Will this be Silent...?

[pauljames]

Here is my shopping list for a Silent PC, what do you guys think? Any suggestions for improvements?

(all components not listed are coming from existing rig)

Lian Li PC6085
Zalman 300w Silent PSU
Round Floppy Cable Yellow
Round UDMA100 Cable Yellow
4 x Papst 80mm Fan (to replace Lian Li Standard Fans)
AMD Athlon XP2100+ 1.733GHz 266MHz
Zalman CPU Cooler 6000Cu
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
2 x 256Mb PC2700
Seagate Barracuda V 120GB SATA 7200RPM
Sapphire Radeon 9700Pro 128MB DDR Ultimate Ed.

This little lot comes to a touch over £1000, but worth it I think, what do you reckon?

Cheers,
Paul

[pauljames]

Oh yea forgot to add, this will bw used for Net Surfing, mucking about with Linux and most importantly playing games, so temperatures need to be kept reasonable under heavy load.

Cheers,
Paul

[Big Adam]

It'll be quiet, not silent and you forgot to price in a Zalman cooler for the Radeon 9700 Pro.

My only concern is that any future upgrade will probably mean replacing that 300W PSU with a higher spec. I'd go for the 400W PSU now if I were you.

BA

[pauljames]

Thanks, for the reply, two points..

1. The Sapphire Radeon 9700Pro 128MB DDR Ultimate Ed already has passive cooling built in.

See http://www.sapphiretech.com/VGA/9700proult.asp for details.

2. Kustom don't do a silent psu rated at higher than 300w (unless I'm being blind) so I'm not sure where is a good place to buy one from.

Cheers,
Paul

[Herminator]

I think you must be blind, most psu's kustom sell are more than 300w

[Emissary]

as for the spphire card, WOW!!!!, finally an off the shelf and therefore guarenteed silent mega graphics card. Manufacturers are finally starting to listen!

Kustom sell the quiet PC 400W Silent Power supply. This would be the loudest component in that system though as the system is comparable to mine and I have that supply. I have papsts for intake and exhaust but a lian-li case fan on my athlon and standard cooling on my gf4 4200, and the power supply is still louder than all of them

[pauljames]

Sorry if you misunderstood Herminator but I was talking about Quit / Silent PSU's.

Yes I could have a 480w Antec but I specifically wanted a quit one.

[pauljames]

Ah, just found a quiet 400W PSU. Silly me.

[Big Adam]

You got it.

:D

As for the Sapphire, v. nice. Basically got a Zalman type system preinstalled.

Would be nice to find a head to head comparison of the two systems.

BA

[pauljames]

No side by side comparrison, but take a peek at http://www.riva3d.com/spu/index.html for some numbers.

[Gordy]

The zalman 400watt psu is noisey tho , the 300w is fine for that system.
Check the mobo has passive cooling on the northbridge :)

[The Pimp]

Originally posted by Gordy

Check the mobo has passive cooling on the northbridge :)

Being an nForce2 based board I would severly doubt that it is passively cooled.

[Gordy]

Originally posted by The Pimp
Being an nForce2 based board I would severly doubt that it is passively cooled.

A zalman northbridge cooler will do the trick then :)

[pauljames]

I'd prefer not to invalidate warranties by replacing motherboard coolers (not being that experienced in pc hardware) etc, so is there a better motherboard that you guys could suggest.

I would prefer an AGP 8x slot, socket A that can take a 333 processor (when I can afford one). I don't need any onboard gfx, sound or lan as I have the required boards.

So today's challenge is suggest a quiet motherboard matching the above requirements.....

Cheers,
Paul

[Kynoch]

Most likely chances are you are going to have to get a board with onboard sound and LAN, because thats the way motherboard producers are going, it doesnt cost them hardly anything to integrate these devices anymore.

The onboard things are as god as the seperate cards anyway these days.

[pauljames]

Just downloaded the manual for the Asus A7N8X motherboard and it look like northbridge has a passive cooling solution.

Hopefully this should be the same on the Deluxe model.

Cheers,
Paul

[Pod]

The deluxe does indeed have a passive heatsink - I've got one. ;)

I've also used it to replace 2 network cards and my sb live - nice empty case again now.
Fantastic motherboard that...

[pauljames]

Another bunch of questions for you silence lovers out there...

How does the Thermaltake Volcano 9 compare to the Zalman in terms of cooling and noise?

Which would be better cooling an XP2100+ and which one would be better cooling a XP2600+.

Has anyone found the weight of the Zalman a problem?

[Big Adam]

Can't answer your other questions but the weight of the Zalman is not a problem in a reasonably static case or one that is carefully transported (preferably on it's side, in the case of a tower).

BA

[Kynoch]

You should transport tower systems on their side anyway, no matter if you have a zalman or not. A sharp drop over a bump or somehting in the road can give the heatsink enough momentum to snap off the lugs.

[Sharky]

The weight hasn't been a problem for me. As long as your careful like BA and Kynoch said and transport the case on its side :)
Hope this answers your question

[Graeme*Kustom*]

the antec 480 is a *very* quiet PSU, I'd strongly recommend it.

The 4 Papst fans , although quiet, will still make some noise... no fans are quieter than quiet fans, and you may find that you don't need any case cooling to run the system

[pauljames]

Is that the Antec TruePower 480 (at £88)?

How quiet is it in comparisson to the Zalman, and the Antec 430?

Cheers,
Paul

[Dorothy Bradbury]

Just a couple of passing points...

o Try to rubber-mount fans re sound isolation

o The only decent soundproofing is that sold by Kustom & QuietPC
---- the 3-pack of acoustic-foam & sound-barrier-mat composite
---- sound-barrier-mat = mass = counters resonance/sounding
---- acoustic foam = absorption = clips peaks & harmonics
---- the 3-pack comes self-adhesive since FEW adhesives will
reliably hold the heavy studio-grade barrier mats for long
---- Kustom have far better shipping charge than QuietPC

o Turn sound through 90-degrees to reduce noise
---- lining the wall/desk behind a PC exhaust with acoustic
foam is not unreasonable and helps to mitigate reflections
---- labyrinth-ing an air outlet is the best solution, every
90-degree turn knocks about 4-6dB(A) off the sound level
---- however ensure such outlets are 1.5x inlet area
---- a slide-in C-box around the rear of a PC with sound
proofing (foam+mat) lining and hole at the bottom rear
will vastly reduce noise levels
---- key trick is sound-path-along-absorption

Vis., you can fit silent fans, but they are on the outer
surfaces of the PC thus even with a soundproofed PC
you will still hear those fan motors. Hence the move to
very quiet fans (as Kustom sell) to alleviate this problem.

Always ensure air-inlet 1.5x air-outlet in cross sectional area.

Calculating your total dB(A) of fitted multiple fans:
o 10*@LOG(10^(Fan1/10)+10^(Fan2/10)+10^(Fan3/10)+etc)

This gets amusing for 48*10x 40mm 37dB(A)+ fans in 1U.

o The Nexus PSU is quieter than QuietPC
---- however it's a case of splitting hairs
---- consider gfpx & CPU & case fans first
---- Nexus are hard to get and supply not great

o Athlon coolers clip to the socket, not the board
---- this is a major oversight by AMD
---- worse, thermal shutdown by AMD is very poor
(if the heatsink doesn't fully come away, you can kill a CPU)

Colleagues and I did a 64-m/b Dual-Athlon case which was
shock & soundproof re case-in-case. A few vibration tests
showed the heatsinks were not properly retained and even
moderate shock could cause a heatsink retention failure.
The solution was to use Dual-Xeon, which are way more
pricey on the motherboard - chips aren't so bad.

So always transfer heavy-heatsink motherboards either with
the heatsink removed (& m/b connector unplugged) or with
the motherboard horizontally irrespective of case orientation.

Frankly, a similar criticism can be levelled at the P4 design,
since in some situations the heatsink & m/b flex can set up
a standing wave. Not good for the motherboard over time.
Sure Intel went OTT on heatsink clamping force, at this rate
they'll need carbon & kevlar composite circuit boards.

Eventually greater use of heatpipes will remove a lot of
the weight-on-CPU, noise & size issues - allowing larger
and slower fans like 92mm & even 120mm as routine.
Itanium2 is forcing a lot of effort in that direction, since
it's perhaps more effective at heating than computational.

[pauljames]

Quite a lot of information there. This is probably the rig I shall go for, not silent but should be very quiet unless under heavy load, then an increase in noise is acceptable to me.

Lian Li PC6085T and Antec TruePower 430

AMD Athlon XP2100+ 1.733GHz 266MHz (OEM)
Thermaltake Volcano 9 Coolmod, Arctic Silver 3
Yellow Rounded Cable Bundle (45cm)

Asus A7N8X (not Deluxe model)
2 x Mushkin PC3200 256mb

Seagate Barracuda V 80GB IDE 7200RPM
Sapphire Radeon 9700Pro 128MB DDR Ultimate Ed

Components will be purchased from kustom (or komplett where custom do not stock component) and cost will be around £980, using CDRW, zip and floppy drive from current setup.

Cheers,
Paul

[Sharky]

Originally posted by pauljames

AMD Athlon XP2100+ 1.733GHz 266MHz (OEM)


I'm led to believe that this proccy runs quite hot. Do you know which core it has. If it is the earlier core, I would suggest getting a XP2000 instead, as the speed difference will be un-noticalbe.

I just remember having the same advice when I was building a system based on that processor.

Maybe someone else can back me up on this??

[33L]

change the fan on the flower cooler to a 25mm deep 120fan and 7v - will be quieter for a bout the same temps!

[Kevstir]

If u want a silent psu get ur hands on thermaltake silent pure power 420 watt dual fan and belive me its silent , i have the single fan 360 watt aswell on my other rig and theres no difo between them, both pleasing to the ears when trying to sleep lol
Also if ur wanting a silent heatsink and fan go for a coolermaster hhc-l61 i have one cooling my xp2400 with 42c at idel no bad for silence..

Kevstir