How quiet is everyone's system???

[pyrate83]

Here's a new topic I am interested in hearing replies on. How quiet is everyones system...either custom or brand name. Mine is an HP and honestly I think they could have made the fans a bit quieter. Does anyone have suggestions on making the system even more quiet so I can barely hear it when it's running? I did notice that the cpu fan was called Cooler Master(is that good or just a generic fan) because that seems to be the fan I am hearing although I am not 100 percent sure. Any suggestions or comments??

[tgpo]

My computer, Apple G4 Cube, is silent. It has no fan. The only sound that comes from it is my music.

[galactica]

Ive got one of the Dual G4's. It was REALLY loud, until I pulled the powersupply and put in another one.

Now its a gentle humm..... Wish i could give you decibles, but have no way of getting the number.

All in all, its very silent.

[energy80s]

Mine sounds like a jet aircraft! With the PC switched on upstairs I can hear it running downstairs!! I looked at buying a quiet power supply, but they are £65 and I can think of better things to spend the money on.

[flaninacupboard]

if the PSU is bothering you, and you don't mind using a soldering iron and a screw driver, simply open up your PSU, clip the wires to the fan and connect the fan to 5V instead of 12V. i've done this on 4 pc's in our house, without and problems at all, or even any noticeable change in heat.

try building a duct to your cpu. my XP2000+ has a duct running from the rear of the case, directly to the cpu fan. my cpu fan is only running at 6volts. this made a -huge- difference to the noise. is possible build a second duct near the CPU exhausting the freshly warmed air. use another 6V fan, and enjoy your quieter computer! now if only i could undervolt my hard drive......

[Conquest10]

mine is a soft hum. almost soothing.

[tgpo]

mine is a soft hum. almost soothing.

As most soft hums tend to be


My external CD burner does make nose when it's on, but becaue it's not part of the mian computer, and is only on when I want it on I didn't take it into consideration, but it does have a fan that makes noise.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

mines pretty quiet, i run a near silent 80mm fan down onto a 60mm pure copper heatsink- but i am gonna get a SLK900 heatsink (best copper one money can buy!) and put the fan on that, to reduce the temps a bit!

you can buy these little variable resistor things, all set up so u just twist it to increase/decrease the voltage (thwerefore noise level!)

u can find it on www.quietpc.com

[g_shocker182]

Mine's so loud it gets VERY annoying .

[i_am_dave]

Mine is an HP also, Pavilion 780N.
Very loud, so, I put it in my desk and close the door.

[pyrate83]

Well, I guess I can live with the minor hum my HP makes. Also, does anyone recommend using some type of heatsink to cool your ram or does it not heat up enough to need something like this... I just happend to see something at Compusa on that and was wondering...

[indolikaa]

I CAN'T HEAR YOU! CAN YOU SPEAK UP?!

Our systems are pretty quiet. We use magnetic fans for the internal components and a 'special' AOC fan/sink combo on the processors. The power supplies aren't too bad. Overall, with both CPUs under the desk, you hardly notice the noise...

This may, of course, have something to do with the computer area being right next to the Nuclear-Powered 200,000 CFM Central Air Conditioning unit that keeps our house below 80° in the summer... :P

[Craig Tucker]

Mine is pretty noisy with 8 fans, one advantage is the heating hardly ever needs to be on in the bedroom where the PC is.

[pbhalerao]

A bit noisy since I added the third fan. Everybody in the room heaves a sigh of relief when I turn off the PC.

[flaninacupboard]

the thing i hated most before my undervolting and ducting was the fact that when i turn the machine off and go to bed at like2/3am, my ears used to ring! didn't seem that loud during the day (with traffic, TV's, the heating the cooker etc etc) but at night, wow was it noisy!!

[Faustus]

Mine actually threatens to take off sometimes. It has 10 FANS! I'm not joking here, the sad part about it is even with all that fanaage I think there is an airflow problem created by the fact that the video card is so big it effective blocks most cool air from getting to the CPU. I think if I ever decide to build another machine from the ground up at one time I'm gonna drop the cash on that thermal electric unit I saw the other day. I don't over clock so it should be plenty for me, and ultra quiet.

[flaninacupboard]

I'm telling you, build a duct! it doesn't even have to be that great, just whack a hole in the side of your case over the CPU, and use a bit of pipe (drain pipe would do!!) to sit above the fan. you'll notice a big old drop in temperature, especially if your computer is in a cool room.
if you don't fancy cutting a hole in the side, then build one with a right angle, and port it to the back of the case, or to the front of the case, and build something that will fit in a spare 5.25 bay. you should give it a go!

[Faustus]

Actually I considered a duct, but considering how bad I am at working on stuff with my hands (typing not included) I'd more likely just mess up my niffty case. But yes I considered ducting quite a while back, actually before I saw someone do it online, but sadly I rarely act on thing I think of.

[flaninacupboard]

it doesn't have to be hard! my roomate finished off his duct a few weeks ago, and designed it in autoCAD (he's an engineer) and used plastics, and bend plywood and a whole load of crap. i used some stiff card and some sellotape
i still saw a temperature drop of 12 degreesC, and that's even after i dropped my fan from 12volt operation to 6volt. i'll try and put some pics up later today of what i did. it's really simple!

[RabidDog]

my new pc is very nice and quiet the cpu fan is the loudest noise and that is quiter than a mouses fart. My old system had a big 55ow power supply which worked fine but had two noisy fans in it, which was why it was so cheap!. Oh and the new case is so much better designed than the old case I can actally access stuff from both sides of the computer abd fit two hard drives that dont touch each other.

[surefire]

Mine was really noisy until I fitted a Zalman flower cooler to the CPU. Keeps it really cool and its so quiet you can hear the spiders foot steps while it makes its web outside our window

[Craig Tucker]

Mine was really noisy until I fitted a Zalman flower cooler to the CPU. Keeps it really cool and its so quiet you can hear the spiders foot steps while it makes its web outside our window

I had one of those, just make sure you dont move or jolt your PC while it is attached. The problem is that the heatsinks are very heavy and exceed the recommended weight specified by AMD (mine was fitted to an athlon xp1800). Anyway the weight of the heatsink snapped one of the plastic lugs on the motherboard socket, causing the heatsink to detach from the CPU. Thus frying the CPU and taking the motherboard with it. They may be quiet but I will never use one again. They also are nowhere near as good at cooling as regular contacting fans/heatsinks.

[galactica]

How many fans are typical in a computer these days?

Mine has 3
1. for Processors
1. for Hd's
1. for optical drives


Just curious for those with 10 fans! what are they fanning??

[surefire]

Not so sure about that. My original Volcano 7 cooler running at full speed (noisily) couldn't cool the CPU any more than the Zalman. And I'm sure I've read several reviews stating that the Zalmans cooling is just as efficient, but runs much quieter.

Agree with the weight issue though, I will be very carefull how I handle the box.

[energy80s]

I usually have the side off my PC so cooling isn't a problem - I have a silent fan on the processor anyway. It's the PSU fan that sounds dreadful, and it is disapating a lot of heat so I don't really want to reduce its efficiency. I was looking at one of those quiet PSU's from www.quietpc.com but didn't want to spend £65. I know of guy who bought the whole hog - Flower Cooler for the processor, quiet PSU and hard drive quieteners, but its just too much money when there are DVD's to be copied!!

[Craig Tucker]

Trust me, the non contacting Zalman cannot compete with a decent contacting fan/heatsink such as a Thermalright SLK-800 or an Alpha PAL8045.

[flaninacupboard]

Energy,
Is the fan in the PSU the only fan exhausting air from your system? in most cases it is. the heat being kicked out of that fan is not from the PSU but from the system. the air being circulated inside your system, getting blown repeatedly over the CPU soon gets warm. this is what you feel from the PSU fan. my solution, external PSU! it sits behind the monitor, with the fan at 5V. according to my LAN stsus this machine has been on for abuot eight hours, and the PSU is cool to the touch. the temp inside my system however is 42C. i have a 60mm 12V fan running at 6V ducted out where the PSU used to sit, and the air coming out of it is warm, but not worrying.

Just realised i'm now 70% towards my blue peter badge!!

[EddyH]

This one here seems pretty noisy, even though it's only got a PSU and a modest CPU fan... it's a very small room though, a 12x6ft box office. My own machine, not the quietest, and can vary from soothing (but loud) thru tolerable, to awful, depending on how buzzy the fans get (3 - PSU, CPU, VGA).
My brother's one varies from awful to jet plane, you can tell it's the only one in the house that's above a gigahertz. It's "only" a 1700+ though, Lord only knows how many fans it has or why they're so noisy - little wonder he plays his music at ear rending volumes.

All my laptops are silent, even when they're turned on Can't beat a good old 486 for concentration enhancement, though the new 900mhz P4M mini-Vaio (the white one, TR1 or something) has captured my attention - seems almost as whisper-quiet in the store next to all the howling fullsize laptops, small enough to take anywhere, and still outclasses my own desktop PC in almost every area except RAM, disc space, and raw CD writing speed. Good to see at least Sony have some kind of sense!

[RabidDog]

The fan on my amd 2600 is a AkASa AK842cu?? and it really is quite a big beastie but also vey quiet... I'd recommend it.

[Faustus]

galactica: 10 fans.
2 built into the power suppy.
2 on the back of the unit
2 on the front one just for airflow, one passing specificly over the hdds.
1 on the chip set from the Mobo manufactuer
1 on the CPU
1 on the side of the case blowing across the video card.
1 on the video card itself.
--------------------------------
10 a very disturbing number. I'm currently considering ways to get more airflow to the top of the case, if I can I'll either lose some fans OR replace some with much lower RPM fans.

Sadly my CPU is the very first Generation XP 2200+ which I've read on several forums runs a little hotter then was intended, I can agree with this, its a very warm CPU. Heck my friends 2400+ runs cooler. I'm thinking of replacing it soon anyway.