How do I determine case noise?

M

Momental

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 23, 2004
Messages
125
Man! My computer is way loud. We're talkin' nitro funny car here.

It's a Falcon-Northwest system from a few years back: an AthlonXP 2100+ on a ASUS A7V333 board.

The case is an ATC-110 aluminum jobbie (very nice and impossible to find now) and has a Cooler Master HSF along with 3 (possibly 4?) 80mm case fans. How can I determine what's making all the racket? I'm not sure if it's a collection of everything (power supply, HSF, case fans and harddrive) or if there's one thing in particular (or 3 if they're the case fans) that has got to hit the bricks.

Should I take off the side panel, turn the system on and just give a good listen? Is there a more accurate way to find out, such as unplugging the case fans, booting up and then listening? I'm going to be giving this rig to my fiancee as I'm building a whole new one next week and I wanted to muffle the sound as much as possible while keeping everything cool.

My "knee jerk" solution is to dump the CM HSF and pop in a ThermalTake 'SilentBoost' and swap out the case fans for the quietest, yet most efficient ones I can get.

Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated! (grab a beer from the fridge, but don't touch the Blue Moon Ale. ;))
 
what you should do is individually power on each fan separately (attatch one to the computers internal power at a time). Once you find the problem fan(s) then replace them or another thing you can do is buy that foam stuff that muffles the sound. Do a search on google for it and you should be able to find it if you want to try it out. Do a search for sound insulating foam.

...Dan
 
Pls dont get a silent boost, they are LOUD. Get a quality solution, like zalman or thermal right.
 
Too funny! I've been reading more about the TT SilentBoost and have decided "No way!". Instead, I'm gonna go with a Vantec 'AeroFlow 2' HSF. They're cheaper, quieter and more efficient than the TT anyway.

I find it hard to believe all the noise from my case is coming from the power supply (an Enermax EG365P-VE 350 Watt) or from the harddrive (IBM Deskstar 40GB 120GXP 7200RPM).

I'm just not sure how to be able to say, "Yup! That's it! That's where all the noise is coming from!" as I don't have a device to measure sound and my knowledge of plugging and unplugging devices is somewhat limited. I do know, however, that unplugging the HSF with the computer running wouldn't be such a great idea. ;)

In short, how do I isolate the source(s) in the simplest "non-invasive" way?
 
Really?? Hey, if it's that simple, then I'm all for it! I'm a huge fan (no pun intended) of "simple". :)

Would this method work for the case fans too? I realize one would have to be fairly nimble to stop all four at once, however. :eek:

This definitely gets the "Holy crap! Why didn't I think of that!" award for the day. :)
 
Herulach said:
i usually put my finger on the middle of the fan to stop it
Click to expand...

Doesn't this cause a very large current draw, jeopardizing both the fan and the motherboard traces that are powering it?
 
Herulach said:
i usually put my finger on the middle of the fan to stop it
Click to expand...

I do the same thing whenever I'm testing either my own computers at home, or ones at work. In the hundreds of times that I've slowed a fan with my finger I've never caused any damage.
 
mikeblas said:
How did you check for damage?
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The PSUs didn't behave any differently than normal, the fan RPMs didn't alter, and I didn't smell burning. Had a trace fried, I'd expect to have seen at least one of those effects on at least one of the hunderds of machines that I've serviced.
 
mikeblas said:
Doesn't this cause a very large current draw, jeopardizing both the fan and the motherboard traces that are powering it?
Click to expand...
All my fans run off the psu or my home made fan controller, since psu is rated at 28A and the Fan controller is heatsinked and good for ~ 16A i dont really need to worry about stuff like that.
 
Herulach said:
All my fans run off the psu or my home made fan controller, since psu is rated at 28A and the Fan controller is heatsinked and good for ~ 16A i dont really need to worry about stuff like that.
Click to expand...

Having a PSU rated at 28A is actually bad. The connectors your fan uses are probably rated at about 5A. A 26-gague wire shouldn't carry more than about 2.2 amps. The stall current of a fan can exceed these limits.

If the PSU is capable of driving more current than the passive compoennts in the circut can handle, all that means is that you've got plenty of current to use for burning wires or traces.

I'm curious: how did you examine the traces on internal layers of the motherboard for damage?
 
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