Quiet PC

I

Ironz

n00b
Joined
Feb 7, 2003
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42
I currently have a Lanboy, and noticed it is a little too noisy. I have the SmartBlue PSU which has two fans, Two modware.com blue LED case fans, and Zalman7000alcu fan. I have two WD 7200rpm hard drives, two 48x cdroms, and one floppy.

What types of things can I do to get the noise level down? The case and PSU fans create the most noise. I tried foam lining on the inside, but it heated the case up too much, so that option is gone.
 
Put a sheet or two of dynamat on the inside
Try the 7v trick
Modify your fan brackets for larger fans that you can run at lower speeds
Perhaps your vid card only needs a nice heat sink and not a fan if it has one
 
Get some rubber grometts and use those to mount the fans. The vibrations to the case, which cause most of the noise, will be killed. Remember that noise = moving air- it's very hard to get a lot of airflow with not a lot of noise.
 
There's lots of neat techniques, but I think it all boils down to your fans first and foremost. "LED fans" are designed for neither performance nor quietness. Most have sleeve bearings, and that is one of the biggest factors to their noisy operation. Buy some fans with ball bearings and low dB ratings and you will find the noise to be far quieter than what you have now. Of course, they will lack the LEDs, and it gets worse than that. Everything which wasn't that noisy will become more annoying. Your hard drives will especially bother you. Anyways, keep these points in mind.
 
I have the same case. For case fans I have just one 92mm acting as an exhaust going, thats not counting the PSU or CPU fans. The fan's from Evercool, pretty good IMO, very quite. The only noise I can hear is from the PSU, CPU, and HD but I'm going to replace those with these:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-110-007&catalog=62&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-103-444&catalog=58&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-022&depa=1
But the Dynamat approach would probably be what you should get though. I use to have two 80mm Antec LED fans, they didn't perform so well and where REALLY loud.
 
Originally posted by phasmatis_nox
Get some rubber grometts and use those to mount the fans. The vibrations to the case, which cause most of the noise, will be killed. Remember that noise = moving air- it's very hard to get a lot of airflow with not a lot of noise.
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Do you have a suggestion where to get the grommits? The only ones I can find are at Home Depot and they're a bit too big.
 
Thanks for all the helpful info, guys. I think I'll just try modding some LEDs on quieter fans, since all the LED fans I've checked out are noisy.

ownerizer: Antec sells a "quiet-your-pc" type of kit, which includes rubber grommets, but it seems little too expensive for my kind of budget.

Anyone else know of somewhere you can go to get these grommets?
 
I'm may place an order for 100 or so soon, if I do I'll sell em for like $0.10 each or something.
 
If you go to a decent plumbing store they should have all kinds of rubber washers and gromits.
 
Look in the bathroom / kitchen plumbing section of any hardware store, there is usually a display or metal tray-cabinet that is chock-full of various sizings of rubber O-rings. Can be used for many types of vibration-isolation mountings, not as bulky or thick as full-on grommets.

And I have kept up the last 2yrs - are Panaflo fans still recommended as the most Quiet (on average)? Anything out there that is MORe quiet (without dicking with undervolting)?

I also recall reading a thread somewhere where a modder had used duraliner plastic roll-on / paint-on truck bedliner material on the inner surfaces of much of his case, as a sound deadener. It would take some careful masking and prep, but it seems like it would be useful, to me. But if your fans make noice like a Delta, or your hard drive's whine makes your teeth-fillings vibrate, then no point of trying to block the noise, IMHO, there's way too much to begin with.
 
I'd been thinking about that truck bed liner for some other stuff but that sounds like a good idea. I'll have to put that on my mental list of things to check out.
 
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