Can a Norco be made quiet enough for home use?

M

MrCrispy

2[H]4U
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May 14, 2007
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I don't really need 20 bays but after adding a couple 5in3's + case, the cost is the same. How much work/cost is involved in replacing the fanplate, adding 3 120mm fans and in the end how loud is it compared to a standard tower case with those cages?
 
easy to replace the fans, just unscrew the ones there and put in your own, done.
 
And the Norco 120mm fan thing is easy if you can use a screwdriver. My advice having done a few is get a motherboard with 4-pin PWM connectors, get 4-pin fans, and let the motherboard control everything.
 
pjkenned said:
And the Norco 120mm fan thing is easy if you can use a screwdriver. My advice having done a few is get a motherboard with 4-pin PWM connectors, get 4-pin fans, and let the motherboard control everything.
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If you do exactly this, and invest in some quality fans, you should be able to get it quite quiet while still moving a good amount of air.
 
i have the 120 fan blade with yateloons and it is no louder than my other rigs. it is in a closet, so it doesnt need to be silent
 
It all depends on how you define 'quiet enough'. Can you make it silent? No. But do the things listed above - get the 120mm fan bracket and replace all the fans with high-quality quiet ones. I'd reccomend Nexus over the yate-loons.

Be careful if you load it up to 20 drives and use them aggressively. The low-speed, quiet fans can just barely keep them cool enough (again - all depends on how you define 'cool enough').

After doing all this will it be silent? No. It will probably just about as quiet as an off-the-shelf tower system that hasn't had any special silencing done to it. Will it be quiet enough for a room with other noise? Probably yes. Will it be quiet enough for a bedroom while you are trying to sleep? Probably not.

Can you make it even quieter? Yes, you probably can. Use damping materiel. Take extra special care about the airflow. Get a tower CPU cooler (like the TRUE) and build a duct from its fan to the rear fan cutouts so that you get rid of the dual-80s in back and move the fan itself away from the back of the case. Cut out the 'grills' on the rear fan mounts. Will all that be worth it? Probably not. No system sporting 4-5 fans and up to 20 spinning disk drives is ever going to be "silent".
 
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Check out my Norco here. Decibel readings and video of it running. I'm actually happy with the 80mm fans and haven't bothered swapping in the 120mm fan bracket even though I have it. My wife hates noisy computers and it sits right next to her desk.
 
where can i get this 120mm fan bracket?
Interesting topic, I am going to build a NAS with the 4224, stuffed with 3TB hitachis, and I intend to make it as silent as possible.
 
a fan controller will save the day with those rear fans and fan-bracket fans, very good air movers and not that noisy when tuned...
However, it's not going to be quiet/silent, unless you get very cool drives that doesn't need a lot of air pushed around that will allow you to run the fans in very quiet mode...
 
plaus said:
where can i get this 120mm fan bracket?
Interesting topic, I am going to build a NAS with the 4224, stuffed with 3TB hitachis, and I intend to make it as silent as possible.
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You can order it from Norco now I believe. Before Norco offered it, a hardforum user by the name of "cavediver" offered the 120mm fan brackets.
 
MrCrispy said:
I don't really need 20 bays but after adding a couple 5in3's + case, the cost is the same. How much work/cost is involved in replacing the fanplate, adding 3 120mm fans and in the end how loud is it compared to a standard tower case with those cages?
Click to expand...

IMHO, if you're not going to be packing it with 20 hot-running drives (e.g. Hitachi 7K's or older gen WD 1TB Blacks), you might not even need the middle fan plate. I currently have 10 or so "Green" drives in mine, just running on two quiet rear PWM fans plus the PSU fan. I rarely see temps above 40C or so, though my basement is relatively cool even in the summer. I did block off the vent holes above the PCIe slots to maximize the negative pressure. You should also make sure any unused drive caddies have their vent holes closed.
 
PigLover said:
It all depends on how you define 'quiet enough'. Can you make it silent? No. But do the things listed above - get the 120mm fan bracket and replace all the fans with high-quality quiet ones. I'd reccomend Nexus over the yate-loons.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Nexus fans essentially undervolted Yates?
 
I would go with Scythe Gentle Typhoons, if you want very quiet setup go for the 800rpm or 1150rpm, above this are audible, you can also go with higher rpm and undervolt them to your personal preference.
 
This will be placed off to one side in my apt living room, and will run only green drives - to start with 10 x Samsung F4 2TB, which will be sufficient for a while. I need to look at added costs (bracket, fans) and size now. I assume there's no issue standing the Norco on its side? I haven't seen people do that, most of you place it in a rack.
 
I just ordered an RPC-4224 for my ZFS build. Does anyone know if they are currently shipping with the 80mm or 120mm partition? I'm really hoping for the 120mm.

In the event that it comes with the 80mm, where can I order a 120mm partition?
 
i love the $2.99 yateloons and run them at 7v. I used them with my Watercooled rigs in the past and now with my 4020 and they keep drives under 50* @7v
 
PigLover said:
No. Both yate and nexus use the same underlying manufacturer but there are substantial differences. See the detailed fan articles at www.silentpcreview.com for more detail.
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Can you find an article stating this? I've found several posts here, on OCN, and SPCR that all basically state Nexus are "cherry picked" Yate Loon D12s with an inline diode to drop the voltage to 7v and at 3-4x the price.

Here's a Nexus:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835610006

Here's a YL:
http://www.jab-tech.com/YATE-LOON-120mm-Case-Fan-D12SL-12-pr-3009.html

Looks like the same fan to me with white blades...


More on track though, I'd suggest YL to the OP for cost effective fans and GentleTyphoons (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185092) for the high end ball bearing fan. I've got six GTs and they are truly silent, save the air "whoosh". You spin the blade manually and it goes forever, the mag steps are tiny and the friction is the lowest of any fan I've used. Expensive suckers though.
 
I sit next to 11disks with 5 1200rpm 120mm fans.
nas-fan2-01591.jpg

The fans are silent, but the air moving through the case isn't. There is a sucking sound that isn't unpleasant, but when the machine is off, one notices the lack of noise. I've plugged the 5 fans into the MB, so its BIOS slows the fans by another half too. Now when I kick off a disk scrub, the clicking noises are much more noticeable. :)

notice how much cooler the F4 is than a WD Black.

Code: 
Device    Serial       Vendor   Model             Rev  Temperature 
------    ------       ------   -----             ---- ----------- 
c4t0d0p0  WMATV6790xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 35 C (95 F) 
c4t2d0p0  WMATV0086xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 36 C (96 F) 
c4t5d0p0  WCASY8899xx  ATA      WDC WD5000AAKS-0  4C07 33 C (91 F) 
c4t7d0p0  H7JD5B102xx  ATA      SAMSUNG HD204UI   0001 25 C (77 F) 
c5t0d0p0  WMATV0078xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 37 C (98 F) 
c5t2d0p0  WMATV6963xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 35 C (95 F) 
c5t5d0p0  WMATV0075xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 37 C (98 F) 
c5t7d0p0  H7JD5B102xx  ATA      SAMSUNG HD204UI   0001 28 C (82 F) 
c7t0d0p0  WMAP41972xx  ATA      WDC WD1500AHFD-0  7QR5 33 C (91 F) 
c7t4d0p0  WMATV0086xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 34 C (93 F)
c7t5d0p0  WMATV6770xx  ATA      WDC WD1001FALS-0  0K05 36 C (96 F)

Perhaps the key to noise, isn't fans, but power. If one can reduce the power usage and hence heat, one wouldn't need to move as much air.
 
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On my 4224, the loudest fans were the two in the rear. I wound up purchasing a cheap $7 fan controller and slowing them to about half speed. I then added a 120mm ran outside the back of the case, in front of all of the card slots. This keeps the air moving nicely, and it is less than half as loud.

Mine is in the basement, though. I still wouldn't want it on the main floor of my house.

Dave
 
I would just run the fans at 5v. That will also increase the life span of the fans, give or take, as they'll be running way below spec.

Idealy some kind of temp sensor would be nice too, but does not seem to be something commonly available other then built on motherboards and you are usually limited to like 2-3 slots, and half the time it does not work.
 
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