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Building a quiet PC/Making a PC quieter - a n00b's guide


Steve

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I hate noisy computers. If you do too, this guide is for you. :p

 

First track down what's making all the noise!

 

Fans make the bulk of the noise in a PC, but a system is only as quiet as its loudest fan. You might just have one fan that's kicking out noise and replacing that will be all you need to do. The best thing to do is open the case and see if you can identify any noisy components. Listening through a cardboard tube is sometimes helpful as it allows you to focus in on a particular fan or component.

 

 

Fans that are replaceable.

 

Often, replacing the case fans or CPU cooler fans will lead to a drastic reduction in noise and it's a pretty cheap and simple thing to do. Contrary to what you might think, all other things being equal, larger fans make less noise because they don't have to spin as fast to shift the same amount of air. Some cases will have mounting holes for different sizes of fans, so don't discount fitting larger fans as replacements.

 

Make a list of the number of fans and the sizes you need, then Google for some reviews for fans of those particular sizes. You'll find reviews that compare various fans of a particular size that give noise ratings, so you can pick fans that are quiet. Pay attention to the CFM (cubic feet per minute) rating for fans, as this tells you how much air they shift. More air shifted = cooler components, so ideally you want high CFM and low dB for the noise rating, so try and find the best balance of the two. If you don't know what to go for, Google for the CFM rating of your existing fan(s) and try and find replacements that offer a similar CFM rating, but are quieter.

 

 

Fan mounts.

 

Fans can attach to a case in a couple of ways - regular screws, or rubber mounts. The rubber mounts help to dampen vibrations which will help quieten things down. Some fans come with rubber mounts, but you can also buy them separately and they're dirt cheap and easy to fit.

 

 

Other components with fans in them.

 

2 big potential noise makers in a PC are the power supply and the graphics card. You get what you pay for with these components, so again, check reviews as they'll usually give dB ratings. I like Seasonic's high end PSUs as they have a fan that doesn't spin until the system reaches 20% load, so if you're just browsing the web or whatever, the fan probably won't even spin up, then from 20-50% load the fan spins slowly, then from 50% load and up it'll spin according to the load. Overall, they're very quiet indeed. Avoid reference graphics cards if you want something quiet, as they'll usually have a single, small fan that spins very fast and that will also provide pretty weak cooling, meaning the card gets hotter, the fan spins faster, and therefore the noise increases.

 

 

Cases and cable management.

 

A case with good airflow will help keep the temperatures down, which in turn means that your fans won't spin up as much, or you can undervolt them to slow them down. Again, check reviews and pay attention to comments about airflow. Cable management is also important, because if you do a nice job of it, it means that air flows well through the case, which again keeps things cool. A big bunch of wire spaghetti is also a dust magnet and the more your system gets caked in dust, the hotter the components inside will get. Dust can also affect fan noise directly.

 

 

Dampening sound inside a case.

 

You can buy material that is designed to dampen the sound inside a case. It's a foam-like material that you cut to size and then stick to the insides of the case to cut the noise down. I don't use this myself, but if you're really aiming to make a PC as close to silent as possible, it's worth looking into it.

 

 

Setting fan speeds and undervolting.

 

There's various ways to approach this and I won't go into it in too much depth here. Here's the main methods: -

 

No fan control at all - You just build your system and that's that. This might be OK, it might not.

 

Manual fan controllers - You can get fan controllers that have a knobs on them that you turn to speed up/slow down particular fans. I don't really like these as I don't want to have to do this sort of stuff manually.

 

Automatic fan control - This can be done in a number of ways. On my system, the motherboard has various presets in the BIOS for controlling the fans, so I use the "silent" preset which means that the fans spin slowly when the system isn't under load, then they ramp up in speed as the load increases. I prefer this method, because I just pick a preset and that's that. You can also get software that will allow you to control your fan speeds, including the fans on the graphics card(s). Google for more info on that.

 

Undervolting - Undervolting means that you basically throttle the power to one or more fans to slow them down. This is usually done via an extra cable that plugs in between the fan and the motherboard, so it's very easy to do.

 

 

Hard drives and SSDs.

 

Regular hard drives have moving parts, so they of course make some noise. Faster drives will usually make more noise than slower drives, although not always. SSDs have no moving parts and are therefore silent, so they're a better choice if noise reduction is your goal, plus they are also much faster than HDDs and they consume less electricity too. The only disadvantage of an SSD is that the £ per GB cost is much greater and ramps up massively with the really big SSDs

 

 

Keeping an eye on temperatures and system stability.

 

Once you have everything set up, the best thing to do is to put your system under 100% load for some time to check the temperatures and stability. I use Prime95 to max out my system and I use Core Temp to check the CPU temps. You can get more advanced tools that allow you to monitor other temperatures too, such as the hard drive(s) and graphic card(s). You need to make sure that the temperatures are a decent distance away from the maximum that's acceptable for any particular component and that your system is stable. Run components too hot and you risk shortening the life of them or damaging them, although most modern CPUs will automatically shut off if the temperatures reach dangerous levels.

 

 

And that's about it I think. :d

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I swear my iMac is louder than it used to be, and presumably it's dust making the fans work harder than they used to... but unfortunately there's no way to get inside an iMac to clean it, so it's just going to get worse I suppose.

 

 

I want to make a silent HTPC. I'm torn between a true silent one that can play video and old games (especially emulators) and a very quiet one that can play the latest games on Steam at eye bleeding graphics settings. It's not like I can afford to nip out and buy the bits tomorrow in either case, but it's quite a tough call - spend more for it to be louder, or have less options but it be completely silent?

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Can you not suck the dust out of the vents with a vacuum? Or maybe get some compressed air in a can and try and blast it out? The fan could well be caked in it though and it tends to harden over time, so it might not work, but it's worth a try.

 

For the HTPC, I would go for the more powerful option. You can still make it quiet enough that noise won't be an issue. Sometimes if I fall asleep with my PC still on, when I wake up it's so quiet that I don't know if it's on or off and it's only about 6 or 7 feet from where I sleep.

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Something worth mentioning is when buying a new motherboard or fans check what the lowest RPM can be. I made the mistake of not looking in to this too deeply when choosing a new motherboard and the lowest RPM is 600. My last one (dirt cheap) went down to 300 RPM, stupid quiet.

 

It's all well and good controlling fan speeds etc but it when its stuck at, say, 1200 RPM at a minimum you'll find it very hard to get a quiet PC!

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