Bloody hell it's noisy.

[Shirkin]

Got a new desktop pc from Mesh last week and the thing is noisy beyond belief. Think it might be down to the twin Nvidia 6600GT grpahics cards in it. Any simple solutions to quieting it down apart from turning the thing off?

S

[voyds9]

Try turning the SLI off for a quick fix
Which one did you get ?extreme R5?

[Shirkin]

just got the R1. Very happy with it afer a few minor teething problems. What difference will turning the SLI off make? Will i lose much video performance?

Cheers

S

[arcturus]

Try a couple of these

I used one to replace the aging fan on a Radeon card and it's so good that I actually now run it without the fan that came with the new heatsink - and it still doesn't get warm!

Beware you need around 2cm clearance front and back of the card in order to fit it.

[-DeaDLocK-]

Biggest source of noise in your average PC is the PSU. Invest in a SilenX unit - you won't believe your ears.

Then comes killing or quieting down the CPU fan, then the system fans, then the graphics card fan, then the northbridge (motherboard chipset) fan.

I'm dead anal about having a quiet machine - mine is whisper quiet as a result, but it costs me £300 to do so.

First step - definitely the PSU.

[Shirkin]

Cheers for that Deadlock, but I unplugged the PSU fan and its still whistling away as noisily as ever. Its crazy how the little things can wind you up so much.

[docevi1]

it'll be be the gcards HS with most probability - the HS is usually tiny and the fans spins very quickly to make up the difference. To go the quiet route you need to quieten:

The CPU, I chose the CoolerMaster Hyper6:
which is huge but cools the CPU very well (AMD 64bit 3500 running at 35deg load with silent cooling anyone?).

The PSU, I've got a ThermalTake Silent PSU which isn't great, try www.quietpc.com for some expensive solutions.

The graphics cards, I've got a Artic Cooler on my Ti4400 and it works well, with your SLI setup I'm not sure you'll be able to use something like this tho (I've no idea what the SLI ports look like, I'm an AGP zealot).

The HDD, you can get enclosures but it's not wise to use them IMO as I've seen to many failures amongst friends machines due to excess heating.

Mobo Northbridge fan, same deal as the gcards fans - I used to use a Zalman cooler on my old machine which worked nicely.


Most importantly, remember if you change too much you'll void your warranty, first port of call should be The place you got it from!

[-DeaDLocK-]

docevi1 said:

The HDD, you can get enclosures but it's not wise to use them IMO as I've seen to many failures amongst friends machines due to excess heating.

Ditto.

My quiet system runs very hot, and even though I have the side open and my hard drives are exposed, I can expect at least one of them to fail every year - usually during the Summer.

I get used to it and backup frequently, as silence is the priority for me and not drive longevity.

[pdV6]

Shirkin said:

Cheers for that Deadlock, but I unplugged the PSU fan and its still whistling away as noisily as ever. Its crazy how the little things can wind you up so much.

I bet you didn't; its integral to the PSU.
Probably the case fan you unplugged.

[Shirkin]

Maybe. But it says PSU fan right above the little plug that you need to pull out to disconnect it. Anyway think its actually the chip fan as the little bugger almost ground to a halt a minute ago.

As I'm pretty crap with PCs, can anyone tell me if its a fairly straightforward procedure to simply unscrew it and replace it?

Cheers chaps

S

[Shirkin]

Actually my mistake, just looked again and it was the CPU fan I unplugged.

[pdV6]

Shirkin said:

Actually my mistake, just looked again and it was the CPU fan I unplugged.

Not a good idea. Many motherboards will actually refuse to boot if this is unplugged (to prevent you frying the CPU)

[_dobbo_]

I've got an SLI mesh system also - like you say, noisy as hell!

Water-cooling is somewhere on my wish list, but it's not that high up...

[pdV6]

Shirkin said:

As I'm pretty crap with PCs, can anyone tell me if its a fairly straightforward procedure to simply unscrew it and replace it?

Assuming its an ATX power supply, just buy another (quieter) ATX PSU and do a straight swap. Make sure its power rating is at least equal to the original, though.

[john_p]

I would NOT recommend changing the heatsink + fan on those graphics cards, it's potential to be a right mess, could easily damage the cards and warranty will go straight out the window. I also don't know if you have enough space with the SLI setup for it to work.

It might be worth installing this (not used it) but it says it can control the fan speeds. The idea being that it will monitor the temperature quite closely and only spin the fans at full speed when you are playing games etc:
www.nvidia.com/object/sysutility.html

Then have a look in the BIOS to see if any similar settings are available for the CPU, PSU or case fans. After setting this, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the CPU temperatures though (you should have a motherboard monitor program that lets you see this in Windows)

If it's still too loud, I would be inclined to replace the CPU fan and heatsink with something which uses a larger fan (larger fan = spins slower = quieter). Check over at www.overclockers.co.uk for recommendations on your particular PC.


>> Edited by john_p on Wednesday 15th June 12:33

[Shirkin]

Thanks for that. Will check it out now.