# Help me build a quiet PC



## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Ok, after my motherboard upgrade failure, I'm thinking about building a new desktop and need couple of new parts. 

The reason I wanted to upgrade my Sony desktop was because it's current setup was dead silent.  No noise.  Only HD noise here and tehre and a little noise coming from a new Graphic card. 

Anyways, is it possible to make the new desktop as silent at the Sony?  What parts do I need? 

Current parts I have or planning to get, (x) means I got it..

(x) 1. E8500 CPU w/ Cooler Master Hyper Z600 CPU cooler 
(x) 2. Gskill 4gb DDR2 1066
(x) 3. PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W
(x) 4. Antec P180 Mini
 -  5. SAMSUNG Black 22X
(x) 6. Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB
 -   7. Some TV Tuner
(x) 8. HIS Hightech H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 (iceQ)
 -  9. Motherboard (still deciding) 
 - 10. 5 or 7 volt adapter 

So which CPU cooler should I get that is the quietest.  And won't start to whine after 2 months like my Graphic card did.  (HIS Hightech).

I hear the Antec case is pretty quiet.  So thats a start.


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## FR@NK (Jun 7, 2009)

If you plan on running everything at stock speed then it should be easy to run any fans on low and make your tower quiet. Try using low speed 120mm fans


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## angelkiller (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> 1) E8500 CPU (stock cooler)
> 2) Gskill 4gb DDR2 1066
> 3) PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W
> 4) Antec P180 Mini
> ...


Silent computing is still very possible today. You might want to refer to Silent PC Review for information. IMO, they're the best site on the net for information about quiet computing.

That said, I'd like to comment and make suggestions about your proposed build. I'm going to assume that the level of quietness you want is 'near silent'.

I doubt that the intel stock cooler is really quiet. I would replace it with a larger heatsink. A larger heatsink allows heat to be transferred to the air quicker, which results in cooler temperatures and less airflow needed. You could easily passively cool a stock E8500 with a large heatsink, such as a Scythe Ninja/Ninja 2 or a Thermalright HR-01 Plus. A cheaper alternative could be a Xigmatek HDT-1283 with a Nexus or Slipstream 120mm fan. That combo offers awesome performance (within degrees of a TRUE) and is extremely quiet.

The PC P&C Silencer series is not the quietest. For a quality PSU and good noise characteristics, choose a Corsair PSU. As a general statement, Corsair PSUs have excellent electrical quality, are low on noise and are priced very nicely. I would recommend any Corsair PSU. As for a specific model, the VX450W is a good balance of power, noise and cost. Although more expensive, Enermax's Modu82+ series is also very quiet.

The Mini P180 is a decent case from a silence perspective. It is heavy and has thick side panels which help dampen noise. However, it is also very vented, which allows noise to escape and the 200mm fan is not on the silent side. An alternative is the Antec Solo.

The fan on the graphics card will also be a source of noise. However, HIS's IceQ heatsink/fans are generally quieter from what I've heard. Have you considered a fanless model?

You have not mentioned what hard drive you will be using. Hard drives are also a significant source of noise.

And definately check out SPCR. Good stuff there. Nearly everything I've recommended to you has been reviewed and recommended by SPCR. A good place to start is their recommended section. Look through and read some articles. Good luck.


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## MRCL (Jun 7, 2009)

What has been said:

- Corsair, or Thermaltake PSU. I own two of each, both dead silent.
- Get a HIS card with an IceQ cooler on it. Cool, and quiet, I was positively suprised
- As for heatsink, if you leave everything on stock, I found the cheap Scythe Katana 2 really silent, despite its 92mm fan. Cools adequately on stock speeds, too. Or if you want some headroom, a Xigmatek S1283 that even cools good without a fan. 

For case fans, go for Scythe Slip Streams.


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## sneekypeet (Jun 7, 2009)

if you want good and quiet cooling look into Noctua as well for a cooler.


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Ok, I will get the Corsair PSU and a new heatsink for the CPU.  

The GC I have is a HID IceQ, it was silent for about a month.  It's now noticeably louder. Loudest thing on the Sony Desktop. 

Are you sure I can use a passive heatsink on the E8500?

As for Hardive, I will be getting a typical Seagate HD.  350gb for OS and programs,  and 1TB for files.   HD noise don't bother be as they arent always loud as the case fans and cpu cooler.


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## angelkiller (Jun 7, 2009)

Since you already have the graphics card, you could replace the stock heatsink with an Accelero S1. The S1 with no fan will be able to cool a 4670 and there will be no noise.

As long as it's a fairly large heatsink, a passive E8500 should be no problem. It only uses 35W under load. HR-01 Plus and Ninja/Ninja 2 come into my mind as good canidates. (large fin spacing allows air to flow between fins more easily.)

Seagate hard drives are not known for silence. In fact, they have a reputation for being fairly noisy, at least compared to other brands. You are lucky that HDD noise doesn't bother you. (I envy you ) Nonetheless, there are quieter drives than Seagate. Western Digital's WD6400AAKS has been regarded as an extremely quiet and fast drive. Or if you want a separate OS/Data drives, you could get a WD3200AAKS (the single platter version; *beware, the older and louder version may be floating around still!*)] for your OS and programs and a WD10EADS for storage. That's a pretty quiet setup.


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## LittleLizard (Jun 7, 2009)

you may always get a 3.5 to 5.25 inch adapter for the hdd with some sort of acustik dampening. Scythe made too.


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## Mussels (Jun 7, 2009)

vbx said:


> Ok, after my motherboard upgrade failure, I'm thinking about building a new desktop and need couple of new parts.
> 
> The reason I wanted to upgrade my Sony desktop was because it's current setup was dead silent.  No noise.  Only HD noise here and tehre and a little noise coming from a new Graphic card.
> 
> ...



I'm a silent PC nut, and theres a few basic rules to making them.

1. Start with silent/near silent hardware. You can only ever reduce the noise a component makes, so if its quiet to begin with, you get even quieter - instead of going from loud to 'ok'.

2. Low heat components. Dont go buy a 4870x2 and expect silence - grab a 4850 and an accelero S1, passive cool it. (no idea what fans work on a 4670, this is an example)

3. Dont get sucked in by fancy gaming cases. The more holes in a case (meshes/vents) the moise noise escapes. You want a solid case with no windows, and no front vents/mesh. (Look at the antec solo/P150 for an excellent silent PC case)

4. buy quality fans. Yate loon, nexus etc. Get ones that are advertised silent to begin with and THEN undervolt them to 5 or 7 volts with adaptors.

5. when it comes to CPU cooling, get teh biggest cooler you can. Xigmateks are good here - the better heatsink you get, the less airflow it will need. my CPU fan failed on me, and my PC remained stable and didnt overheat for over a week,thanks to my awesome TRUE 120. (xigs are better, IMO)

Nice link angelkiller.


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## vbx (Jun 7, 2009)

Ok, I was looking for some Crosair PSU but all of them have the fans either on the bottom or top so they won't work with that mini antec case.


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## LittleLizard (Jun 7, 2009)

for cheap silent pc, the nzxt hush should do. For the heatsink, a coolermaster hyper z600, for the videocard, a 9600 as they have passive versions already and for the fans, get silenx


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## Reventon (Jun 8, 2009)

If you want it to be quiet, try finding a decent graphics card that does not have a fan. Something like the Silent 4350. Also, limit your cooling to only your fan for your processor. Further cooling usually isn't needed.


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## boomstik360 (Jun 8, 2009)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129057 -Case, Or the P180 Mini but I've used this one in silent builds, works great.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887001 -Cooler, Its fanless so no noise 

you picked a great PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125258 - Great card, comes with a mouse for free too 

Or if you don't need that much power then this should do :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102816

Or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121244

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128388 - Mobo

and you picked good ram.


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## Geofrancis (Jun 9, 2009)

i run the stock low profile heatsink that came with my q8200 on an undervolted e2180 and nearly silent the only time i heard it when was i was running the computer on a passive dc-dc psu and the cpu fan was the only moving part. even then you could only hear it when you put your ear to it.
 if you can get a hold of one of the stock heatsinks with the copper core that came with the 775 pentium 4/d use it they were designed to cool 130W+ cpu's so wont have any problems with a 65w core 2. undervolting is also helpful if you want to run the fans slower. my pentium dual core e2180 is undervolted by 0.1v and it took 10c of the load temperature from 55c to 45c and allowed the fan to run slower

i used to use the accelero s1 on an x1900xtx with a 120mm fan on it controlled by the graphics card as it was silent even under full load. i wouldnt try and run it passive with any high end cards because you wont have any airflow over the voltage regulators and it would most lightly overheat and die.

try and get low powered components to make a silent computer so you dont need extreme cooling 

newer processors use the latest processes 45nm cpu's are cooler than older 65nm cpu's. like the e5200 compared to the e6600. it is the same story with graphics cards 40nm gpu's like the 4770 will usualy run cooler and faster than say a 4350 made with the 55nm process.


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## vbx (Jun 10, 2009)

Update:

I just got the P180 mini case and all I have to say is, it's pretty damn huge for a mini... The vent on top is also bigger than expected.  The fan under that vent is about 6-7 inches. 

For CPU cooling, I purchased a Cooler Master Hyper Z600 RR-600-LBU1-GP CPU Cooler 

Also, where Can I get the 5 or 7 volt adapter to undervolt the fans?

Had to return 2 motherboards.. 1st one came in from newegg and didn't have the accessories I needed. 
2nd one came in and the same thing happened.  Dumb azz ebay seller stated it came with the accessories.  NOPE.


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## Yukikaze (Jun 10, 2009)

vbx said:


> Are you sure I can use a passive heatsink on the E8500?



My HTPC is based around a passively cooled (Albeit by an IFX-14, but still passive) Q6700, so I see no reason why a decent tower cooler won't be able to cool the E8500 passively (Unless you plan to overvolt it). You still need some air movement through the case, obviously.

The same HTPC is built inside a Nzxt Hush case, uses 330W Seasonic S12-II PSU and a pair of Nzxt 500RPM 120mm fans. You can't tell if the PC is on or off from half a meter away other than by the lights on the front panel.


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## vbx (Jun 10, 2009)

Yukikaze said:


> My HTPC is based around a passively cooled (Albeit by an IFX-14, but still passive) Q6700, so I see no reason why a decent tower cooler won't be able to cool the E8500 passively (Unless you plan to overvolt it). You still need some air movement through the case, obviously.
> 
> The same HTPC is built inside a Nzxt Hush case, uses 330W Seasonic S12-II PSU and a pair of Nzxt 500RPM 120mm fans. You can't tell if the PC is on or off from half a meter away other than by the lights on the front panel.



Same with my Sony VGC-RA830G.  You can't even tell it's on, and it's located about 2ft from my chair. 

I still doubt I can build one this silent.  Since the Sony is liquid cooled. It's still running silent after 2 years.


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## angelkiller (Jun 10, 2009)

vbx said:


> I still doubt I can build one this silent.


Trust me, you can. It starts with component choices. Then you just have to understand what makes the noise and how to make it quieter.


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## vbx (Jun 20, 2009)

Got everything install and it's just as quiet as the sony and runs a lot cooler.


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## phanbuey (Jun 20, 2009)

vbx said:


> Got everything install and it's just as quiet as the sony and runs a lot cooler.



congrats man, 

post pictures.


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## vbx (Jun 20, 2009)

oh yeah, I didn't install the Graphic Card yet, so maybe thats why. lol


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## boomstik360 (Jun 20, 2009)

Lol nice, post some pics man I want to see it!!! And congrats on the build


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## vbx (Jun 20, 2009)

here are some quick pics. the cpu cooler is sharp as hell...  also the 4-pin power cable was to short to run behind the right panel.  i tried running under the mobo but it interfered with the USB 5-1 USB cable and made the board lopsided. 

but yea its pretty messy but it works. 

Theres also a lot of unused cables from the PSU.  I should have gotten a modular unit. 

just need to install the GC and TV tuner. 

New next to the old.


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## boomstik360 (Jun 20, 2009)

Nice! I really like it. How does the cooler perform?


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## phanbuey (Jun 20, 2009)

thats beautiful... very  nice choice in case.

If you flip the top fan around, you may get lower temps... - some have said that to make a big difference.


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## vbx (Jun 20, 2009)

phanbuey said:


> thats beautiful... very  nice choice in case.
> 
> If you flip the top fan around, you may get lower temps... - some have said that to make a big difference.



So have the top fan blow in air and the back fan blow out?  I should try that!  I don't like the top fan blowing warm air to my knees anyways.

And thanks everyone for your help. My first build and it kinda went smoothly besides the 64bit O/S compatibility issues. My old hardware wont install correctly on 64but due to driver signing issues.

edit:

If I do flip flop the fan around, it would make the front filters kinda useless though right?


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## vbx (Jun 20, 2009)

boomstik360 said:


> Nice! I really like it. How does the cooler perform?



Not sure yet, but the air blowing out of the top fan doesn't feel hot or very warm at all. 

I'll install Everest and find out sometime this week.  Using artic silver 5 compound with that cooler.


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## boomstik360 (Jun 20, 2009)

Yeah sounds good. Yes I do love the Antec Mini P180  Its a great case. Nice job on the build. Oh and what stepping is your e8500, sorry if I missed it


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## vbx (Jun 21, 2009)

boomstik360 said:


> Yeah sounds good. Yes I do love the Antec Mini P180  Its a great case. Nice job on the build. Oh and what stepping is your e8500, sorry if I missed it





E0 whatever that is!


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## boomstik360 (Jun 21, 2009)

vbx said:


> E0 whatever that is!



Nice thats the better one


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## vbx (Jun 22, 2009)

Here is quick temp of everything while downloading updates and browsing the web.

CPU : 37c
WD HD: 41c
Onboard GPU: 64c

GPU is kinda high, but the cpu looks cool.  My P4 HT on the Sony was around 57c


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## boomstik360 (Jun 22, 2009)

Yeah geez, might want to direct some airflow onto the chipset


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## vbx (Jul 7, 2009)

Replaced my previous Mobo to a different Mobo do to the excessive heat coming from the Northbridge chipset. 

ASUS P5N7A-VM to ASUS P5Q-EM.

Temps dropped big time.

CPU now idles at 27c  (from 37c)
GPU now idles at 42c  (from 59c)
HD remains the same. 

Not sure why but it's all G.


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