Silent, Fanless system

[Elcs]

Ok, I have a gaming rig and its also used as the internet server for my house, serving 1 PC. I sleep in that room and even though its pretty quiet, its still far too noisy to sleep with.

After a look at what I have lying around in the house and the bank, I had a thought.

I have a generic case lying around. Good enough to house a PC.

I have an ABIT NF7-S rev 2.0 - possibly dead but if it works, I have Soundstorm, an NIC and great overclocking capabilities (underclocking for this purpose though)

CPU - Im pinning my hopes on a CPU I found in a UK online store, about 2/3's the price of the cheapest Sempron. It says its mobile, Ive emailled them asking for more info but it should have unlocked multi's. If not, ill have to buy a mobile barton and whack my 1700+ DLT3C into this silent box. It should be able to underclock enough to run with an SLK900A on top passive right? I was thinking 600-800mhz and ~1.2-1.3v was a reasonable guesstimate for passive running.

RAM, HDD, FDD, Optical Drives - I have these covered.

GPU - I have an old GF4 MX. Not exactly the cool, silent type but Im sure I can find an underclocking program which would allow me to disconnect the fan. I also have a Volcano 7+ I could hack up into expensive copper heatsinks.

PSU - No PSU's in the house. I want silent and I dont need any huge amount of power. The Thermaltake Fanless 350W PSU looks absolutely ideal and reviews seem to be in favour of it but could it seriously work 24/7 in an fanless environment? :S I really want to keep fans out of the system. If there is a reasonably cheap 300-350ish Wattage PSU that is absolutely silent, I might consider it but so far, this Tt is making me drool.

This is just a system to act as a server for the internet connection, play music (winamp) and watch/record TV via. my PVR-250. If push comes to shove, I have 2 80mm Panaflo L1A's which could be 5v'ed but thats still noise I dont want.

Im mixing and matching with what I have and a few parts I dont. Any suggestions? The Zalman case, phase change, watercooling and other extremely hightech/expensive solutions, whilst acceptable from the standpoint of what I want to achieve are unfortunately way out of bounds of what I can afford.

Suggestions are welcome.

 

[mechBgon]

If you want passive cooling, what would be better is a Celeron II in the 566MHz area. Got any SDR SDRAM laying about? Slap it into an i810E or i815 motherboard. They put out something like 10 watts (see Sandpile.org for comparisons).

Or... assemble your NF7-S and etc, buy a long Ethernet cable, and put it... under the sink in the bathroom or somewhere Use VNC to remote-control it. There ya go, no need to underclock or spend money on fancy heatsinks, PSUs, etc.

Just a thought

 

[indianduddawg47]

athlon 64's don't put out much heat. Perhaps with a scythe ninja, and some underclocking you may able to get it running passive. GF2 MX's come with passive cooling. Also, PC2100 RAM does not need any cooling.

Though, your hard drive is still going to be heard. If you get a good active cooling setup, your hard drive is still going to be louder than all the fans (even if your hd is suspended)

For your power supply, don't bother with a passive one, it might create more problems than it would solve (the ATX specs were built around the fact the PSU would provide some airflow). Check out the Seasonic S12 and super silencer series. I have an S12-380, and it's 12CM fan is pretty darn quiet.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you want passive cooling, what would be better is a Celeron II in the 566MHz area. Got any SDR SDRAM laying about? Slap it into an i810E or i815 motherboard. They put out something like 10 watts (see Sandpile.org for comparisons).

Or... assemble your NF7-S and etc, buy a long Ethernet cable, and put it... under the sink in the bathroom or somewhere Use VNC to remote-control it. There ya go, no need to underclock or spend money on fancy heatsinks, PSUs, etc.

Just a thought

If I had a Celeron, sounds good. Id hate to miss out on Soundstorm Optical goodness for TV/music/DVD's.

Installing the pc in some random cupboard isnt an easy task since every cubby hole I can think of is taken. VNC'ing would elimate my DVD player capabilities but I dont mind dropping that. So far, the only thing I have to buy is PSU and CPU I believe.... everything else is in-house.

I know you are trying to save me money but Im not feeling like I can back down from some of this criteria. For one thing, I need to connect my digital box to the aerial, this silent pc and my digital decoder, in a separate room this makes cabling a literal nightmare. My LCD has DVI and VGA connectors so I can very quickly swap displays to control either PC if they are both located in the same place.

EDIT: indianduddawg47 - I do not have an Athlon 64 processor or motherboard and I do not have a GF2 MX. The HDD being heard shouldnt be a problem.

 

[Elcs]

Bump for the morning crew

 

[CSMR]

Removing fans altogether is not easy to do safely. Why not try a single quiet fan in the PSU (Nexus 120mm?)? The hard drive is normally the hardest thing to silence. Making a quiet computer is not easy: do you really need a computer for the tasks you mention?

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: CSMR
Removing fans altogether is not easy to do safely. Why not try a single quiet fan in the PSU (Nexus 120mm?)? The hard drive is normally the hardest thing to silence. Making a quiet computer is not easy: do you really need a computer for the tasks you mention?

Well, a silenced computer would be useful to give my dad internet access if Im still asleep.

It could also stay on overnight and record TV/Radio programmes whilst I sleep. Theres a radio programme I listen to which is on from 10pm-2am and I rarely listen all the way through due to my body clock. It has some music reviews and interviews that sometimes Id like to record when I cant stay up.

Listening to music via. a silenced PC isnt much of a fringe benefit but when you want to listen to pure music and not have the fans whirring in the background... the fact that my gaming PC is on a lot to act as the server kind of stops me from doing so.

Walking into my room and hearing near silence is rare. My PC is on from the time I wake up until I go to bed since my dad spends a lot of time on the internet. This could be solved via other means but in the end Im thinking it could turn out just as expensive as making a silent PC without the fringe benefits.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

 

[Elcs]

What wattage am I going to need to run such a system, 300-350w? Can anyone recommend a silent fanned PSU at round that wattage? Looking for quality but as silent as possible.

I can probably live with 1 or 2 5v'ed 80mm Panaflo L1A's which I have.

Still waiting on a reply about that mobile 1800+. Sounds like a great deal if its true Socket A and multi-unlocked.

Im thinking of suspending the HDD facing the opposite to normal way and at the back of the pc. Somewhere under the AGP slot and between the cards. Puts it further away from earshot. Heat is an issue but hopefully the minor airflow will be sufficient.

 

[piasabird]

Maybe a Pentium-M based system with the right motherboard might be noise free when dormant. Some Mini-ITX motherboards use passive Cooling.

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050621/index.html

 

[Ricemarine]

seasonic PSU with a scythe ninja or shogun. Works

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl-p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Elcs
Ok, I have a gaming rig and its also used as the internet server for my house, serving 1 PC. I sleep in that room and even though its pretty quiet, its still far too noisy to sleep with.

After a look at what I have lying around in the house and the bank, I had a thought.

I have a generic case lying around. Good enough to house a PC.

I have an ABIT NF7-S rev 2.0 - possibly dead but if it works, I have Soundstorm, an NIC and great overclocking capabilities (underclocking for this purpose though)

CPU - Im pinning my hopes on a CPU I found in a UK online store, about 2/3's the price of the cheapest Sempron. It says its mobile, Ive emailled them asking for more info but it should have unlocked multi's. If not, ill have to buy a mobile barton and whack my 1700+ DLT3C into this silent box. It should be able to underclock enough to run with an SLK900A on top passive right? I was thinking 600-800mhz and ~1.2-1.3v was a reasonable guesstimate for passive running.

GPU - I have an old GF4 MX. Not exactly the cool, silent type but Im sure I can find an underclocking program which would allow me to disconnect the fan. I also have a Volcano 7+ I could hack up into expensive copper heatsinks.

Suggestions are welcome.

Guess what?
I have an Abit NF7 Rev2, I have a mobile Barton 2500+, and I also have an SLK900U and a spare Volcano 7+ lying around

If you get any mobile CPU (such as one of these, I got my 2500+ from there), it will be multiplier unlocked.
IMO the NF7 is the BEST motherboard for playing around with mobile CPU's.
The lowest voltage *should* be 1.1v in the BIOS (which undervolts slightly on my board at least, giving a real minimum of 1.05v). You can also set 100x5 to give you 500MHz CPU speed, although you could probably go higher (about 1000MHz) without increasing the voltage.

I haven't tried it yet with my SLK900U (because I have a PCI IDE card which kept playing up), but the machine definately ran at 500MHz when I was using my Volcano 7, although I can't remember what sort of temps it had. I was going to run some underclocking tests after I had installed the SLK900U (which I did on Monday) but the PCI card didn't like me.

 

[teutonicknight]

If you haven't already, go here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com

 

[biostud]

PSU: Seasonic S-12 330 or 380W

From Silent PC review:
In summary, the S12-430 is the quietest fan-cooled PSU we have tested to date, by a small margin. It is also quite powerful enough for most systems, and very efficient.

 

[PsYcHoCoW]

Here's my listing of fanless parts.. haven't actually built a system that way, but the idea has been in my head for some time.

PSU: Antec Phantom 350W http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24500
Mobo: Gigabyte K8N Ultra-9 http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8N%20Ultra-9.htm
CPU: A64 3000+ w/ CnQ
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Sonic Tower http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/4in1heatpipe/cl-p0071SonicTower/cl-p0071.htm
Video card: Asus Geforce 6600 Silencer http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=2&l2=6&l3=0&model=522&modelmenu=1
or
Asus X300, X300SE, or X550 (all passively cooled)


If case temp got too high with this stuff, a dual-fan quiet PSU should help greatly... that or case fans

The x300 card and the a64 shouldn't get too hot by themselves...


The first part I'd change is the PSU ; some have fans and aren't that noisy. I've read the Phantom gets pretty hot. Maybe the 500W version would be tougher.





edit: dang, just reread the first post... you want to do it with what you have laying around. :x should be do-able..

 

[chaudharymic]

The reason you keep this PC on all the time is just to provide net to another?
If so, why not just buy a router...

 

[50]

BTW last time I checked NF7 rev 2 didn't have soundstorm.

Also you can find plenty of G4MX passively cooled cards, perhaps you could find someone to trade in the FS forum?

Also what HD do you have? Like others have said that will be the hardest part to silence.

Finally, your generic case may be a problem as usually they are cheaply made and are prone to vibrating and creating more noise. If you have the money invest in a 70-100 dollar sonata (the PSU is barely audible and the case is excellent for keeping things quiet).

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: chaudharymic
The reason you keep this PC on all the time is just to provide net to another?
If so, why not just buy a router...

Router for internet, laptop for tasks. Router will be dead silent and laptop very very quiet. Play your cards right and you can spend relatively little for this type of setup.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: chaudharymic
The reason you keep this PC on all the time is just to provide net to another?
If so, why not just buy a router...

This is just a system to act as a server for the internet connection, play music (winamp) and watch/record TV via. my PVR-250. If push comes to shove, I have 2 80mm Panaflo L1A's which could be 5v'ed but thats still noise I dont want.

Because a router can't play music and record TV, maybe?

 

[Topweasel]

My Ultimate in noiseless systems.

Ultimate FANless Case and PSU

Its all you need. It has connectors for everything so you can use your own vid, mobo and CPU, Memory I would get with a heatsink and just underclock to what you need. This will work with anything ecept maybe the 840EE that might put out more hea the then the 150W the CPU cooler can disapate.

Edit: Ignore me as i only read half a post or so when they are long to get the jist of it. this time it back fired on me.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: chaudharymic
The reason you keep this PC on all the time is just to provide net to another?
If so, why not just buy a router...

This is just a system to act as a server for the internet connection, play music (winamp) and watch/record TV via. my PVR-250. If push comes to shove, I have 2 80mm Panaflo L1A's which could be 5v'ed but thats still noise I dont want.

Because a router can't play music and record TV, maybe?

Lonyo - thanks for the defense but Ive given up on the idea, I cant afford the outlay to get cheap components I need or improve my current rig to demote stuff.

Not to mention that most people seem to miss large chunks of critical information and only succeed in increasing their post count

EDIT: On the HDD issue, I do have a 20 Gb MP3 player which connects via USB. Would it be possible to install Windows on it and boot off it? If so, those HDD Mp3 players are quiet enough to use in a silent PC and keep pretty cool on their own. Limited storage space but transferring files accross would seem as simple as normal pc-work.

Originally posted by: 50
BTW last time I checked NF7 rev 2 didn't have soundstorm.

Both Abit NF7-S Rev 2.0's I own have Soundstorm.