My PC is fairly loud. I have only two platter hard drives and one CPU fan (the stock AMD cooler) running, though. I am using a fairly old, cheap case with no noise insulation, so maybe that’s why it sounds so loud. I also have the tower placed on a hardwood floor, with no carpeting around to absorb noise. I noticed that when it was in another room on the carpet, it was quieter.
So, for those of you with quiet computers, what’s your secret? What case did you use, and what parts?
A good case and power supply with a thermostat regulated fan that only runs as fast as it needs to. Antec for example makes quiet cases.
if you walk into a store (or shop on the net) and buy a computer you
will almost always get the least expensive, and least ‘sophisticated’
parts…like, the power supply will be just barely large enough to
support the drives, cpu and etc as sold…and, it will have a little
bitty fan with sleeve bearings…that fan/bearing mix is NOISY!
my large capacity (but same size unit) cost about $100 (US) more than
the ‘standard’ OEM supply and is nearly silent because it has a
larger, slower turning fan with ball bearings…
google: silent computer power supply
most case and cpu fans are rather small and turn rather fast…there
are larger, slower turning, but moving more air with a LOT less noise…
google: silent computer cpu coolers
google: silent computer case fans
and, there are sound deadening materials that can be applied both in
and out side of the case…
google: computer noise dampening
and, you can even buy silent/fanless computers…
google: silent fanless computers
as an alternative: you can wear head/earphones with heavy metal blasting!!
–
brassy
I like my Zalman CPU fan. Couple of provisos - they’re expensive, and they weight a lot. You need a strong case / motherboard, and even then, you have to take care moving it about, or it’ll snap stuff.
I was thinking about getting one of those Zalmans. As it is now, I have the stock AMD heatsink/fan on my x2. It is only a 3-pin fan, so it can’t take advantage of my mainboard’s smartfan speed control. I should get a 4-pin fan. 4-pin fans have that extra pin that lets your mainboard control the fan speed. 3-pin fans only have ground, 5v, and tachometer pins.
I have been lucky, my hp desktop is rather silent, even with one side open (perhaps by leaving a side open, it helps the cooling, thus fans don’t run as much) now if only my AC was quiet, I have to use my 5.1 surround sound to drown out the sound of the AC.
I had an HP Pavilion with a P4 chip a long time ago, and that box was very quiet. Maybe it’s because it had a steel case. I should have held on to that machine.
Acer eMachines - low specs. but even the DVD drive is barely audible.
A computer can make many different types of noises. It depends on the source of the noises what methods you use to reduce them. You have a lot of options for quieting a computer, both retail and DIY. Which you choose depends on how comfortable you are working inside your computer, and how much money you are willing/able to spend.
It sounds like the noise you are getting is probably vibrations. You can cut down on the transfer of vibrations to the hardwood floor by putting something between the floor and the computer, for example a mat or small rug. This should help reduce vibration noise. If vibration is the problem it is most likely from your hard drives.
You say you are using the stock AMD cooler, I am using the same cooler and have found it to be fairly quiet. It could be that yours is older and the fan needs to be replaced.
With some more information about the nature of the noise you are experiencing, I would be happy to try and help you further. In addition, a quick google search can point you to many DIY quiet pc tutorials, as well as retailers ready to sell you ready-made products if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself.
Some good advice in the posts above.
I replaced my GPU Fan with a Zalman Heatsink, brilliant idea. But an even better idea, don’t buy a GPU with Fan if you don’t need one with a fan.
I don’t use windows/games but even if I thrash the heck out the GPU with fullscreen glxgears for a hour it doesn’t warm up much.
Fans are the biggest contributor to noise. My PC had three case fans (two pointing out, one big one point in), and all three were loud as all hell. This was because I was ignorant of how loud fans could get at the time I ordered them, so shame on me.
The biggest source of noise used to be my heatsink fan; I bought a heat sink fan that claimed it could push 60 CFMs of air, and it was relatively cheap. “Great!” thought I “this should keep my uber-hot Pentium D super cool!”
First time I booted my computer, that was the only fan running, and it sounded like a jet was landing. Add in the aforementioned three other noisy fans, and I was surprised the dang thing hadn’t blown over for how much air it was pushing. I also had to crank my speakers up higher just so I could listen to music.
After enduring this silliness for a couple months, I decided to replace my heatsink, removed one of my case fans (it was unnecessary), and I bought a much quieter intake fan. I was amazed at how much different it was.
In short, quiet PC means quiet fans. 
Turn it off…HTH.
On Mon, 2009-07-20 at 18:36 +0000, GofBorg wrote:
> Turn it off…HTH.
While true… I bet it didn’t help.
Wear asbestos ear muffs. Also works for silencing noisy partners, children, pets, TV talk hosts, etc. Asbestos may come in handy when partner notices you are not listening. lol!
Really really really long USB cables and a 15’ monitor?
Really? lol!Whenever I find a silent PC, I press the power-on button. It usually does the trick.
Case makes the biggest difference, I think. Then fans. Processor, system (case fan) and graphics card. If you can get by with a graphics chip embedded in the motherboard (which isn’t too hard to do these days) you save yourself one fan. Look for larger fans that turn more slowly (they’ll blow as much air as a smaller fan that turns like a jet turbine)
I believe that Intel’s stock fan is quieter than AMD’s-- but I have no facts to back that up, only my own subjective opinion.
Slower fans can be done two ways as well - bigger fans (or sinks attached to fans) or more fans.
My understanding of physics is pretty sketchy, but I think it’s probably generally true that two fans running slower than one would have to will together shift more air per unit noise. Also, slower fans have a lower pitch, which I suppose most will find less intrusive.
Thermaltake make some nicely built, arguably slightly gaudy, relatively inexpensive cases with fans everywhere (plus, in theory, they’re designed so that the positioning creates a uniform, more efficient air flow), and they aren’t actually that loud.
> So, for those of you with quiet computers, what’s your secret? What
> case did you use, and what parts?
Here’s a decent place to start…
I found out that AMD’s processors these days are now shipping with heatsinks that have heat pipes. I bought my AMD CPU a long time ago, which is why it’s a rifle cooler with no heat pipes, and has a loud fan.
I found a way to reduce the fan noise, though. I put three 1/4 watt 170 ohm resistors in parallel to produce a 3/4 watt 56 ohm resistor. I put that combination in series with the red wire going to the CPU fan. It reduced my CPU fan speed to about half of what it was, and it makes much less noise. My PC runs nearly silently now. Since I only have a 2 GHz dual-core CPU, the reduced fan speed is more than sufficient, and the temperature only reached 47 C under full load in a test I just ran. It is 33 C idle. That’s up from 44 C at full load and 29 C idle. So I slowed the fan down by about 50% and reduced the noise by 70%, and only increased the temperature by about 4 degrees C.