Poll: How important is having a completely silent PC to you? How much MHz would you give up??

[Renob]

I would not give up 1mhz

 

[Eug]

<<I have just ordered a car with an engine that doesn't make any sounds.>>

Cool, are you serious about this?

Yes. Here is the car.

<<I couldn't handle that...my modified Mustang vibrates the dishes in the kitchen sink when it's just idling outside...>>

Heh. You probably have 3X the horsepower I do. Now I just need to get Type-R and V-TEC stickers and then we'll be even.

Anyways, I'll probably get flamed for this, but I do like quiet designs like the Cube. While I don't like the non-configurability of the Apple G4 Cube, it is a good design with an intake at the bottom and with heat rising out the top, but with no fans. The thing is dead silent, yet still has enough airflow to cool the chip. Wouldn't work with an Athlon I'm sure, but I wonder how well something like that would do with a slow PIII or perhaps slow Tualatin with a good heatsink though. Interestingly, for every day type stuff, my laptop (ie. cramped interior) works fine at 600 MHz with NO fan. However, when I do more intense stuff the fan comes on. OTOH, at 500 even with dnet OGR running in the background, the fan only comes on part of the time.

 

[sadb0i]

i coul care less about noise..hehe..ill blast the music! hahaha

 

[bernse]

Zero. Noise makes no serious difference to me. The speakers drown out any fan noise anyhow.

 

[bernse]

<< <<I have just ordered a car with an engine that doesn't make any sounds.>>

Cool, are you serious about this?

Yes. Here is the car.

<<I couldn't handle that...my modified Mustang vibrates the dishes in the kitchen sink when it's just idling outside...>>

Heh. You probably have 3X the horsepower I do. Now I just need to get Type-R and V-TEC stickers and then we'll be even.

Anyways, I'll probably get flamed for this, but I do like quiet designs like the Cube. While I don't like the non-configurability of the Apple G4 Cube, it is a good design with an intake at the bottom and with heat rising out the top, but with no fans. The thing is dead silent, yet still has enough airflow to cool the chip. Wouldn't work with an Athlon I'm sure, but I wonder how well something like that would do with a slow PIII or perhaps slow Tualatin with a good heatsink though. Interestingly, for every day type stuff, my laptop (ie. cramped interior) works fine at 600 MHz with NO fan. However, when I do more intense stuff the fan comes on. OTOH, at 500 even with dnet OGR running in the background, the fan only comes on part of the time. >>



You're going to be dissapointed if you think the Prius doesn't make any sounds. It still does... just not very much

 

[Eug]

<< You're going to be dissapointed if you think the Prius doesn't make any sounds. It still does... just not very much >>

I've already test driven it. At a stop it is dead silent. At low speed if the battery is full you hear very little. However, at high speed it sounds like a compact car - kinda whiney and definitely not quiet like my sister's Lexus.

Yeah about the quiet computers - those CD-ROM drives can be damn loud. My Pioneer 104S is irritating, as is my Toshiba 2402 in my laptop. When the first superfast CD-ROM drives came out, I stuck with 24X or less, since the first ones often were horrendously loud and vibrated.

 

[Basse]

I wouldn't have to choose. There are ways of making all PCs extremely silent.

/B

 

[vryce]

Zero. Water cool everything.

 

[joohang]

For a while, I underclocked by Thunderbird 1 GHz to 500 MHz @ 1.37V.

I cranked it back up to 1 GHz after I bought my newer, larger Molex HSF model.

With SilentDrive and < 28 dBA fans, my system makes almost no noise. I can sleep with it fine and I can even play nice music at low volume. Sometimes I can't even feel that it's running. I might replace my Maxtor HD with a Fujitsu with fluid bearing to further lower the noise level but I'm quite happy with my current setup.

So.. I'm running a near-silent system without sacrificing any performance. How's that?

One day, I might try running an underclocked/undervolted Athlon (or Tualatin) with a passive heatsink. Similar to what Leo did with his Thunderbird.

 

[Viper GTS]

TrueX drives are extremely quiet, &amp; honestly, how often do you use your CD-ROM?

Newer 7200 RPM HD's are virtually silent, especially if you enable acoustic management &amp; enclose them in a SilentDrive.

There's no reason you can't have a fast AND silent PC. I am willing to give up 400 MHz or more, that doesn't mean I intend to.

And joohang, the molex HSF's are great. I ran a P3 700 @ 933 with one. 25 dba, rock solid stability.

Unfortunately I got bored with 933 &amp; went for 1400.



Viper GTS

 

[NFS4]

<< TrueX drives are extremely quiet, &amp; honestly, how often do you use your CD-ROM?

Newer 7200 RPM HD's are virtually silent, especially if you enable acoustic management &amp; enclose them in a SilentDrive. >>


Who uses a CDROM these days? Anyway, Pioneer DVD drives are the devil as far as sound goes. I use mine everyday and the thing spins up like a big 'ol turbine. And it whirrs when playing DVD's.

 

[Electric Amish]

Noise doesn't bother me as much as a slow PC.

amish

 

[bluemax]

I don't want... I **NEED** a silent PC! I want something small for not-quite-but-kinda'-portable music studio work. When I'm writing music, I don't want to hear the dang power supply or CPU fans! :| Watching a DVD movie can be almost as bad.

I'm willing to trade speed to do it. Rather than overclocking a Duron 600 to 900, I'd just buy a duron 900 and run it stock with a small fan. That's not really giving up MHz now is it?

 

[sharkeeper]

Loud pc systems have been known to cause aural induced violence amongst younger users! ;P

Compensate by using funky desktop colour schemes. Purple hot dog stand, emerald sea, etc.

Cheers!

 

[SuperGroove]

I had a 700MHZ Slot-A T-bird that could hit 1GHZ. I cooled this badboy with an Alpha P7125 w two YS TECH 26CFM fans. I also had a V5 5500 with TWO RDJD K601s. Not only did that create a lot of noise, but I had two 80mm fans, two 90mm fans, and finally the two fans in the Enermax EG451P-VE.


Talk about a loud computer. I started losing my hearing because I had to turn up my. then Sennheiser HD525s(have HD545s now), headphones to an audible level which would render most people deaf. It was quite insane.


So I gave up that 1GHZ, disconnected the two K601s(8000rpm is just sheer stupidity!), one YS Tech, and took every other fan out. After all that, I had to underclock my system to 633MHZ. Yep I gave up 367MHZ.


I recently purchased a Slot-A T-bird 850MHZ jobbie. I sold the V5(the post office killed the board), and replaced the Alpha with a Golden Orb. Bliss. It's still too damn loud though. Meh.


Long live the silent PC. I've lost that overclocking urge.

 

[>>>Newbie<<<]

Not just noise level, it's the high pitch 60mm Delta fan that driving me nut.

 

[Viper GTS]

Supposedly there is a 24X DVD/100X CD-ROM in the works, but I haven't heard anything more about it. That should be pretty quiet, &amp; the fastest thing available to boot.

And SuperGroove, I know exactly how you feel. OCing just doesn't have the appeal it used to. You might check out the molex coolers at QuietPC. They're expensive, but they're MUCH quieter than a GORB. GORB's are noisy.

Viper GTS

 

[sharkeeper]

How to make ANY computer COMPLETELY silent!

Cheers!

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

lol sharkkeeper, anyways about the topic i think that there is something about the noises eminating from the computer that annoys us the most. I can stand an air conditioner and a loud ass fridge, but i can't stand the computer's high pitched whiny ass noises.

 

[sharkeeper]

<< I can stand an air conditioner and a loud ass fridge, but i can't stand the computer's high pitched whiny ass noises. >>



That's a simple one. Without the A/C you get hot and sweaty. Without the fridge the beer gets warm. Computers can be quiet and still work, just a little slower.

That's going to change soon enough! (inventor at work here )

Cheers!

 

[joohang]

<< And SuperGroove, I know exactly how you feel. OCing just doesn't have the appeal it used to. You might check out the molex coolers at QuietPC. They're expensive, but they're MUCH quieter than a GORB. GORB's are noisy. >>



Also try New England Digital for SilentDrive and Molex HSF. My first Molex HSF was from QuietPC, but I ordered my second one from NEDcomp.

They don't sell those QuietPC PSU's, though. I got fed up with costly shipping and customs charges, so I now take generic 250W PSU and mod them with quieter fans.

I bought a 16 dBA Adda fan from Leo and I put that in an old 250W PSU. The fan is not even the right size, but it's working like a charm. It's kept running my server (24/7) for almost a week already.

 

[joohang]

BTW, the link to New England Digital site is:

New England Digital

They ship via USPS and will also save you customs charges if you are located in the US.

 

[Looney]

Yeah, i'm so use to the fans in my bedroom it's hard to sleep without them (got a particle filter going too, so that adds to the noise).

 

[d33pt]

ya know..now that i've given up overclocking..my next project for my PC is to make a 1 low rpm fan PC..duct it right so that it'll cool both the ps and the cpu. especially for the server because it runs 24/7 and right now the ps fan is gettting pretty annoying.

 

[Pepsin]

I have a T-Bird 900, and I use the Taisol CGK747092 cooler. With the stock fan, I was running the CPU at 1 GHz. I then bought a Delta 7k RPM fan, too see how far I could push the T-Bird. I didn't realize just HOW noisy this thing is. I could get the CPU up to 1.1 GHz and it was stable enough to run benchmarks. However, it was not stable enough to run like that all the time, since games sometimes quit to the desktop or threw weird erorr messages at me.
I could however run it at 1050 MHz with the Delta, and it was 100% stable. But the the noise...that horrible, high pitched whine from the Delta fan was not worth it for 50 MHz. Turning the computer off, or just putting it into suspend mode (most fans stop when it enters suspend mode, including CPU fan) was a great relief. I have now put the stock fan back, and it's so quiet it's almost scary. I get quite high CPU temps, up to 47C under full load (also remember that the temp sensor on the A7V displays quite high values), but it's stable at 1 GHz. I wouldn't accept the noise of the 7k RPM delta fan even for 200 MHz. 300 MHz? Maybe... However, I'm going to buy a slightly less powerful, and also more quiet fan to replace the stock fan with. I'm sure it doesn't take a Delta 7k RPM fan to get the CPU up to 1050 MHz reliably. I'm also thinking about buying one of those cool things that allows you to mount a 80mm fan on the CPU heatsink.

My computer is still a bit noisy, since I have two powerful 80mm fans and a slotfan in there, as well as some other goodies. I can take that, though. It doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I like it better when the computer makes some noise, it sounds &quot;cosy&quot;
The sound of air flowing through the case is much easier on the ears than the high pitched noise from that overpowered Delta.