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Quiet/Silent Prebuilt PC recommendations?

M

minase

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
95
I will be buying a new pc soon and I was wondering if some of you guys can offer me some advice.

I am looking at purchasing a pre-built machine but something under 600 and super quiet.

I originally had an HP slimline which normally was very quiet but had a bad habit of automatically turning on the fan at full blast whenever the cpu was mildy in use.

I'm considering the following brands:

HP
Acer
Dell (inspiron 531s)


Can you guys tell me from your experience which of those 3 have the quietest pcs (specific model #'s appreciated). Thanks in advance!
 
Hi. I think the conventional wisdom here is that you tend to get a better deal from a small boutique vendor then a large mass-market one, especially when you have unusual requirements. I think in the under $600 range, the priority is usually on price/performance so noise level is a very low priority -- I would expect most mass-market PC's in this price range to reflect that prioritization. Most of the highly reputable boutique vendors (e.g., Velocity Micro, Maingear, Falcon Northwest) do not compete in this price range, as far as I know; someone please correct me if I am mistaken. One highly reputable boutique vendor that does is AVA Direct (avadirect). Given the range of configuration options, AVA makes it possible to chose unusual builds that, for example, optimize noise and price at the expense of performance, etc. For example, here is one possible configuration of their "Core 2 Duo Value Series System":

# NZXT, Hush Silver/Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel/Aluminum/Plastic
# SEASONIC, S12 Energy Plus 550 Power Supply, 80 PLUS®, 550W, 24-pin ATX EPS12V, Dual +12V, Active PFC, SLI Certified
# MICROSTAR, P4M900M2-L, LGA775, VIA P4M900, 1066MHz FSB, DDR2-667 2GB /2, PCIe x16, SATA RAID, VGA, HDA, mATX, Retail
# INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E4500 Dual-Core, 2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache, 65nm, 65W, EM64T EIST XD, Retail
# CRUCIAL, 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz CL5 SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
# WESTERN DIGITAL, 160GB WD Caviar® SE, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache
# NEC, AD-7170A Beige 18x DVD±R/RW Dual Layer Burner, IDE, OEM
# UBUNTU, Pre-Installed Ubuntu™ Linux Operating System, No Media, No Support
# WARRANTY, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
$585.06

Most customers would go with a cheaper (but less quiet) case and power supply for a $600 machine; the savings could go into getting Windows instead of Linux and getting a graphics card instead of using the graphics on the motherboard. You may want to try fiddling around with their configurator to get a sense of what sorts of possibilities are available from them and then contact them (call or email) to get specific expert advice on a configuration that meets your requirements.
 
Ugh...because I'm not much of a salesperson, you just get a link from me and an invite to call in and say hi...lol. We specialize in silent computers, and we do Linux and 64-bit OS'. While the computers we sell tend to be more expensive, there's a chance we might be able to work with you. At the very least, we'd be happy to help you make a final choice based on the configurations from three manufacturers you've mentioned.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/quiet.php
 
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