Dead Quiet OEM PC's

[Texun]

I saw a Compaq 6400 with an XP1800 and a 40 gig HD the other day and it was dead silent. When I hit the button the LED's lit up but I actually thought it was dead. I had to lean my ear toward the PS to see if it was running. I know there is no way it runs as cool as many DIY system builders in here who go to the ends of the earth to cool their AMD's, but this was unbelievable. Anyone actually opened one up to see what OEM's do to make AMD's so quiet? Anyone ever checked the cpu temp on one of these?

I started to pop it open but I figured the sales person wouldn't have appreciated it much.

 

[dinde]

its like a dell. + the case was probly made of plastic which also dampens noise

 

[SaveYourself]

They use a large 92mm fan in the rear and it is thermally-controlled in most cases so that when cooling is not required, you can look in the back of the case and see the the fan and because the fan blades reflect light slightly differently you can see the individual revolutions of the fan. The fan only spins up when necessary to exhaust air out of the case. I imagine the same is true of the PSU fan.

 

[wetcat007]

They also let components often run a abnormally high tempuritures for the sake of low noise.

 

[Kevin]

I was surprised too. My cousin just bought a Dell (would've built it for him but don't fee like playing tech support) and it made no noise. Seemed super-hot though...

 

[Jhhnn]

The very few late model dells I've dealt with used shrouded heatsinks and a single large exhaust fan at the rear of the box. no front fan, no dedicated fan for the processor, definitely no whining chipset fan. And the psu fan is apparently temp controlled....

They have the ability to spend a lot of time, effort and money to get 'em quiet, also a precise knowledge of the component location and overall cooling needs. Ordinary component makers don't have that, so they tend to overcool to compensate for the worst case scenario...

The relatively high ambient noise levels in stores can fool you, too, masking the noise produced by the box you're examining. It'll seem a lot noisier once you get it home, where it's really quiet....

The heat output of late model amd xp's an p4's is very similar, no matter how it was in the past....

 

[Texun]

Thanks all.

 

[treemonkey]

I had a Dell 8250 for a while. The plastic case masks the hd noise. The PS gets a little noisy if you actually use the machine. The PS made weird noises sometimes. It clicked when I scrolled down menus. You can definately make a DIY machine quieter than a dell with some papst fans, dynomat and a barracuda.