shh... I can hear you Antec P182

ascorbic

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I just picked up an Antec P182. The 120mm TriCool fans aren't that loud on the low setting, but they are loud enough that I can hear them when I sleep, this is a bedroom PC by the way. I am tearing them out and I want to put something that I won't be able to hear in.

I searched on google for fan reviews, but most of them seem out dated. I looked on NewEgg, but I don't understand what all these new fangled bearing types are, Ever Lubricate, Hydro Wave, Fluid Dynamic, Magnetic Barometric, Nanoflux Bearing, Rifle, Sleeve, SSO, SuperFlo, Vapo Bearing, WTF!?!? Which one just means "I am the quietest." Are there any differences worth considering?

My motherboard (Asus P5B) also supports controlling the speed of chasis fans. So the replacements I am looking for should be 3 pin which support their speed being adjusted by the motherboard.

So what silent 120mm 3 pin motherboard controlled variable speed case fan would match my needs?
 
If fan noise truly bothers your sleep, and I can understand that, I would say your best bet is to just shut the thing off at night. Not only is that quiet, but it also saves a ton on energy bills.

The problem is that there is a point where the fans are quiet enough that the airflow becomes noticeable. If your sensitive to your current fan noise, it is possible you will be affected by airflow noise.

If you want quiet fans, I've had success with S-Flex and rubber mountings.
 
I just used a P182 for my last build and just yesterday I changed the tri-cools with five 1900rpm Slip-Streams and added a Scythe Kaze Master fan controller. So know I have the best of both worlds. I can have them silent or even off when I want to or ramp them up when I need to. At around 1200rpms these fans are inaudible inside the p182.

Does your mobo offer FULL control of the fans? Or just the regular fully on at certain temps? If it doesnt then I suggest just getting a fan controller so you can turn them down to sleep.

My PC is also like 4 feet away from my head when I sleep.

http://www.jab-tech.com/Scythe-KAZE...mm-Case-Fan-SY1225SL12SH-1900rpm-pr-3945.html

http://www.jab-tech.com/Scythe-KAZE-MASTER-ACE-5.25-Bay-Fan-Controller-Black-pr-4354.html
 
Get the Scythe Gentle Typhoon (AP15 then control the speed down if desired). It outperforms nearly every other fan in terms of air pushed vs. sound.

I know it is a link to another forum ... but it is a REALLY good fan test. Notice how the GT not only goes lower in noise than most other fans but at any given noise level it is pushing more air than the competition.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223391

On the cheap, Yate-Loons are still the best bang for the buck.
 
Personally I like Noctua fans. I replaced my Tuniq Tower with a Noctuna CPU cooler and the fan is dead silent running at full 1600 rpm's in my case. I hear more noise from the 240mm fans than it.

link to products here
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, the Scythe Slip-Streams and Gentle Typhoon both sound great.
 
I use 1600RPM, 120mm Scythe S-Flexs in my Lian Li V2000. Really quiet at 10V and lower. Even at 12V all you hear is air moving. Everything is drowned out by my H1 Panaflo sitting on my TRUE.
 
Generally, 120mm fans running at 1000rpm and higher are audible depending on your hearing sensitivity. 1000rpm is considered quiet, but not silent. 800rpm and below is along the line of effectively silent. I've tried 1200rpm Noctua P12 (at 900rpm they are relatively silent), 1000rpm Sharkoons, 1XXXrpm Cooler Masters.. and I've been able to hear them all through various cases (not P18Xs though).

I used to have my system is in my room as well and I can't bear anything but silence when I sleep. Most of the noise will most likely come from HD vibration and/or GPU fan noise even if you remove all the fans or have ones that are effectively silent, so if silence is a major concern, I'd suggest shoving the system in a closet or going SSDs as even no fans won't cure that hiccup.

You really should turn off your PC when your sleeping.
Everyone should follow your way of life amiright?
 
Generally, 120mm fans running at 1000rpm and higher are audible depending on your hearing sensitivity. 1000rpm is considered quiet, but not silent. 800rpm and below is along the line of effectively silent.
That about sums it...
Assuming fan isn't crap quality one with bad bearing/motor and vibration.
Also I would stay away from clear bling bling plastics. Resonances can be really horrible especially when combined with bad bearing/motor. (like in this bling bling junk Akasa)
Most of the noise will most likely come from HD vibration
Main source of HDD noise is case vibrating along with drive and without that amplifying noise level is much lower so with elastic suspension and solid noise containing (instead of cheesegrater) case there shouldn't be much noise from HDD.


I use 1600RPM, 120mm Scythe S-Flexs
Really quiet at 10V and lower. Even at 12V all you hear is air moving.
And at full speed that airflow/turbulence noise is really noisy.
And 10V would be about 1300rpm which isn't even borderline quiet. I think you're living in city...
(btw, SlipStream 1200 pushes same amount of air as that particular S-Flex)
 
keep your fans and put your computer to sleep at night. seriously it takes 2 clicks. sometimes one click on your keyboard sleep button. no noise whatsoever, and then it just takes like 5 seconds to warm up again in the morning. erase noise and save on your power bill (8 hours of computer every day adds up). i dont see why everyone who has a computer in their room doesnt do this. nighttime torrenting too important? need to check ashtons twitter while you sleep? idk...
 
ekuest and Krycek1- there are a lot of reasons to leave your computer on at night. Lots of people do folding, download large files, run virus/defrag/spyware at night.
 
simland, ekuest and Krycek1 - I am fully aware that computers are able to be turned off and are completely silent while off. But the point is not to make the PC dead quiet without any considerations. The point is to make a PC as close to silent as possible while still being able to leave it on. Technology has come a far way, and hardware is getting better everyday. This particular machine is a NAS server that I really don't care to think about. I want to set it and forget it

lowteckh - Thanks a lot for that break down. I am hoping the silicone grommets are enough to damped an HDD noise. I am not ready to make the plunge to SSD yet, 1TB for $99 is simply too good of a deal. My GPU has no fan, just a heatsink so that won't be a problem. I'm just looking to keep the thing cool enough so that no heat contributes any type of hard drive failure.
 
lowteckh - Thanks a lot for that break down. I am hoping the silicone grommets are enough to damped an HDD noise. I am not ready to make the plunge to SSD yet, 1TB for $99 is simply too good of a deal. My GPU has no fan, just a heatsink so that won't be a problem. I'm just looking to keep the thing cool enough so that no heat contributes any type of hard drive failure.

also you can use scrunchies from walmart to suspend the HDD's in your 5 1/2 bays. Works a little better than grommets. I can post some pics to show what I mean if you want.
 
And at full speed that airflow/turbulence noise is really noisy.
And 10V would be about 1300rpm which isn't even borderline quiet. I think you're living in city...
(btw, SlipStream 1200 pushes same amount of air as that particular S-Flex)
I do live in the city...
 
I personally recommend Yate Loon DS12SM (note the M, medium speed, not low speed) @ 5v (just move the connectors). They run at about ~800/900 RPM IIRC, which, to me, is quiet enough, and they're cheap.

Fans can be replaced, but if you want a HDD to be completely silent, you're going to want to use elastic suspension, or in other words, suspend it so it isn't touching anything using things like rubber bands.

I suggest visiting SPCR, there's lots of useful information on all sorts of silent PC topics there.
 
I gave up on drive cooling after Google released their data. My 640 AAKS hangs fanless now and I am not worried about it any more than normal...
Except that after first boot drives in their servers will be running permanently at stable temperatures and without heating/cooling cycles which surely stress drives in normal use.

Also they didn't tell what drives they've used and there could well be component quality differences between different makes/series giving different safe temperatures. And related to that all drives won't report temperature "honestly" and actual temperature can be higher so I wouldn't trust reported temperatures for determining it's running at safe temperature.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=405382#405382
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=405393#405393
 
You should also consider adding some foam to the P182 as they work well together .

And do note that as long as there is a spinning fan depending on your background noise you may hear it no matter what, after a midnight rain at 5c (my current outside temp) what is effectively silent at daytime is still noticeable, as every animal outside is stuck having their ass frozen off. Best you can do is make sure that the noise is not annoying, using foam helps kill the higher pitches in this case. Leaving the gentle whoosh of the air flow.
 
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I used to have my system is in my room as well and I can't bear anything but silence when I sleep. Most of the noise will most likely come from HD vibration and/or GPU fan noise even if you remove all the fans or have ones that are effectively silent, so if silence is a major concern, I'd suggest shoving the system in a closet or going SSDs as even no fans won't cure that hiccup.

Or you could just decouple the hard drive(s)...

There's a dozen methods to accomplish that, from the simple to the very elaborate. Bungee cords as mentioned in this thread (which some Antec cases have stock), rubber grommets (not quite as effective), etc. Me? I've had my main drive sitting on a 2" slab of foam for years with no ill effects (SPCR proved long ago most HD heat is released along the sides and the foam is firm enough that the chips on the underside aren't really smothered). It will effectively transfer zero vibrations like this, obviously not a solutions for those who move their case a lot though.

For me the only downside is that in the small cases I usually have there isn't much space on the case floor to decouple multiple drives like this, but my secondary data drive isn't accessed as often... I'm looking forward to upgrading to a SSD for my OS drive so I have one SSD + one fully decoupled data drive though, heh. :D Another obvious alternative is to move some drives to external enclosures and simply flick the power switch on them off, e-SATA works rather well if USB is too pokey for ya.

GPU fans are another story... On idle some are quiet enough, some are just unruly no matter what though... Seems like there's less aftermarket heatsinks for GPUs these days, and a total lack of models that vent hot air out the back of the case. I miss my ArcticCooling NV Silencer 5. :(
 
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Except that after first boot drives in their servers will be running permanently at stable temperatures and without heating/cooling cycles which surely stress drives in normal use.

Also they didn't tell what drives they've used and there could well be component quality differences between different makes/series giving different safe temperatures. And related to that all drives won't report temperature "honestly" and actual temperature can be higher so I wouldn't trust reported temperatures for determining it's running at safe temperature.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=405382#405382
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=405393#405393

Point taken, and in fact I'm sure they didn't divulge model differences on purpose. No reason to piss off a potential sponsor or vendor tie in. I think that any air flow over a drive is probably going to be fine, even passive. They also pointed out that too much flow is detrimental. Therefore, all things being equal, removing the fan from the drive cage and making the case negative pressure would sufficiently cool the drive in my mind AND remove a noise source. No one really knows what every drive likes for temps, and after two failed in active cooling scenarios, I am experimenting on number three with a different mounting location well away from any active flow, only passive. Makes my case cleaner looking too! :cool:
 
OP -

Scythe Slipstream or Gentle Typhoon fans for the open air positions (front/rear intake). Noctuas cost twice as much and aren't as effective in open air.

Scythe SFlex on your CPU heatsink of choice.

HDD suspension for your hard drive. Use 1.8mm Stretch Magic (used in bead making). Lots of details on this over at SPCR's forums.
 
You should also consider adding some foam to the P182 as they work well together .

And do note that as long as there is a spinning fan depending on your background noise you may hear it no matter what, after a midnight rain at 5c (my current outside temp) what is effectively silent at daytime is still noticeable, as every animal outside is stuck having their ass frozen off. Best you can do is make sure that the noise is not annoying, using foam helps kill the higher pitches in this case. Leaving the gentle whoosh of the air flow.

This is a great suggestion, I may try this, thanks!
 
^ That's really thin foam that probably won't do much. You'll want to use those 1cm thick foam blocks that usually ship with hard drives, packed in Sapphire ATI cards.

Looking at it, looks like the Akasa pieces of crap were stuck on the case - utterly useless, above and beyond. If you look at SilentPCReview's review on the P182 they have an example of how they did the foam.
 
Keep in mind if you throw enough foam in there then temps will definitely start to rise... Frankly I find that if I have fans at a low enough speed (no whines, and no whirring/motor noise with decent fans), and my hard drives are decoupled (no vibration noise) I don't really need to dampen anything inside the case... The only noise I might hear (besides GPU fan kicking up during games perhaps) are seek noise from hard drives. I don't exactly live in the most silent environment though, I mean people can hear the wildlife around (coquis, insects, etc) here over the phone call much of the time... Heh, I've lived here most of my life so I barely notice it anymore.
 
^ That's really thin foam that probably won't do much...
Looking at it, looks like the Akasa pieces of crap were stuck on the case
Akasa is plain crap but that stuff in that case is newer AcoustiPack foam which lacks vibration decreasing heavy base layer but in Antec P-serie case there's really no need for additional mass damping.

Keep in mind if you throw enough foam in there then temps will definitely start to rise...
In acoustically good case none of the components which might need cooling are in direct contact with the case and cooling is based entirely on to using air as heat transfer medium so unless there are heat traps or airflow is hindered effect to temperatures should be minimal.
 
The case itself still conducts some heat away from the hot air flowing inside, and it's gonna do so less effectively with a load of foam in there. It all depends on the amount/path of airflow and the components etc etc obviously, just putting it out there.
 
Akasa is plain crap but that stuff in that case is newer AcoustiPack foam which lacks vibration decreasing heavy base layer but in Antec P-serie case there's really no need for additional mass damping.

In acoustically good case none of the components which might need cooling are in direct contact with the case and cooling is based entirely on to using air as heat transfer medium so unless there are heat traps or airflow is hindered effect to temperatures should be minimal.

Well the acustipack triple layers have a butyl rubber layer at the middle. Not as thick as your dedicated sheets but gets the job done. And Acustipack's are actually fairly dense, you can definitely feel the weight of the thing if you hold it in your hand. Definitely not some paper thin cotton soft crap that is the Akasa. My case gained a few kilo's after I was done, and I didn't even use them on the side panels.
 
I can't sleep if there's a noise and I've got a Antec 1200 with 5xNexus 120mm and when I run them on 5v, they can't be heard from a meter away. Nexus is cheap and great.
 
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