Making my PC silent?

[fivesixseven8]

...or as near to silent as possible!

I want to make a few changes to my home server/media server to make it as quiet as possible thus SWMBO allowing it to be moved into the living room.

I am going to swap the case fan for a Noctua NF-S12B FLX (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm-Noctua-NF-S12B-FLX-Ultra-Quiet-Flexible-%28Veri-Speed%29-Cooling-Fan)

I also want to swap out the stock Intel cpu cooler but am stuck as to what to go for. The machine doesn't get run too hard other than when re-encoding films and it is overclocked from 2.6Ghz to 3.3Ghz (any higher and it got a bit hot.)
So, I don't need anything too big as it will be overkill. But it's a bit of a minefield so I am after suggestions here. Maybe buy another Noctua to use as the CPU cooler too?

I was also going to line the case with some noise suppressing matting but didn't intend to go as far as HD enclosures.

Any suggestions?

[Dibby]

To make it quieter, underclock the processor instead of overclocking it. Or run a low power laptop processor

Try to get rid of fans instead of replacing them, they'll start off nice and quiet but 6 months of fluff and dust and you'll hear them again.

[TheD]

A new silent power supply and a water cooling kit

[fivesixseven8]

PSU is already very quiet. If I stop all of the other fans then the PSU noise is acceptable.

Can't be arsed with Water Cooling either really! Maybe in the future, I just want a quick fix now.

[twinturboz]

If your not running it too hard how about a cpu cooler that doesnt use a fan?

Edited by twinturboz on Thursday 11th February 11:24

[TurricanII]

Can you hear your hard drive - disable windows/google desktop search - also Solid state disk shuts a lot of laptops up permanently!

[fivesixseven8]

twinturboz said:

If your not running it too hard how about a cpu cooler that doesnt use a fan?

Edited by twinturboz on Thursday 11th February 11:24

Any suggestions? I was going to go for a Titan Fenrir otherwise. I guess with two case fans a fan-free cooler may be OK?

TurricanII said:

Can you hear your hard drive - disable windows/google desktop search - also Solid state disk shuts a lot of laptops up permanently!

The HD isn't too bad tbh (WD Caviar Blue) spending SSD money isn't something I'm keen on really.

[Dibby]

A slimline machine or old laptop with low power SSD and chip would make a good home server with some big hard drives in a NAS box tucked away somewhere.

Is it a full tower PC? The Antec P180 case I've got is a double skinned case with noise suppression and rubber gromets to mount the hard drives on, keeps everything nice and quiet. But if you're spending money on a new case for the hell of it you're probably better off spending the money on a laptop CPU and passive cooler

[Cerberus90]

You could get some anti-vibration mounts for your hard drives and fans. This will reduce any vibration from these devices through into the case which will amplify them.

[Fer]

Switch it off?

[twinturboz]

Not sure which cpu you have but some of the ones I found.

The fanless ones:

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Thermaltake-CL-...

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Akasa-AK-395-2-...


Or how about some of the extra quiet ones:

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Arctic-Cooling-...

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Thermaltake-CL-...

Personally Ive used a few thermal take products and they seem to be great quality products.
Oh and use artic silver compound really helps to keep the temps down

Edited by twinturboz on Thursday 11th February 13:04

[FamilyGuy]

These guys Do completely fan-less stuff and as already said, use an SSD. They're also tiny.

[TonyToniTone]

have you seen http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums ?

[ErnestM]

Check out some of the offerings from these folks...

http://www.silenx.com/index.asp

Also, antec make some fanless power supplies. They use a heatsink that increases the size of the PSU marginally so you may want to check for clearance first

[Hedders]

This may not be relevent but the thing that makes ALL the noise in my pc seems to be the fan on the graphics card.

[mrmr96]

Hopefully not too far o/t but I want to but a full sized tower for use as a day to day PC/server. It will be in the lounge connected to the HD LCD TV, but I will normally access it via laptop remote desktop.

I want to buy something off the shelf that will be quiet. So, where should I buy from?

Cheers

[qube_TA]

MacMini's are silent, you can run Windows or Linux on them if you're not a fan of OSX.

Make great media PC's.

[defblade]

Also look at www.quietpc.co.uk

Big fans runing slowly make much less noise than 80mm screamers and shift at least as much air.

I had more fun making my PC quiet than making it fast

[fivesixseven8]

defblade said:

Also look at www.quietpc.co.uk

Big fans runing slowly make much less noise than 80mm screamers and shift at least as much air.

I had more fun making my PC quiet than making it fast

I used quietPC for some suggestions actually. Went for the 120mm Noctua fans and will run them at 5v, a Titan Fenrir cooler (which I may modify to use one of the Noctua's if the fitted one is too noisy still.)
Also bought an Acoustipack kit to line the case with. If I have to take the mobo out to fit the cooler then I thought I might as well fit this at the same time.

Ordered another 3TB of disc space too.

[FamilyGuy]

defblade said:

Big fans runing slowly make much less noise than 80mm screamers and shift at least as much air.

I had more fun making my PC quiet than making it fast

One of the most effective things I did was to replace the thin 60mm CPU cooler fan with a plastic 60-80mm converter and a deeper 80mm fan. More cooling at a fraction of the noise - as long as your case has the space.