Building a quiet PC — some good resources
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm by Rakesh
Recently, my home PC running Beyond TV got moved from what was essentially an attic to my home office. The attic was far enough away from everything else that the noise level on the PC didn’t matter — and that’s a good thing because as I discovered, the PC I’ve been using for Beyond TV was LOUD.
I gave my HTPC to Zack in the office the other day and asked him if he could make it quieter. It turns out that the graphics card’s fan had gone wonky. Now that it’s been replaced (thanks Ryan!), I’m much better off than I was before and I think the PC is as quiet as it’s going to get without switching out some hardware.
So that’s my next project — switching out the components in my existing HTPC or building a new one so I end up with a quieter PC. I started out doing a bit of research in the SnapStream Forums and came across this recent post on building a small, quiet and cheap Beyond TV Link box. While the article is for link boxes, there are some nuggets in there that might be useful to me.
And then there’s this great article, which I found through a Google search, on “Building a quiet PC” by Jeff Atwood. The good thing about the article is it doesn’t try to recommend a particular set of hardware (any such recommendations can’t be useful for very long because PC hardware changes so quickly). Instead it focuses on the general principles behind quieting a PC.
If I get to mucking with my hardware, which may or may not happen because what I have now is quiet enough, I’ll post the results here. Meanwhile hopefully others will find this research useful.
And if you’ve gone through the process of quieting your HTPC, post a comment below and share how you solved the problem.
(photograph above modified from a photograph by Jef Poskanzer)
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I prefer motherboard chipsets that are cooled by the copper fins… No fans for chipsets, they always seem to go bad.. Also for Video cards if you can avoid it..
I’ve also noticed how the big brands build very quiet pc’s.. They do this by using a shroud over the CPU that diverts the heat out the side, using a low rpm 120mm plus size fan that runs very quiet.. That is the main trick…. Now also the power supply fans can be loud also…
Finding a low noise fan in the power supply is a little tricker…. I haven’t mastered that yet… Always note the fan noise when listed in the specs, always in db’s…(decibels) I think below 30 is a good number, but lower is better.. But keep in mind the air flow rates in cfm, cubic feet per minute…
But these are my tricks to building a quiet PC… Good Luck!!
June 29th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
i agree with copper fin only sb and nb coolers and the quietest, large slow rpm fans you can find and fit in your box. generally, bigger fans offer superior cooling at slower rpms but check the specs carefully..the scythe 120mm fans designed by sony are awesome at a good price and great for power supply switch outs and cpu heatsinks. also if you’re board allows it, try undervolting your cpu, of course then requiring less cooling and in turn, likely less noise.
July 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I went to a lot of trouble to build a quiet htpc; my first attempt followed the less-expensive, let’s-scavenge-parts route. that’s now sitting in my office as a file server — too loud, some of the hw was too old. my 2nd attempt came out very well, it sits in the living room and with absolutely nothing else running in the house (furnace off, refrigerator not running, etc) when I sit on my couch, or even up to within 3 feet of the machine — I cannot hear it at all.
how? lots of good research out there on parts & performance. one of the best is http://www.silentpcreview.com, whose author regularly tests the sonic qualities of pc parts and posts the results. using fans recommended on that site.
v1 of the 2nd, now-in-use htpc I used the stock fans that came with a zalman htpc case I bought — good, but audible. recently, I went in and replaced every last fan with a recommended quiet fan. then I tuned their speeds through sw control to make them inaudible. et voila, temps never above 37C, and no sound.
of course i used a large-fin heatsink for the cpu (ninja scythe mini, there are others out there with the same idea behind them).
and of course it uses a passively cooled video card. I tend to go for the fastest video card that is passively cooled. these days (july’08) that means an nvidia 8600gts in my htpc and a recently installed nvidia 9600gt in my office machine. there are somewhat similar ati cards available.
modern hard drives are really not that bad, especially in quiet cases (antec, zalman, others) that use rubber gromets for mounting — cuts down drastically on vibration noise.
good luck!
July 12th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I use noise dampening foam on my side panels spire makes one brand I have used and like it is foam with a sticky back comes in panel and half panel sized sheets and is easy to cut with a pair of scisors.
pretty much never have a side fan I want all my exhaust/venting out the back and maybe top however if u dont have top vent I am sure it is better. “current build has a top fan blowing in reason being I replaced top fan but put it in wrong and now cant seem to get it out again oh well
” running 32c
good fans bigger the better but you can get small 80mm fans as well and there cheeper than and 120 another thing I like to do is put air conditioner filters over my inlets to stop dust buildup. My lian li case came with one installed but on my main gaming comp I just taped them on and vacume them off once in a while.
Course rubber gaskets between fans and case. read lots of reviews on power supplies tons of bad ones out there and tons of loud ones hard to get a nice working silent one.