Moving to completly slient... Recommendations?

greminn · **17th February 2008, 07:18 AM**

Hi There,

I have a Zalman HD135 HTPC Case with the following:

Athlon 64 3700+ w Zalman CNPS7500-Cu CPU Cooler
1GB TwinMOS RAM
Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI
Gigabyte 7600GS 256 Heat Pipe Addition
Hauppauge HVR-3000 (Getting another one BTW)
250GB Internal HD with a 500GB USB Storage drive
Thermaltake PurePower 410W PSU

At the moment we turn on/off the media centre box everytime we want to watch TV, but I want to now leave this on 24/7. However, i want to make this system even quieter than it is (i dont want to hear it at all!!) and there are a couple of things i need to get:

1) A new PSU, the current one does have an audible noise to it... Can i go less power for this rig.. which means i can get a quieter PSU?

2). A new HD. Prob go 1GB SATA and then ditch the current drives. Any recommendations on a REALLY quite drive of this size?

3). Water cooling? What about using water cooling on the CPU and gfx card?

Any suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks

Simon

vlad · **17th February 2008, 08:31 AM**

You can get a quieter PSU, look at the noise level.
Look here: http://www.quietpc.com/nz/psu.html
Hmm, this one looks good: http://www.pccasegear.com/category219_1.htm
1TB HDD's are not a smart buy now, 750GB are. You can get it for around $200. Samsung would be my choice.
Normally any case fans are a bit noisy, consider to replace it with something like this:
http://www.quietpc.com/nz/casefans.html

krypto · **17th February 2008, 09:43 AM**

PSU - I can recommend the Corsair HX520 PSU. SilentPCReview gave them a great review. I have 2, not silent, but very quiet. My brother has a passive PSU, quiet, runs hot and needs case fans, which ends up being noisier.
CPU - You should be able to turn the CPU fan off. Mine only turns on at 50C
HDD - I use Samsung 500GB in my HTPC that are pretty quiet. Just got 2 WD 500GB Green Power drives for my WHS that are even quieter.
Grahics - passive card
Water cooling - put the money into the other components, one more thing to go wrong.

The key to running a cool and quiet system is good air flow. I have an LC17 and sealed off various vent holes so that the air flows with best cooling results. Used a Speedfan plugin for MCE/VMC to monitor temps using various configurations.

NOTE: The WD Elements External enclosures use GP drives and can be bought very cheaply atm (I paid $150ea for 500GB).

kevvie010 · **17th February 2008, 09:52 AM**

Hi i went to a tower type water cooler, although you still have a pump it is quite acceptable. you do have to remember to top up the fluid every now and then, but it has proven the most reliable of the various water cooling options i have trtied

Mine came with a cpu heatsink but i beliieve you can also get a grapics card add-on. I didnt need it as i went for a fanless graphics card

I also yse an antec case which is "supposed" to be silent and isnt too bad. Its got silicone mounts for removing vibration from the hdds, but i tend now to use one internal hdd and all medai is stored across a gigabit network on another (non-mce) computer (basically a NAS)with 4 x 500Gb HDD, then nose from them isnt an issue

all in all though on a hot day the projector tends to make more noise than the computer

Waldoverkill · **17th February 2008, 09:55 AM**

It is hard with an existing case to go 100% silent.

I bit the bullet and bought a MCUBED HFX classic case. The CPU and graphics card are cooled completely passively by heat pipes and large heatsinks on the case.

The power supply is also fanless and is cooled by attaching to one heat sink.

I put in 2 250GB laptop hard drives. The only time you can hear it at all is when the DVD drive spins up the first time you put a disk in.

Otherwise the only sound is the laptop hard drives (which are practically silent compared to normal room noise).

Expensive (over a grand for the case and heatpipe bits) but extremely quiet.

I put a safety fan in it that switches on when it gets too hot. But that only happens when I have played Crysis for 4 hours on a hot day.

CPU E6750
GPU X1950PRO

Cheers

Wal

greminn · **17th February 2008, 11:57 AM**

Hmmm... This looks good:

External fanless PSU:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/299

I also wonder if i could get away with 280W?

http://www.itmighty.co.nz/mCube_U547.html

pantonious · **19th February 2008, 10:20 AM**

personally i would not go with either of those PSUs...

for one, i have never heard of the brands and secondly i do not like passive PSUs, they can have major problems with failures.

The Zalman PSUs are very quiet and do the job nicely. or the Corsair PSUs.

for case fans, IMHO you can't go past Noctua. Incredibly quiet and move a decent amount of air. www.noctua.at

few places in aus that do them, just look on staticice...

I run a A64 3500 as my file server, has a Noctua U12F CPU Cooler (with the fan removed) one S12 Noctua intake, and one exhaust with a Corsair 450W PSU and i sleep in the same room as it, if thats not quiet enough, then nothing is