Silent PC

LemonSHARK · Post by **LemonSHARK** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 7:41 pm

I'm looking to make everything that is noisy in my computer silent, or near silent.
I'm currently planning to get:

A Zalman 'VGA Heatpipe Cooler ZM80-HP' for my 128Mb GeForce 4 MX 440
A Zalman 'ZM300A-APF' 300 Watt power supply unit
2 'Seagate Barracuda IV' 40Gb hard drives

The problem that I have is that is my processor is an Athlon XP 2000+ on a socket A motherboard. This motherboard does not have the holes for a Zalman cpu heat sink so I was wondering what the alternatives are (preferably not watercooling).

Anyway, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

garlando · Post by **garlando** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 7:15 pm

A Zalman flower is one alternative, i have just bought some Vantec Stealth fans so i will let u know how quite they really are.

Also, is 300W enough for an Athlon? I thought they needed at least 350.
Something to check out at any rate

ZiK · Post by **ZiK** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 2:50 pm

300w minimum

Post by **PeteTheHair** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 5:44 pm

For a truly silent PC (prolly not qhat you're looking for, but for general interest), you can now build an entire system with no moving parts...

The C3 533Mhz MiniITX boards are fanless, and include video and sound
The Morax (I think) 55W PSU for the above can run without a fan
Stick in a solid state disk (compact flash or similar), and you have a truly silent system.

And they're dirt cheap... a MiniITX barebone system will set you back about 150 quid from mini-itx.com...

Spot my next file server (though it will have a bastard loud huge HD in it

)

LemonSHARK · Post by **LemonSHARK** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 6:45 pm

A completely silent machine would be nice as a server or something.

I have a 40gb hard drive in my other machine and when I first put it in it, it made a low frequency noice which seemed to go through every wall in my house easily. I then suspended it on elastic and the problem is solved, so you might want to try that, PeteTheHair.

I didn't know they did Zalman flowers for athlon xps, but apparently they do - CNPS6000-Cu. It'll allows me up to 2700+, so I think I'll get that. Thanks, garlando.

Seahorse · Post by **Seahorse** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 6:57 pm

You could have a look over at QuietPC...

garlando · Post by **garlando** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:15 pm

Hi, just got my vantec Stealth fans and they are the quietest i have ever heard and they dont cost an arm and a leg.
I have 4 running in my case and it is quieter now than when i had 2 normal fans in there so they have my recomendation

ZiK · Post by **ZiK** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:25 pm

LemonSHARK wrote:A completely silent machine would be nice as a server or something.

A quiet desktop would be more appropriate in any case, you have to spend more time in front of it. A server can be dumped in another room so long as there is relevant connectivity for it.

Post by **PeteTheHair** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:33 pm

Yeah, but when you live in a flat one room big, and you want your DSL downloading overnight, a silent server beats a "just-loud-enough-to-keep-me-awake" desktop

rib? · Post by **rib?** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:27 am

ha! my old compaq proliant server that im using for vpn access drowns out my washing machine thats on the other side of my house

i think i should replace the fans in that first

LemonSHARK · Post by **LemonSHARK** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 11:04 pm

I got my stuff today (flower heatsink, nvidia heatsink and 2 silent fans) and it's lovely. I strongly recommend silentpc.com/uk if anyone wants any non-watercooling stuff, they only took 2 days to deliver.