Did you recently build a "silent" PC?

[gevorg]

What case, parts, etc did you use for your build? Can they really be inaudible in a typical home setting? What about at nights, when the environment around you is quieter, are they still "silent"?

 

[zerogear]

Refer to http://www.silentpcreview.com/, they have almost all information about building a silent pc.

 

[Zap]

While I was still going to grad school, I had a really quiet system. That was about a year ago, but the general ideas would be the same.

First, building a quiet system isn't too tough. Building a really, really quiet system takes a bit of planning and a bit of tradeoff. Building a truely silent system is damn near impossible without major tradeoffs.

A quiet system won't be heard in most environments from more than a few feet away. A really, really quiet system won't be heard in your nighttime environment.

I used an Antec Solo case with suspended hard drives, a PSU known to be reasonably quiet, passively cooled CPU using a Scythe Ninja and a passively cooled 8800 GT using an Arctic Cooling Accelero S1. One undervolted 120mm fan proved sufficient for cooling.

gevorg, what kind of performance are you looking for? Perhaps if we know what you are aiming for, you may get some more specific recommendations.

 

[gevorg]

zerogear, thanks for the link!


I'm hoping I can build a very quiet i5 860 + HD 5750 system, all fanless, except 1 slow 120mm case fan and whatever fan is inside the power supply. Latest Seasonic X-650 looks very good. Will use a SSD for OS, and a far away NAS for storage.

Is it possible to achieve this very quiet nighttime operation without going to extremes?

Quiet operation is the only reason I'm willing to pay premium for the Intel build, otherwise I'll just go with a cheaper Phenom, like X4 965.

 

[bloodugly]

What is your PC going to be doing during the night? If its not really doing much, it's easier to have fans turned down/off at night, whereas if you're crunching numbers with a full CPU load all night its a little harder to passively/silently cool.

You can have more than one fan in a case and it still be practically inaudible. I recommend using a fan controller. When you're gaming and such, you can turn them up a little higher. When you're not and your PC isn't doing much, you can turn some of them down to silent or totally off depending on how your temps are looking. I used to be pretty into the whole silent PC thing. Also, don't cheap out on the fans, though low speed Yate Loons will work if budget is an issue. They just don't tend to stay so quiet for nearly as long as higher quality fans in my experience. The loudest thing in my old silent systems was when the hard drive would have some read/write activity, and that was still really quiet since it was decoupled from the case.

 

[aigomorla]

u guys can quote me on this.

if you have a large budget to spend, especially on fans.

Get scythe Gentle Typhoons. There dead quiet, and they push a lot of air.

Hands down the best fans i have played with. More So then my San Aces.

 

[Luddite]

gevorg,

Check your mailbox.

 

[EliteRetard]

Built my own case...3/4" plywood and 4 120MM fans hooked to a controller (all pointing in). Even at the lowest speed the interior stays at room temp under load so I just leave the fans there. If it werent for the lights on the controller youd never know it was on (even at night). If I crank the fans up...holy cow lol, my case turns into an air hocky table and makes a noticeable woosh noise. I was able to run an OC'd 640MB 8800GTS with a broken fan because of the airflow (left the shroud on too lol). Unfortunately whatever killed the fan eventually killed the card too...now Ive got an OC'd 4850 in there which are supposed to be notoriously hot and under full load it doesnt go past 80C. I was actually suprised, I thought all the wood would trap heat...but I guess cutting holes into every surface and forcing ~1-200CFM into it works wonders for cooling.

Basically, if you design it right, wood seems to make an excellent sound deadening case material.

 

[Rubycon]

u guys can quote me on this.

if you have a large budget to spend, especially on fans.

Get scythe Gentle Typhoons. There dead quiet, and they push a lot of air.

Hands down the best fans i have played with. More So then my San Aces.

Yes they are NIDECs - quality stuff!

Now they need to make a 3500+ RPM FOUR PIN one. :awe:

 

[WoodButcher]

Key is good / quiet components and sound deadening setup. Case panels, drive mounts and fans, everything adds up. Almost any case can be made quiet depending on your build.
With fan control my newly rebuilt nightstand is less audible than it was before and now with more fans. I have 12 yates on two XSPC rads plus 5 more on the mobo compartment that when turned down make less noise than the two 355 pumps yet keep my OCed Q6600, mobo and 8800GT all running in the low 30's. My only probem is that while doing a nice job removing heat from my pc the room gets warm, in the summer the ac works overtime so now I need to silence the ac, do we have a forum for that???

 

[frostedflakes]

zerogear, thanks for the link!


I'm hoping I can build a very quiet i5 860 + HD 5750 system, all fanless, except 1 slow 120mm case fan and whatever fan is inside the power supply. Latest Seasonic X-650 looks very good. Will use a SSD for OS, and a far away NAS for storage.

Is it possible to achieve this very quiet nighttime operation without going to extremes?

Quiet operation is the only reason I'm willing to pay premium for the Intel build, otherwise I'll just go with a cheaper Phenom, like X4 965.

Definitely should be doable. 5750 is a great choice for this, because it underclocks/undervolts at idle and should only use about 10w. Phenom II would save you a bit of money, but they use more power than Intel. I mean it's not like you can't build a quiet system with a Phenom II (I'm using one in my system, undervolted to reduce temps and power consumption), but if you can afford it, I'd definitely recommend the i5. You'll get more performance while using less power.

 

[wiretap]

Some good quiet parts I like using:
- Yate Loon 120mm low/medium speed fans (Noctua fans are incredible and silent, but expensive --your preference)
- Passively cooled Scythe Mini Ninja (for lower profile cases)
- Silverstone NT07 cooler (for very slim cases, specifically mini-ITX builds)
- Zalman heatpipe cooled power supplies (Antec Earthwatts are quiet on a budget)
- SSD hard drives, or 2.5'' laptop drives mounted on squishy rubber
- Put gun case foam on the inside surfaces of your computer case

 

[lizardboy]

My recent near-silent build:
-Sonata Elite case
-Scythe Zipang HSF
-OCZ 500W PSU
-HSI Radeon 4850

I'm sitting ~2 feet away and a I can't hear a peep. It's running an i5-750 on a Gigabyte P55-UD3R board. I had to buy a $5 adapter to get the Zipang to work with the new chipset, but it was worth it...I love this HSF. This is my 2nd system built for silence, whenever I upgrade a component I do a search through the comments at Newegg for "loud" "quiet" "noise" "silent" etc. and only buy components that seem to be universally considered silent or near-silent.

I upgraded to the Sonata Elite from an Antec P150 which was a very quiet case. So far I'm loving the Sonata, but I had to uninstall the little GPU cooler that came with the case because even at "Low" it produces a very faint whine that sounds like a dial tone in another room.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Just read the Raven 2 review at silentpcreview; good to see that my experiences are echoed by actual reviewers .

I've built two rigs in the last few months in this case, and it's remarkably quiet given the performance (coming from a P180, which has better noise insulation but a LOT less airflow, meaning the fans have to run at a higher speed). If you can get past the 'controversial' looks (admittedly took me some time), it's a great case, and is reasonably cheap right now.
There's also the FT-02, which is just starting to show up in retail circles. It has the same cooling setup but a much more conservative design, and would have been my choice for my own system had it not been delayed two months.

It sounds like you're going more for absolute silence as opposed to a mix between performance and low noise, though; that being the case, these might not be right for you.

 

[davidrees]

SPCR is a great site and a great resource but perspective is very important.

For me, I like my system very quiet. With the ambient room noise, you can't tell if it is on or off. At night, you can't tell either unless you put your ear right up to it.

For some of the SPCR hard core people, my system would be completely unacceptable. It is not Quiet PC Review, it is SILENT PC REVIEW. Over the years, some people on there have gone to incredible lengths to achieve total silence - oil immersion, encasing hard drives in acrylic, etc.

On the road to silent, the first 90% is not that difficult and just requires some knowledge, planning and a moderate premium on things like nice fans and a good PS.

The last 10% of that journey will take all your time, money and sanity (IMO).

 

[Zap]

SPCR is a great site and a great resource but perspective is very important.

For me, I like my system very quiet. With the ambient room noise, you can't tell if it is on or off. At night, you can't tell either unless you put your ear right up to it.

For some of the SPCR hard core people, my system would be completely unacceptable. It is not Quiet PC Review, it is SILENT PC REVIEW. Over the years, some people on there have gone to incredible lengths to achieve total silence - oil immersion, encasing hard drives in acrylic, etc.

On the road to silent, the first 90% is not that difficult and just requires some knowledge, planning and a moderate premium on things like nice fans and a good PS.

The last 10% of that journey will take all your time, money and sanity (IMO).

Quoted for posterity since it is the best reply of this thread.

I've been down that slippery slope before. Can't tell how many times I've gotten so close... often to have just the HDD be the noisiest part. I can remember BITD before fluid bearing HDDs became popular and building a system where the 7200RPM HDD whine drove me nuts. Even more recently a system so quiet... until HDD starts to seek.

 

[zerogear]

I just built a silent pc that is completely passive + SSD, so no noise whatsoever -- but it isn't the fastest thing out there either.. Gotta make sacrifices somewhere

 

[WildW]

I did this . . . http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=295856 . it was very very silly, but some entertaining use of ducting. You don't have to be completely silent if you can channel all your noise in a direction where nobody is.

I gave up on the silent PC game when I realised that I didn't like my bedroom so quiet at night. Without a noisy fan (and lets not forget that white noise is a good sleep inducer) I can hear every creak of the house as the temperature outside drops, and it sounds like monsters under the bed.

 

[SoFChef]

Built my own case...3/4" plywood and 4 120MM fans hooked to a controller (all pointing in). Even at the lowest speed the interior stays at room temp under load so I just leave the fans there. If it werent for the lights on the controller youd never know it was on (even at night). If I crank the fans up...holy cow lol, my case turns into an air hocky table and makes a noticeable woosh noise. I was able to run an OC'd 640MB 8800GTS with a broken fan because of the airflow (left the shroud on too lol). Unfortunately whatever killed the fan eventually killed the card too...now Ive got an OC'd 4850 in there which are supposed to be notoriously hot and under full load it doesnt go past 80C. I was actually suprised, I thought all the wood would trap heat...but I guess cutting holes into every surface and forcing ~1-200CFM into it works wonders for cooling.

Basically, if you design it right, wood seems to make an excellent sound deadening case material.

any pics of this ?

 

[Zap]

I gave up on the silent PC game when I realised that I didn't like my bedroom so quiet at night. Without a noisy fan (and lets not forget that white noise is a good sleep inducer) I can hear every creak of the house as the temperature outside drops, and it sounds like monsters under the bed.

Hahahahah!

I know some people who want to keep their computer audible so they know it is still running.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

the next project i'm going to attack is quieting my gigabyte gtx 275. the stock cooler is surprisingly good, but the coil whine is driving me nuts. has anyone here attempted this project before, and if so, any advice?

 

[WoodButcher]

coil whine?
dab of nail polish

 

[lothar]

My 1800RPM Scythe Gentle Typhoons are currently running at 1229RPM idle. I can't hear them.

 

[MrK6]

System in sig, damn quiet at idle (everyone thinks it's off). When I game, the fans turn up to a whisper. Like davidrees said, the first 90% is pretty easy by doing a little design homework and buying the right parts .

 

[Modelworks]

Mine is completely silent.
1 - WDTVLIVE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=wdtv%20live
2 - Hard drive with SATA to USB converter. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-036-_-Product
3 - 12VDC @ 2A wall adapter , already had
4 - Tivo series 2 , already had
5- 12VDC 80mm case fan from old pc


Took everything out of the tivo case. The case has internal mounts for a hard drive so I left that intact. I then took apart the WDTVLive box so just the circuit board remains. Unsoldered the IR receiver off the board and attached a 6 inch cable in place of it, soldered the IR receiver to the end of the cable. Mounted the board inside the tivo case and mounted the IR receiver inside the front panel of the tivo case where the old tivo sensor was located.

Mounted the hard drive inside the tivo case and hooked up the usb converter. I then attached the HDMI cable to the WDTV box and the ethernet cable. Routed the cables out the back and secured to the tivo case with zip ties to prevent them being pulled on. The fan ( not really required, but I added just because I had it), the WDTV, the SATA adapter all run off 12VDC so I combined the wiring and connected it to the 12VDC adapter. I ran a power led and hard drive led to the front of the tv case where the old tivo lights were located . Closed up the case .

It sits in a normal entertainment center space now and looks like a tivo on the outside but I can play anything that a HTPC can play and with no noise and only 12 watts power usage. I have full ftp access to the hard drive and can also run applications like torrents off of it while watching video. I can stream from the network or sites like youtube without worrying with software configurations.

Overall for about $150 total cost and something like an old tivo enclosure and hard drive, it can't be beat.