looking for a Silent case and setup

T

T0ddyH0oddy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 1, 2003
Messages
394
Gentlemen.

Good day.

Well, the sad realization has finally hit me. Now that I'm in my new place, my PC sits about seven feet from my head and the noise is kind of getting to me.

I have fairly standard parts in my PC, but need some silence.

I love the clean lines of my old CoolerMaster ATC-110, but I'm willing to give it up.

So, ultimately, I need a solution.

I'm looking for a case, CPU HSF, GPU HSF, PSU, and internal fan solution, or any combination thereof (please see my sig for my PC).

I want to avoid water cooling, as I'm a little put off by the cost and the potential risk.

Any suggestions are welcomed.
 
Since you didn't list a budget I'll just recommend what are some good things and then if you want to go cheaper you always can.

CASE: Antec P180/182
CPU HSF: Thermalright Ultra-120
GPU HSF: Zalman VF-900Cu or you could go for something fanless like the Thermalright HR-03 or the Zalman VNF100
PSU: Corsair HX520/620, Seasonic S12 Energy+ 550/650, or Corsair VX450
Fans: For cheap decently priced 120s look at Yate Loons they're only like $3 each if you can find the right place. If you're willing to spend the money Noctua, Scythe, and Nexus all come really well reviewed (check silentpcreview.com for model numbers).

Hope this helps, if you have anymore questions ask. Also browse around Silent PC Review it's very informative.
 
Is your computer and work area in its own room?

Then consider moving your case outside of the room, and route the cables through the wall, or under a closed door. Simply moving the computer further away may alleviate enough of your pain.

You get a side benefit of dumping the heat outside of the room too.

If you are serious about quieting things down, this is THE best thing to do. No special equipment required, but you'd be surprised how expensive cabling can get.. DVI cable is the most, then you may need an active USB extension, and also audio cables, and whatever else you need. I have a borg-like track of wires leading out of the computer case and into the room. DVI, network, 2 usb(branching to two 4 port hubs), 4 3.5mm audio, 2 TRS audio cables, 1 firewire. With the door closed, its so quiet, the whine that my Logitech MX518 mouse creates becomes immensely apparent, and that has no moving parts! lol

Not the "sexiest" way, but the most effective way, at least relative to where you actually sit to do work. Outside the room gets noisier though. :)
 
The P180 and P182 are HUGE cases. Yes, they're cheap, well-built and have decent cooling, but they're big for desktop or the like.

If you want a really beautiful case and have a larger budget look at the Lian Li V series like the PC-V1100A PLUS II

20070315020611.jpg


The case will do (same with the P182) a lot just by blocking direct paths to your ears from the fans.

If you need to move more towards silence switch out the case fans for Nexus, Scythe, or Noctura: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page2.html

The wort culprit for noise is probably your GPU cooler. Look at the Thermalright:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...576&Description=thermalright&name=VGA+Cooling

You could also invest in one of the fanless video cards [H] just reviewd.

I'm a big fan of Thermalright's CPU coolers too. I've had 6 of them and never been let down:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...iption=thermalright&name=CPU+Fans+&+Heatsinks
 
Simply moving to a new case won't be an instant solution.
I have a fugly Compaq case that doesn't make any noise after some changes. Just choose your components wisely. Sure i really need to move it to a real case, but in the mean time its holding up until i can get an awesome HTPC case for it. Your case isn't what makes the noise, its everything inside it.
So far i've put in:
  • Arctic Cooling Freezer 64Pro
  • Gigabyte 7600gt passive video card
  • Scythe Kaze-Jyu 100mm fans in place of noisy stock 92mm fans
  • Silicone grommets for HDD
  • SeaSonic S-12 380w PSU
Compared to many of my friends' gaming rigs and my mom's internet surfer, this is the quietest of the bunch.
 
looks just like the Ultra 120. Both the Ultra 120 and the Tuniq Tower are really good passive coolers too. Just check to see if they can fit your ATC-110 as they're supposedly really big.

PSU - Since you don't want to pick up a whole new PSU you can always just pickup a nice quiet 120mm fan and do a fan swap as a cheap alternative.

I've heard good things about the Accelero X1 so as long as it fits your card it's a good find.

Ahhh the 80mms in the ATC-110. I have a ATC-201 currently under construction in my garage while I'm modifying 3 of the intakes to 120s... it is not a project for the faint of heart as I have to construct a whole new front panel (believe me you need some time and money set aside to be able to do this). Good choice on the fans though.

I never heard my case when it was powered on (as soon as I got it I started chopping it up) so I don't know how these suggestions sound but you should look into the following:
- Rubber/Silicon Fan Screws link
- New case feet; These supposedly have Vibration dampening inside. I'm also picking up a pair but that's mainly because mine look like they'd been partially eaten. They're offered in Brushed Aluminum, Shiny Silver, and Gold Link to Silver
- Hard Drive Anti-Vibration screws Link
​
 
Hey Hikescool,

This maybe overkill but I just picked up the new Cooler Master Cosmos and it has quieted things down around my work area at home significantly. In a nutshell, my system is an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 on a Asus PK5 Deluxe using a Corsair HX620, an eVGA 8800GTS card, a Plextor DVD writer, and 3 SATA HDD's. For cooling, I'm running 5 120mm fans and a 92mm fan for my HR-03 Plus. So far, I'm very impressed but since it's still new, I'm going to have to let the system run for a couple of weeks or so and tweak with the fans and such to see how this case really performs.

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth...

Wil
 
kuyawil said:
Hey Hikescool,

This maybe overkill but I just picked up the new Cooler Master Cosmos and it has quieted things down around my work area at home significantly. In a nutshell, my system is an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 on a Asus PK5 Deluxe using a Corsair HX620, an eVGA 8800GTS card, a Plextor DVD writer, and 3 SATA HDD's. For cooling, I'm running 5 120mm fans and a 92mm fan for my HR-03 Plus. So far, I'm very impressed but since it's still new, I'm going to have to let the system run for a couple of weeks or so and tweak with the fans and such to see how this case really performs.

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth...

Wil
Click to expand...

Well, I'm kind of attached to the ATC-110. I've seen the Cosmos in a few magazines and it sounds like another high-quality case from CoolerMaster.

So I think I'll be hanging on to the ATC-110 and just tweaking my components.
 
I can barely tell my PC is on. I have a Scythe Ninja B cooling an Intel E6600 running at stock. I can use Speed Fan to turn off the Ninja's 120mm fan (already not loud in itself) and my temps only go up a couple degrees. Usually I run at 23c in winter (using Everest and PC Wonder 2007) and 28 - 32C if its hot and I have no AC on, No fan just adds a couple degrees. If I overclock to 3.0 the scale stays about the same.

I use a fanless video card. I use a WD 320 GB AAKS (the AAKS drives have InteliSeek) drive that makes very little noise after its booted up. I replaced my rubbish Lian Li 80mm case fans with 17db Scythe fans that are virtually silent at 17 db (cost was $8 a piece).

I have a Seasonic psu at top of box. Not only is it silent but its position at top of case meant I could disconnect rubbish fan in the useless "blow hole" at top of box (I cover that opening over).

My case is a Lian Li 6077B. Not known for any special acoustic properties like the Antec (which is brutal to look at imo). If you can get the right parts the case will hardly matter although all the screens and fans and "blow holes" in other cases can make for more noise (and dust) .
 
abcdelight said:
I can barely tell my PC is on. I have a Scythe Ninja B cooling an Intel E6600 running at stock. I can use Speed Fan to turn off the Ninja's 120mm fan (already not loud in itself) and my temps only go up a couple degrees. Usually I run at 23c in winter (using Everest and PC Wonder 2007) and 28 - 32C if its hot and I have no AC on, No fan just adds a couple degrees. If I overclock to 3.0 the scale stays about the same.

I use a fanless video card. I use a WD 320 GB AAKS (the AAKS drives have InteliSeek) drive that makes very little noise after its booted up. I replaced my rubbish Lian Li 80mm case fans with 17db Scythe fans that are virtually silent at 17 db (cost was $8 a piece).

I have a Seasonic psu at top of box. Not only is it silent but its position at top of case meant I could disconnect rubbish fan in the useless "blow hole" at top of box (I cover that opening over).

My case is a Lian Li 6077B. Not known for any special acoustic properties like the Antec (which is brutal to look at imo). If you can get the right parts the case will hardly matter although all the screens and fans and "blow holes" in other cases can make for more noise (and dust) .
Click to expand...

Well, I really don't have an interest in overclocking, so do you think I could run that Scythe HSF, well minus the "F", that is, without the fan? I see that you said the 120mm is "already not loud in itself", but do you notice it at all with the case door on?

Also, how easy is it to install this unit? I'm kind of wary of the aforementioned Silentator because it's apparently kind of a pain to install. I remember installing an Alpha unit on an old P4B setup back in the day which required a mobo removal, but it was manageable. In that vein, do you think the Scythe unit is stable on your board? While complicated installs are a pain, they usually ensure that the HSF is secure and not putting a ton of strain on the mobo itself.

So I guess I would be willing to forgo an easy install for making sure the unit is secure and not flexing the mobo too much.

Those Scythe fans seem real nice. I'm pushing for the Nexus fans because they move about 4 CFM than the Scythe's but are 0.6 db louder, so minor difference there but with a decent increase in CFM.

I'm hoping a replacement PSU and videocard aren't needed. In fact, I wouldn't be replacing my current video card anyway as I can't really afford a comparable one at the time, silent or not, and it's noise pales in comparison to the Intel HSF. If I'm happy with the noise after replacing the Intel HSF, I'll be happy to leave the project alone. If not, I'll try to see what needs replacing next.

However, a new CPU HSF, videocard cooler, and 4 new fans for about $100 and a few hours to keep my sanity seems like a small price to pay.

When I build my next box in about 18 months or so, I'll definitely have silent operation in mind from the ground up.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will be sure to keep them in mind.
 
hikeskool said:
Well, I really don't have an interest in overclocking, so do you think I could run that Scythe HSF, well minus the "F", that is, without the fan? I see that you said the 120mm is "already not loud in itself", but do you notice it at all with the case door on?..
Click to expand...


You could absolutely run it without the fan. The only time I could tell fan was on (and that's barley) was when ambient temps were in 90's like last july. Then fan started to hit 100%. That's when I installed Speed Fan and turned fan off or turned it down. Laptop's run at 65c routinely with no ill effect. I have no issue with turning off desktop fan and letting temps go from 28C in summer to 32 or 36C .

The Scythe is large but it fit my Asus P5W DH ok and it was easy to put in with the removable mobo tray/mount on my Lian Li. If you don't have a mobo tray and you want to install HSF on an already installed mobo then it might be hard to get to the upper left anchor and push it down - at least it would have been hard in my case since PSU is just above that anchor.

I think Scythe makes a unit that's a bit smaller now. I saw a story on slashdot where a smaller Scythe had top ratings for HSF cooling and was still quiet.

A nice thing about the Asus P5W DH is that the remote comes with it has a "Silence" button that turns fans off and I have used that a lot too.
 
abcdelight said:
You could absolutely run it without the fan. The only time I could tell fan was on (and that's barley) was when ambient temps were in 90's like last july. Then fan started to hit 100%. That's when I installed Speed Fan and turned fan off or turned it down. Laptop's run at 65c routinely with no ill effect. I have no issue with turning off desktop fan and letting temps go from 28C in summer to 32 or 36C .

The Scythe is large but it fit my Asus P5W DH ok and it was easy to put in with the removable mobo tray/mount on my Lian Li. If you don't have a mobo tray and you want to install HSF on an already installed mobo then it might be hard to get to the upper left anchor and push it down - at least it would have been hard in my case since PSU is just above that anchor.

I think Scythe makes a unit that's a bit smaller now. I saw a story on slashdot where a smaller Scythe had top ratings for HSF cooling and was still quiet.

A nice thing about the Asus P5W DH is that the remote comes with it has a "Silence" button that turns fans off and I have used that a lot too.
Click to expand...

Ah, the plot thickens! With the Silentator seemingly unavailable, and you saying I can run the Scythe sans fan, I may have to reconsider the Silentator.

The ATC-110 case I have has a removable tray, something I have some to expect in all cases and curse when I come across a case without one. The Scythe is looking better and better.

I'll check into the newer Scythe unit you're talking about, but honestly, it doesn't matter that much to me, as I don't have a case window or anything. Looks don't matter (at least, on the inside of the box), only silence ;)

The P5-series of boards from Asus has been, in my opinion, one of their best yet. Too bad Intel can't make a decent chipset anymore. Oh well, nVidia is picking up the slack quite nicely.

Again, thanks for your input and I will let everyone know what I 'm deciding on here in a little bit :)
 
OK everyone, quick update.

I have just ordered

  • Scythe SCNJ-1100P Ninja (Rev. B)
  • Arctic Cooling Accelero X1
  • 4x Nexus 80mm Real Silent Case Fan
From Performace-PCs.com

I had a change of heart with the Silentator because I couldn't find it shipped to the US for less than about $70. For that I can get the Ninja and the X1, so that seemed like a better purchase.

Also, after further review, I think I will appreciate the install of the Ninja much more than the Silentator, which has had mixed reviews in that category.

My only hope is that after I install all this hardware, I won't get spoiled and want a new PSU!

...but in case that IS the scenario, does anyone have any suggestions for a near-silent PSU?

According to this nifty little utility, eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite (http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine), I'm pushing around 600 watts.

Anyone know a PSU that is quiet and can handle a load like this?

Again, all suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
 
The ThermalRight HR-01 is designed to be used without a fan. The new HR-01 Plus now has more heatpipes to transfer heat. If you aren't looking into OC, these are made to be silent.
 
dj_taboo said:
The ThermalRight HR-01 is designed to be used without a fan. The new HR-01 Plus now has more heatpipes to transfer heat. If you aren't looking into OC, these are made to be silent.
Click to expand...


Structurally, it looks real similar to the Ninja, although for a little bit more money.
 
I bought a Seasonic 550w psu last year after it was top rated for efficiency AND noise (at silentpcreview.com site). After having it a year I can say its dead silent (haven't hear it working at all - I have to put my hand in back of pc to check its working). It was only after I had psu a week I found out Seasonic builds psu's for Corsair and PC Power and Cooling.

Here is a 650 watt unit with 88% efficincy (and with Seasonics the efficiency is more uniform. Some psu's have high efficiency ratings but only within certain output levels)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151028
 
abcdelight said:
I bought a Seasonic 550w psu last year after it was top rated for efficiency AND noise (at silentpcreview.com site). After having it a year I can say its dead silent (haven't hear it working at all - I have to put my hand in back of pc to check its working). It was only after I had psu a week I found out Seasonic builds psu's for Corsair and PC Power and Cooling.

Here is a 650 watt unit with 88% efficincy (and with Seasonics the efficiency is more uniform. Some psu's have high efficiency ratings but only within certain output levels)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151028
Click to expand...

Hah that's interesting you mention that because someone else recommended the high-end Corsair 620 watt unit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139002
and the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703005

But from what you're saying Seasonic is the real deal.

How do these units compare?
 
Excellent choice on the Ninja, it's the one of the top ( and there are only a couple) heatsinks for use without a fan.
 
regnak said:
Since you didn't list a budget I'll just recommend what are some good things and then if you want to go cheaper you always can.

CASE: Antec P180/182
CPU HSF: Thermalright Ultra-120
GPU HSF: Zalman VF-900Cu or you could go for something fanless like the Thermalright HR-03 or the Zalman VNF100
PSU: Corsair HX520/620, Seasonic S12 Energy+ 550/650, or Corsair VX450
Fans: For cheap decently priced 120s look at Yate Loons they're only like $3 each if you can find the right place. If you're willing to spend the money Noctua, Scythe, and Nexus all come really well reviewed (check silentpcreview.com for model numbers).

Hope this helps, if you have anymore questions ask. Also browse around Silent PC Review it's very informative.
Click to expand...

this guy put together an identical list to what I was thinking.

Go with the HR-03 and strap on a big 92mm fan, and run it niiiice n slow.

Get a fan controller too. Seasonic is the king of silence. The Antec Neo HEs, the Enermax Liberty's, the Seasonic S12s, the corsairs... those are the most popular psus on this forum and for good reason: good price, excellent performance, lots of power, and, most relavent to you, silent.

Generally I would think the liberty's or the S12s would be a better idea since they are on 12cm fans. I also think a good 450W or 500W psu will do you rig just fine, even in SLI, or on a brand spankin new 8800.
the seaonic S12 HB-380W PSU was the quiestest PSU i've ever worked with. as Gene Hackmen would say "quieter then an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton".
 
The Corsair is a SeaSonic PSU, just with modular cabling. The internals are the same. Both are extremely quiet. It's just modular vs not modular.
 
another thing for you, if your willing to do it is once you get the right fans, make sure you are using gromets and gaskets, major part of noise is the vibration of the fans againest the metal case, also you can use noise dampening material on in side to quiet it a bit more
 
renovoCS said:
another thing for you, if your willing to do it is once you get the right fans, make sure you are using gromets and gaskets, major part of noise is the vibration of the fans againest the metal case, also you can use noise dampening material on in side to quiet it a bit more
Click to expand...


That's a good idea, I'm glad you brought that up.

The Nexus fans are supposed to come with these nylon mounts which are supposed to do the job:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=127&products_id=3294

Or something like these, anyway.

I like the idea of the grommets, and I think that's something I can actually pick up locally, unlike most this stuff, so I'll see is that's needed.

Does sound dampening material increase case temps? I've heard different things about this.

Any input is very much appreciated.
 
you may be better doing the gromets, the dude at mnpctech, who makes some amazing cases always uses gromets, bores the holes alittle bigger, you can get the exactly what he does on his site

ive not had the chance on the whole noise dampening material and it all depends on how well you think your case is dispating the heat, if you the fans are really good at getting it out it shouldn't be a problem, but i plan on doing it for a few of mine so it shouldn't be bad i would think
 
all this talk about silent pc is wanting to make me build one, ill have to get the names on these products because i do plan on doing it with an htpc, but right now my two tivos work wonderful so i have no need for it, but i will in time
 
I went silent a couple years ago and am never going back. The only noise I hear from my PC or HTPC is HDD seek noise.
 
aburgard said:
I went silent a couple years ago and am never going back. The only noise I hear from my PC or HTPC is HDD seek noise.
Click to expand...

I can't wait to install my gear.

It came in the mail today, but the campus mail room isn't open on Saturday.

Come back on Monday or Tuesday for a full report!
 
dude that sucks!!! all that stuff is just sitting down there, the only thing between you and your goodies was a locked door :mad: id say learn how to pick a lock get your stuff early :D



:edit: or break it down works
 
renovoCS said:
dude that sucks!!! all that stuff is just sitting down there, the only thing between you and your goodies was a locked door :mad: id say learn how to pick a lock get your stuff early :D



:edit: or break it down works
Click to expand...

Actually, it's really pretty bad.

I get out of most of classes between 3:30 and 4pm, except for Tuesday when I have lab.

UPS and USPS deliver to that mail room between 9:30am and noon, so I have been told.

I received delivery confirmation on this stuff having arrived on Saturday, and I hand the guy the slip they put in your mailbox indicating you have a package waiting, but he said they "had not finished sorting through the weekend stuff".

This was at about 3:20pm, central standard time.

I can't really jump over the window and start rifling through the mail, and of course tomorrow is by far my busiest day, from about 10am to 3:30, workout at 4:45, lab at 6, and have to go to some meeting at 9.

I'll try to at least get the Ninja on there tomorrow and run some Quake Wars demo for a little stress testing.
 
All right, small update.

I got the Ninja on there, but not without some difficulties.

It wouldn't be any fun otherwise, would it?

OK, so I opened up the package, and my initial response was "wow, this thing is big". At first glance, it also seems like it may be heavy, and, combined with its height, may lead you to believe that may put undue stress on your mobo. Well, the Ninja is actually pretty light, and in my scientific method of holding the stock Intel unit in one hand and the Ninja in the other, I found it was hard to tell which one was heavier.

Anyway, the installation is really pretty easy. It comes with three different retention devices, and I chose the one for LGA 775, obviously. Four small screws into the base of the thing secured the LGA 775 retention device, and I was off.

Or, so I thought. I removed the stock Intel unit, cleaned off the Pentium D with a little Arctic Silver surface cleaner, applied a BB-sized bit of Arctic Silver 5 to the installed CPU, and sat there for a second. I then tried to simply stick it on top. The LGA 775 pins are the exact same type as on the stock Intel HSF. Well, as it turns out, the Ninja is so dang tall that you can't see what you are doing and maneuver your hands down there in such tight confines. "Good thing I have a removable trey", I thought. So I begrudgingly disconnected some cables and slid 'er out.

After pushing the four pins in (they make a nice, distinct "click" when you get them in right) and then rotating the black holder pins, I was set. So I went to slide in the trey, only to see that the bolts on top were maybe 4-5mm too high, and would not clear my case.

Crap!

So then I decided to remove the mobo entirely. I did not want to do this. Oh well. I slid the trey back in, then attached the Ninja back on to the mobo. I gently placed the mobo back into the case and screwed it down. Now, the issue was plugging in the 4-pin auxiliary cable, which is right in the corner of my mobo, jammed between the Ninja, my PSU, and the backplate of my case.

That was fun to get in there, but I eventually did.

I left the fan off, and fired up some Enemy Territory demo. It ran at like 4fps. That did not look good. I was thinking it was my CPU overheating, but just to be sure, I fired up Battlefield 2 and played for about an hour. Everything looked great.

It's been about 4 hours since I've had it on.

And sadly, while the high-pitch whine of my CPU HSF is gone, I still have some more noise, previously imperceptible due to the loudness of the now-absent Intel HSF. I'm not going to add anything else for at least another 36 hours, so if something goes wrong with my comp, I know for sure it's the Ninja. While I don't think anything will happen, I'll just strap the 120mm it came with on there and hope the situation will improve.

Anyway, cross your fingers for me, and we'll see what happens next!

Again, thanks for everyone who has helped me out. Hopefully, in the next few days, I will finally be able to enjoy silence.
 
hikeskool said:
All right, small update.

I got the Ninja on there, but not without some difficulties.

It wouldn't be any fun otherwise, would it?

OK, so I opened up the package, and my initial response was "wow, this thing is big". At first glance, it also seems like it may be heavy, and, combined with its height, may lead you to believe that may put undue stress on your mobo. Well, the Ninja is actually pretty light, and in my scientific method of holding the stock Intel unit in one hand and the Ninja in the other, I found it was hard to tell which one was heavier.

Anyway, the installation is really pretty easy. It comes with three different retention devices, and I chose the one for LGA 775, obviously. Four small screws into the base of the thing secured the LGA 775 retention device, and I was off.

Or, so I thought. I removed the stock Intel unit, cleaned off the Pentium D with a little Arctic Silver surface cleaner, applied a BB-sized bit of Arctic Silver 5 to the installed CPU, and sat there for a second. I then tried to simply stick it on top. The LGA 775 pins are the exact same type as on the stock Intel HSF. Well, as it turns out, the Ninja is so dang tall that you can't see what you are doing and maneuver your hands down there in such tight confines. "Good thing I have a removable trey", I thought. So I begrudgingly disconnected some cables and slid 'er out.

After pushing the four pins in (they make a nice, distinct "click" when you get them in right) and then rotating the black holder pins, I was set. So I went to slide in the trey, only to see that the bolts on top were maybe 4-5mm too high, and would not clear my case.

Crap!

So then I decided to remove the mobo entirely. I did not want to do this. Oh well. I slid the trey back in, then attached the Ninja back on to the mobo. I gently placed the mobo back into the case and screwed it down. Now, the issue was plugging in the 4-pin auxiliary cable, which is right in the corner of my mobo, jammed between the Ninja, my PSU, and the backplate of my case.

That was fun to get in there, but I eventually did.

I left the fan off, and fired up some Enemy Territory demo. It ran at like 4fps. That did not look good. I was thinking it was my CPU overheating, but just to be sure, I fired up Battlefield 2 and played for about an hour. Everything looked great.

It's been about 4 hours since I've had it on.

And sadly, while the high-pitch whine of my CPU HSF is gone, I still have some more noise, previously imperceptible due to the loudness of the now-absent Intel HSF. I'm not going to add anything else for at least another 36 hours, so if something goes wrong with my comp, I know for sure it's the Ninja. While I don't think anything will happen, I'll just strap the 120mm it came with on there and hope the situation will improve.

Anyway, cross your fingers for me, and we'll see what happens next!

Again, thanks for everyone who has helped me out. Hopefully, in the next few days, I will finally be able to enjoy silence.
Click to expand...

Even smaller update
.
I meant to post the above at about midnight last night, but the forums were having issues. Whatever.

Doh!

I awoke this morning to my BIOS GUI alerting me that my CPU temps are out of range, or something to that effect.

I'm going to leave her on during class today and if I get the same thing when I get back, I guess my only choice is to attach the 120mm.

After thinking about this a little bit, I remember that when I did reboot, Windows popped up and said it had rebooted after installing some updates, so my thinking is that when it did reboot itself after this process, the BIOS caught that the CPU was a little warm.

Anyway, after coming back form class, the PC seems fine after being left on for about 7 hours.

Gonna hit some BF2 and see what happens.
 
At least get a low speed fan (one of the 20db deals) and put it on the Ninja. 65C is the absolute top of the safe range for C2Ds. Any higher and you risk permanent damage, and some things are going to be more stressful than Quake Wars and Battlefield 2. Not worth the risk. EDIT: Unless this is the Pentium D in your sig. If so no idea what safe temps are for those.
 
Games don't guarantee full load so they're very poor choices for testing -- you want to know the /hottest/ your CPU will ever get and base cooling off that, not assume that since you don't hit the redline in a given game you're good across the board. That means running something like Orthos in "Small FFT" mode or OCCT and using Speedfan to measure temps after 15-30 minutes of full load on both cores.. Fairly sure Speedfan supports temp logging and you can always leave it open to the "charts" page with just the 2 core temps selected and look at the peaks that way.
 
...which should be high enough for thermal throttling to kick in. And you're not OCd at all, right? God, Pentium D's make a ton of heat...
 
hikeskool said:
So I looked up Orthos and set it to work on both cores using the "Small FFTs" profile for a full thirty minutes.

My temps peaked at 88 but stayed around 86 most of the time.

And that's with the included 120mm that came with the Ninja.
Click to expand...

88? That seems too high even for a Pentium D. I have played with a similar setup before: Pentium D 820 with the Ninja on included stock fan and my fully loaded temps were around high 60s. How is your ventilation? Do you get similar temps running with the case side panel open? Is the ninja securely attached to the CPU?

Also if I'm reading your sig correctly you're running a PC P&C TC 510? This one component will make most of your silencing efforts meaningless. It is by far one of the noisiest PSUs around.
 
Nah, 510 is actually just right for your system -- you might even see power related issues if it stays around for a few years and the capacitors degrade/rated wattage drops. Pentium D's are power-hungry little SOBs when compared to the current crop of C2Ds and even quads. The 7800 is pulling its own share too, I'm sure. Yes the Corsair 620HX is probably a good fit for you if you want it quieter. You never want to load your PSU past ~65-75% for two reasons. One, the efficiency curve of pretty much all PSUs is a bell curve, and that puts you more or less directly in the middle of the bell. Higher efficiency means less power lost as heat, which means cooler running hardware that lasts longer, is quieter, and leaves you with a lower electricity bill. The other reason is the aforementioned capacitor degradation. Over time exposure to heat in the PSU housing leads to capacitor degradation which in turn leads to the supply no longer being able to produce its rated wattage. I am not certain where I got this particular number and it is late, so take this part with a grain of sand, but I'm fairly sure I've read that typical degradation leads to a 15-20 watt drop in maximum rated capacity with fairly regular use over the course of a year, so if you plan to keep your machine around for several years or build a new setup with the same PSU buying 100-150 watts more capacity than you think you may realistically need is an especially good idea.

Also, I think you're getting me and puffcap confused. ;)
 
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