled the machine, you still need a little air circulation. Theres plenty of stuff in the machine producing heat besides the cpu. For example, the power circuitry on the motherboard gets very hot, even the capacitors. Some sound cards and network cards also run hot.

Praetorian

Originally posted by Gerry


erm, you don't want the p4 to be running next to its max temp the whole time. Consider getting some sort of fan for it, or maybe a massive heatsink.

As for the power supply, well how about just reducing the voltage on an ordinary psu fan? I run mine at 5 volts, and it is almost silent.

I have a fairly large heat sink. I don't think the P4 will be running at its maximum temperature. Anyway AFAIK Intels thermal solution is incremental...ie the thermal protection doesnt just kick in when the chip is at its max temp.

Thanks for your suggestion about reducing the voltage on the PSU fan. Unfortunately Im not a competent electrician. Does it involve soldering a resister? Im not very good with electricity!

Gerry

yes, but even for throttling to kick in, the chip is at quite a high temp. You still have to get hot air out of the case.

Reducing the voltage of the psu fan is very easy, open the psu, disconnect the two wires coming from the fan, they will be going to somewhere on the circuit board of the psu. Cut the wires, tape up the bare wires coming from the board of the psu. Lengthen the psu wires if necessary, and bring them outside of the psu, then connect the red (+) to the red on an ordinary power connector, and the black to the black beside the red. That will give you 5 volts.