Sound Dampening a Sonata?

C

Chelica

2[H]4U
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Aug 8, 2003
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I purchased an Antec Sonata about 3 days ago. Have not set it up yet. Trying to go for the very quiet theme. Been running on a setup that makes an unbelieveable amount of noise, so I need some peace and quiet for one since my setup is located in my room.

My question is, since the Sonata is a bit of an odd case, the right panel cannot be removed, if I was to purchase one of those sound dampening kits and just install it on the left side, will this make a difference? noise wise I mean.

Does anyone know of any other methods of making the Sonata a little bit more quiet? I have not turned it on yet, still waiting for parts, but I just want to think of some ideas on making it more sound-less. Is it fairly quiet stock?

O yeah, I have a Zalman 7000ALCU for my HSF.

Alex
 
Well... You could use Mr. Pwoer tool collection to remove the right panel, as I did with mine, or you could place the right side up against a wall. That should work nicely.

If you have the comp just standing around somewhere, you will get more noise if you don't dampen the right side too.
 
OO I see. Have you seen those Antec PC Quiet kit? It is like some plastic thing that you can put on the back of your PSU, does that work?
 
If you still have the stock 120mm fan in there I wouldn't worry about sound, the loudest thing in my pc is my 9800xt's fans,and even it is overpowered by the 80mm fan in the computer next to it, i also have a zalman alcu 7000 and even on normal mode its close to silent
 
How quiet is the Sonata suppose to be? I think the thing that is making the most noise is my 4600 HSF and the ABIT NB Fan.
 
DO you have the extra 120mm in there?

I'm putting one in mine, hopefully will not be too loud.
 
No I did not install a second 120MM. It is not the fan tho, I unplugged the fan on the back and there was still this annoying noise coming from either the Video Card or the NB.

Which brand did you get? I am thinking of putting down a Panaflo and set it at low speed.

Alex
 
I recently purchased one as well, for my new office computer. Here are the specs

AMD 2600+ XP
Asus A7V600 Mobo
512megs Mircon PC3200 DDR
ATI Radeon 9200
ATI X-Pert 98
40gig WD HD PATA
80gig Seagate HD SATA

First thing I noticed was this is supposed to be a qyite case, so why did they drill holes in the side to have their name there!?!?! I found the silly, so the first thing I would recomend is putting something on the inside and filling those holes (I have yet to do this but will soon).

Good call on the Zalman, I have it turned down as slow as it will go, so it's whisper quite.

sonata_4.jpg


The other bigest noise maker in the case I found was the 120mm fan. There is no need for it to run at 100% speed, so I installed one of our MX4 displays to control the speed of the fan, I'm currently running it t about 20% of the maximum speed. The display will speed it up when the system gets too warm and slow it down again. Either way, I would recommend one of our displays ( pimp), running the fan at 7V or getting some kind of other fan controller. If you are worried about heat issues, you can install the second 120mm fan, and once again control the speed.

This system is a AMD XP 2600+ and I have installed four temperature probes, one right be the intake air slots, one right in the hard drives area, one on top of the heatsink of the video card and one on the power supply (if case the fan fails, I can see the PSU cook it self)

sonata_1.jpg


So with this setup, here are the CPU temps, this system has been runnin for 7 days or so

sonata_2.jpg


So as you can see, the system is running at decent temperatures, with the CPU HSF running at the slowest speed, the 120mm fan running about about 20% of it's speed. And the system is whisper quite... I am very happy with this case so far.
 
Nevermind, went to your homepage. Pretty cool man.

I am thinking of getting one of those sound dampening kits from CUSA and paste it on one side of the panel (The removeable one) and see if that helps.
 
Originally posted by Matrix Orbital
First thing I noticed was this is supposed to be a qyite case, so why did they drill holes in the side to have their name there!?!?! I found the silly, so the first thing I would recomend is putting something on the inside and filling those holes (I have yet to do this but will soon).
Click to expand...
The holes are there to ventilate the PSU. Temps will go up if you cover them, which in turn speeds up the fans.
 
ooo.

Is there a way to tone down the speed of the 120MM fan. I attached the fan onto the fan power header on the Antec PSU.
 
i have 2 120mm fans in my sonata both running at normal speeds off the 12v 4pin's and its extremely quiet along with my zalman 7000a alcu on normal mode, i really don't understand how you can be complaining about noise

unless you're looking for the perfectly silent pc, then you need fanless stuff, videocard and cpu heatsink

or watercooling, like the zalman reserator or whatever its called
 
Originally posted by carlson
i have 2 120mm fans in my sonata both running at normal speeds off the 12v 4pin's and its extremely quiet along with my zalman 7000a alcu on normal mode, i really don't understand how you can be complaining about noise

unless you're looking for the perfectly silent pc, then you need fanless stuff, videocard and cpu heatsink

or watercooling, like the zalman reserator or whatever its called
Click to expand...

LOL, yeah it is quiet, but sometimes my ears turns bionic and I can hear everything, hahaha.

Also, I have the Sonata on top of my desk so the noise is there. Now that I have it on the bottom of my desk, I can barely hear anything. Once I throw in one of those fan controller and some dampening stuff, I will prolly hear nothing.

Does anyone know how much heat will be generated if I was to cover up the Antec hole punch outs?

jwill - thanks for the links man. I needed that.
 
its a trade off, if you cover them up and your pulling air through front to back you eliminate 99% of the dust that gets into your case, the rest is just small crap coming through the filter, but if you cover them up you're cpu temp may rise

i wouldn't worry about it if you have a 120mm sucking air past it.
 
Originally posted by carlson
its a trade off, if you cover them up and your pulling air through front to back you eliminate 99% of the dust that gets into your case, the rest is just small crap coming through the filter, but if you cover them up you're cpu temp may rise

i wouldn't worry about it if you have a 120mm sucking air past it.
Click to expand...

Agreed
 
I once used cheap foamy-type mouse pads as soundproofing on an old rig. They cost about a .75 each and i even doubled up the layers for more soundproofing, worked pretty well i might add. I'm totally guessing here but it seemed to have cut noise down about 5-8 DB lower and changed it to a different, more bearable frequency.
 
Originally posted by SJetski71
I once used cheap foamy-type mouse pads as soundproofing on an old rig. They cost about a .75 each and i even doubled up the layers for more soundproofing, worked pretty well i might add. I'm totally guessing here but it seemed to have cut noise down about 5-8 DB lower and changed it to a different, more bearable frequency.
Click to expand...

Whoa, I never thought of that.

But in any case, if I was to go and get some type of a sound dampening materials without costing me about $80 bucks or so. Are there any materials that I can get at Home Depot or something that can be used as a cheaper substitute?
 
Originally posted by Chelica
Are there any materials that I can get at Home Depot or something that can be used as a cheaper substitute?
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I know certain types of doormat have a similar black dense spongy type cushion underneath. They're solid doormats with no holes cut in them, on the thin side too about 3/8" maybe, ive seen them at kmart and target for maybe $10 each.

might be worth a look
 
Originally posted by Chelica
If I was to get those, what would I use to paste it onto the side panels?
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Not sure really, but whichever one it turns out to be can be easily removed as well. Thats the good thing about glue...some denatured alcohol removes it nicely. Velcro is another possible option, its certainly cheap enough and can be found in any .99 cent store.

BTW, i was at home depot earlier and saw the items i mentioned. Some of the mats have a very dense rubber cushion underneath that ought to absorb sound real well. They ranged in thickness a bit from about 5/16" and 3/8".

Have you tried pricing that Akasa Paxmate material being sold everywhere yet? It seems to have dropped quite a bit in price lately.
 
Originally posted by SJetski71
Not sure really, but whichever one it turns out to be can be easily removed as well. Thats the good thing about glue...some denatured alcohol removes it nicely. Velcro is another possible option, its certainly cheap enough and can be found in any .99 cent store.

BTW, i was at home depot earlier and saw the items i mentioned. Some of the mats have a very dense rubber cushion underneath that ought to absorb sound real well. They ranged in thickness a bit from about 5/16" and 3/8".

Have you tried pricing that Akasa Paxmate material being sold everywhere yet? It seems to have dropped quite a bit in price lately.
Click to expand...

See the thing is, I am totally new in this area. I have no idea what type of material is better than one or the other. Even if I was to go to Home Depot, I would not know which one I would get. As for that Akasa Paxmate, what is that? I will be doing some Google researching on that soon enough. Just got back from work and am too tired to think about more computer crap that I want to purchase, haha. Thanks for the help tho man. It seems as if you setup is quiet ass hell if you know alot about this area.

Alex
 
The sonata case is pretty quiet by itself, one of the quietest I have owned. Get a Zalman Heatsink/Fan, and a quiet 120mm fan. You could trade out the PSU and get a quiet/fanless PSU.
 
I have a Zalman 7000ALCU already. I will be getting some low noise 120MM, which one is the quietest in the market? Will also be getting a Fan Controller. And as for the dampening material, which one should I get out of these two? I think I will get the Akasa Pax

Spire SP

or

Akasa PAX
 
Originally posted by Chelica
Is there a way to tone down the speed of the 120MM fan. I attached the fan onto the fan power header on the Antec PSU.
Click to expand...
The Sonata comes with a TruePower380, an already quiet PSU. I understand you have the rear exhaust plugged into the "Fan Only" connectors... meaning it's already running at 5V-7V. I don't know if it can get any quieter than that...
 
I am keeping the Fan that came with the case and also the PSU. That was one of the many reason on why I bought the Sonata. I was just thinking of adding another 120MM in the front.

As for the sound dampening kit, how do I get to the other side of the unremoveable side panel?
 
remove the front bezel and drill out the rivets.

thats the only way to get to the inside of the unremovable side panel on the sonata.

i have some akasa pax mate coming in the mail for my new lain-li, hoping it works well.
 
Thanks for the tip garage81. I might also be getting some stuff to sleeve up all of the cables. Looks pretty nasty right now.
 
i went from my sonata to a lian-li, and the acoustics from the sonata are amazing compared to the lian-li.

add a second fan also, that helped temps for me a lot.
 
My current Sonata has a Mag3 and 3 92mmx38mm Deltas (100+ CFM, 56dcb each). First thing I did what to undervolt the fans to 5V. It made the noise go from jet engine to normal computer. I realized alot of the sound comes from the case vibrating. I'd heard of people using a kind of roofing tar tape to stop that. So I went to home depot to get some of the tape. It came to me the tape would work but would leave an ugly surface. So I bought some regular tar, then picked up some black felt from a craft store. I coated all the inside surfaces with a layer of tar let it "dry" aka get tacky. Then coated it with pieces of felt. I let it sit overnight cam back hit a side panel, the gong sound was greatly diminshed. So I did 2 more layers of tar/felt for a total of 3. The end result was a dull thud whenever I tried the gong test. The fans mount of top of the layers so there no need for a rubber washer. My case is pretty queit and has a unique inside.
 
I went out and got my friend to pick up some Akasa Pax for me from SVC yesterday. Got the product today along with a Zalman northbridge replacement. Will be trying it out soon. Can't wait to see what these little gadgets can do in terms of silence.
 
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