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Queting pc with AcousticPack

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unrealsword

Gawd
Joined
May 8, 2008
Messages
825
Hey guys I bought acousticpack ultimate to quiet my pc because the fan noise is really annoying. I am using only panaflo fans (120mm and 86.5 CFM) at 6v and max 8v on full load. My temps are fine and I have no overheating (with all 4 cores running ingame or in prime I reach 58-60c tops).

My case is a cm stacker T01 and it has a lot of opening (the front fins, the side panel big hole, the top hole, the bottom hole and the middle motherboard hole). So I was thinking of doing this:

Cover side panel with mesh hole with 3 layer sound proofing acoustic pack and the other areas as seen by green seen in the picture bellow

However this may have some effects: I want to cover the front panel fins but this will eliminate the intake portion of the case.

Should I still have the 2x120mm fans running or can I simply disable them? Or should I leave 1 fan in and cover the other fans area with the foam

At the top right there is two x 80mm fan holes. One has a 80mm fan and the second one is empty. I'm thiking of taking out the fan and covering both holes to lower the noise further. I don't think it has any ventilation advantages so I should be fine?

Lastly I have strange problems with electrical/mechinical noise (to the point where I can't sleep with my lcds plugged in because I hear them) so this may be a difficult case to deal with. Everyone I've ver asked said they can barely hear my pc but to me it sounds incredibly annoying even at idle.
Thanks for any suggestion:
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If you think pasting sound dampening will remedy your problem then you are vastly mistaken. SPCR has had discussion upon discussion on it. Your only way to achieve any "real" sound proofing is to switch to a lower RPM fan and go from there.
 
Darn. Any suggestions what to replace the fan with? Maybe I need a totally different case overall because the stacker t01 has very thin panels?

Edit2: I unplugged the two front fans in the front and the one at the top right and there seems to be no change in temp. However noise has been cur drastically! Gaming temperature is 2-3c higher however.
 
Hard to beat a TT Cat fan, uglier than sin but a little paint and your good to go man. Another great fan i've been using along with the TT cat is the Enermax Magma (twister) All below 20db and push about 69cfm. Theres always alternative but I've yet to see much comp for the Cat fan (for the price) Ahh another one is the Sunbeam MFDB, came with the Core Contact Freezer, very very quiet as well, think it was below 20db and it pushes around 90+cfm (max) Of course at that cfm it's louder than the teens ( I think it was sub 20's or maybe mid 20's at that cfm) but even at max you'd be hard pressed to hear it.

The sheeting is pretty much the "icing on the cake" when you get below say 16db or whatever and you need to squeeze a few more db out of your system then the acoutipack does just that.

Good luck brotha :cool:


Edit: On another note, since you already have the sound pack just put that bad boy around the HDD, across/around your fans basically anywhere noise is and bounces directly off of. Another thing of course use some rubber washers on your screws, and maybe go for the rubber fan silencers and mounts (instead of screws) You can make a baffled PSU/rear fan duct as I've done. The duct works wonders man, as alot of your noise comes from the rear fans (psu as well) I'd make sure the front fans (nearest to you) are free from obstruction on the fan and it's path.
 
I'm sure manufacturers exaggerate their specs a bit; fair enough, but the bottom line is the fans are very very quiet and move tons of air. I know "quiet" is subjective to the specific person, so you'll have to do your research and try a few :)
 
I've myself used STC-T01 and like said you'll have to go for quiet components because of open front which leaks all noise out. Also in general if problem is resonances/vibration then combination mats (which have heavy layer) can help to that but even if case wouldn't leak noise out directly you couldn't do much to absorpt non vibration related noise because you simply couldn't stuff enough foam to inside case.

Front intake fans are obviously biggest factors affecting to noise because of being in open holes with direct noise escape path (anything above 1000rpm will be very noisy there) so they should be quiet fans. That'll lower their airflow so having exhaust fans would help by lowering backpressure of intake fans, so just search good 80mm fans from SPCR's list to put in there.
Lining side panels would block holes helping to create front in-back out airflow (while blocking some noise from escaping) but you should still also block as much of unused 5.25" bays as possible.
Also default HDD module isn't greatest because HDDs aren't individually soft mounted so changing that to something else would also help.

For undervolting max RPM should be about 1300rpm at most even for good "undervolters" to make sure it would reliably start. (also noise of high speed fans generally doesn't scale best to low RPMs)
Scythe Slip Stream/Kaze Jyuni is currently best fan, they haven't updated recommended list.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article832-page6.html



Uberbob102000 said:
Yes for the love of God don't use the manf specs for fans because it's bullshit half the time.
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More properly 100 and 50% of the time.
Actual fan manufacturers can have "accurate" values but those are measured just according to some norms, not for finding how it really sounds.
And plain dB measure in fully free air without fan attached to anything is very misleading if fan happens to vibrate.
 
If you wanted to get really technical here, you need to consider that sound, a wave, can be reflected or deflected to suit your purposes.

Having air taken in the front of the case and exhausted out the back is a great way to improve case noise levels... But balancing air in and out is also very important. If you've got a single exhaust fan, of about 50cfm or so, you don't need more than 50cfm of air pushed in the front of the case.

Your best bet would be to replace your front fans with something obscenely quiet - Yate Loon DSL's come to mind (1200rpm and 4$ a piece). You could even run them at about 5v. Just make sure all the front fans are intakes. If you want to make them even quieter, you could mount them further inside the case (to help diffuse sound levels that normally project directly out the front of the case) by about 2-3". This would require some custom work, to be sure, but would help a bunch.

And you could then replace your back fan with a 1600rpm version of the yate loon fan. If you have a dremel, you will gain a *ton* of acoustic headway by cutting out the stamped fan grill in the back, and replacing it with a wire grill or something similar.

Hell, with your HSF, you could probably run both of those fans at 5v, and duct the exhaust air right out the back of the case... Omitting an exhaust fan altogether. lots of places sell 120mm ducting kits.

Covering the side vents of your case actually does help a ton though - I would cover the side panel closest to you with the acusticpack you've already purchased.
 
Thank you very much I'll get in on that. I got a yate loon fan from a friend (2x) and they are inaudible (even at 12v). I'll report back how the covering went after I get the package monday.
 
unrealsword said:
Thank you very much I'll get in on that. I got a yate loon fan from a friend (2x) and they are inaudible (even at 12v). I'll report back how the covering went after I get the package monday.
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Shows you just how subjective "loud" is...

My yates are fully audible at 12v, and only pass into "inaudible" at around 7v from 3 feet ;).
 
Arcygenical said:
If you've got a single exhaust fan, of about 50cfm or so, you don't need more than 50cfm of air pushed in the front of the case.

Your best bet would be to replace your front fans with something obscenely quiet - Yate Loon DSL's come to mind (1200rpm and 4$ a piece).

If you have a dremel, you will gain a *ton* of acoustic headway by cutting out the stamped fan grill in the back, and replacing it with a wire grill or something similar.

Hell, with your HSF, you could probably run both of those fans at 5v, and duct the exhaust air right out the back of the case... Omitting an exhaust fan altogether. lots of places sell 120mm ducting kits.
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I suppose a guy could get a bit "excited" in actual required cfm to cool a given case. I never thought about this much until you said that. I'll have to see how at what point im just "blowing air" lol w/o actually improving upon the cooling characteristics of my set up. I can see how you can save a few db's balancing this out.

Now how about the cooling/exhausting the hot air from around the mosfets, would the ducting interfere with that being that it's guided out the back and blocked instead of circulating? I personally have a top 92mm but if I ever did away with this what are your thoughts on this man?

About the cutting away of the stamped grill, it's definatley a great way to cut down on that "swoosh" sound and hell at 4 bucks a pop for the yates, you cant beat that ha.

Thanks for the post man you definatley gave me a few things to consider as well
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I didn't even think about the aero dynamics of the grill. Air is encountering the tiny holes and in return it's causing air to go around them and cause noise. Great idea I'll go do that right now.
 
Now how about the cooling/exhausting the hot air from around the mosfets, would the ducting interfere with that being that it's guided out the back and blocked instead of circulating? I personally have a top 92mm but if I ever did away with this what are your thoughts on this man?
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Depending on the board, mosfet cooling just really isn't required... They have heatsinks to keep them cool... And your HSF will draw a ton of air in from the surrounding area.

I can't guarantee that a duct will provide cooler temperatures (it probably won't) but I'll be damned if it won't reduce your case noise by an absolute ton.

I worked in an audio environment, where my computer had to be below 26dba at full load, ducting helped a ton in that regard.

I'd keep the top 92mm and run it at around 5v or so.

I suppose a guy could get a bit "excited" in actual required cfm to cool a given case. I never thought about this much until you said that. I'll have to see how at what point im just "blowing air" lol w/o actually improving upon the cooling characteristics of my set up. I can see how you can save a few db's balancing this out.
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Find the cubic feet area of your case (most mid-towers are about 20x20x8 inches, so about 1.75 cubic feet of volume) and use an exhaust fan that will remove this amount of air about once every 3-4 seconds... That's 20 times a minute, or for our 1.75cft case, 30cfm of actual air exchange to prevent buildup.
 
If the mechanical noise is a ticking or clicking sound you may be able to fix it by just adding a couple drops of oil to the bearing well. Just lift the sticker covering it and put a few drops in, sometimes there's a small plastic cap there which should come off with a little prodding. Also, use a fanbus or software/motherboard header fan controller. Case fans can usually be set to run at a fixed, silent RPM, with the cpu fan software controlled to change speeds depending on temperature.

Another big noise source is the hard drive. It comes in two flavors, seek noise and vibrational noise. Seek noise is pretty obvious, but depending on how the drives are secured the vibrations from the spinning platters can be amplified by the case a bit. Using some kind of rubber or elastic mounting helps a great deal, just don't let it sit too loose or the drive will resonate on its own and potentially cause premature drive failure. LCD noise is really tough to deal with, varies from panel to panel and there's not much to be done about it. If they're making the noise even when turned off then put them on their own switched powerstrip.
 
unrealsword said:
I didn't even think about the aero dynamics of the grill. Air is encountering the tiny holes and in return it's causing air to go around them and cause noise. Great idea I'll go do that right now.
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Not only causes noise but also causes back pressure and lowers airflow. Just try with fan blowing to your face (which feels airflow well) first without anything and then that kind mesh in front of fan... difference is huge.
But you don't have to cut it away, I think it was kept on its place by fan's screws. (and motherboard's tray being tightly assembled)


Arcygenical said:
Shows you just how subjective "loud" is...
My yates are fully audible at 12v, and only pass into "inaudible" at around 7v from 3 feet ;).
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Agree, similar Nexus starts to become quiet around 800rpm and about 1000rpm is good general limit for tolerable.
 
I cut out a mesh and whoa: there was so much dust/crap in it I'd say about 70% of the mesh did not let air pass out. Before if I put my hand in front of the exhaust I could not feel anything until the fan turned way up: now even at 6v there is a great gush of cold air coming out.
 
Got the pack installed and running. Temps are fine.. noise is practically gone! I am very happy! Covering those extra holes and removing the 3 noisy fans did the trick. Thanks again.
 
One thing though: covering the intake fans with the noise canceling while keeping all the other holes plugged is a bad idea. My quad reached temps it never has before and l4d keeps crashing. I removed the stuff from the front 2x120mm intake fans and my temsp are back to where they should be.
 
Maybe I should try some of this with some Dynamat. I've debated it, but honestly I don't think that it would be too helpful.

But hell, at $3 a square foot, and me having tons of it sitting around, it's not really that bad of a project ot take on.
 
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