SilverStone SG03 for HTPC? Quiet enough?

[howdysir]

I'm considering this case for my living room HTPC. Currently I have an Antec EZ18 and love it to death except I need to upgrade and need more expansion.

Mostly I'm concerned with how loud it will be. Please share any experiences- thanks

edit: changed subject Silent to Quiet

 

[Tiamat]

Well, silent is an absolute term, so what I think you mean is this:

Is it quiet enough?

That answer depends on how far away you will be from the case.

I would most likely trade out those fans with my current Yate loon D12SL12 with Zalman fanmate set to 6V.

Secondly, they didnt mention about harddrive decoupling. The vibration noise from harddrives can be very irritating, especially in a lightweight aluminum case. You would need quiet harddrives (new Samsung for example) and a decoupling method whether that is suspension with bungee cords, or sorbothane, or some really good grommets.

What motherboard are you going to be putting in there, hopefully it is one of those passively cooled ones with the heat pipes.

GPU Fan is another big one, can you get a passive cooled GPU (obviously not a powerhouse graphics card!)

CPU Fan is another consideration -- You need to run large heatsink (physical limitation with this case!!) with low flow fan, and possibly underclock your cpu so that it generates less heat.

PSU fan is another consideration -- You have to carefully choose your PSU so that it will be very quiet, Seasonic is generally good, maybe the new PCPower&Cooling that Anandtech just reviewed...


So, in order for the SilverStone, or any case for that matter, to be quiet enough, you really have to be very careful with the parts you select to place inside of it. Dampening a noise is never as good as not having the noise in the first place!

 

[jtvang125]

If you use low to moderately loud components the sound from whatever you're watching will drown out the noise. When watching something at night with the volume turned down quite low I still can't hear the fan noise from my htpc sitting about 6-7 feet away.

 

[howdysir]

Thank you for the reply Tiamat- I'm hoping to get something similar to a XBOX360 or PS2 noise level. (i think my current AOpen EZ18 is about that)

The unique placement of the 3.5 drives in this case could be a noise offender so I think that's what I'm most worried about. I currently have a Seagate in my EZ18 which sounds fine to me and I'd like to replace it with another Seagate as I am a fan of their 5 year warranties.

the reason for the upgrade is actually to get a graphics card that will playback recorded HDTV and Bluray/HDDVD without causing the CPU to stress out. I'm having a hard time finding clear information on what I will actually need vs overkill but it seems the best option is an NVidia 8600GT/GTS which I was able to find fanless.

ASUS EN8600GT

edit: Thank you too jtvang

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: howdysir
Thank you for the reply Tiamat- I'm hoping to get something similar to a XBOX360 or PS2 noise level. (i think my current AOpen EZ18 is about that)

The unique placement of the 3.5 drives in this case could be a noise offender so I think that's what I'm most worried about. I currently have a Seagate in my EZ18 which sounds fine to me and I'd like to replace it with another Seagate as I am a fan of their 5 year warranties.

the reason for the upgrade is actually to get a graphics card that will playback recorded HDTV and Bluray/HDDVD without causing the CPU to stress out. I'm having a hard time finding clear information on what I will actually need vs overkill but it seems the best option is an NVidia 8600GT/GTS which I was able to find fanless.

ASUS EN8600GT

edit: Thank you too jtvang

Yeah, my reply was really recalling what I have done to get the noise down in level for my computer. I sleep in the same room as my computer and any noise really gets on my nerves. Currently, my setup is in an Antec P150, and the noise is 23db from 2 meters. At 3 am, it is still too noisy for me.


But the lesson to take away from this:

Buying the right case is probably a small portion of the solution to noise (~20%). The components have to be selected very carefully (~80%).

 

[howdysir]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
I sleep in the same room as my computer and any noise really gets on my nerves. Currently, my setup is in an Antec P150, and the noise is 23db from 2 meters. At 3 am, it is still too noisy for me.

Ah- I remember having a PC in my sleeping room. Bothered my sleep a lot- I'm very glad to have a PC-less bedroom now.