How to Build a Fast Air-Cooled Quiet PC

msolnik writes "Tweak3D.net has posted an article over how to build yourself a fast box that doesn't sound like an airplane hanger. Its nice to find something like this - most articles are just about speed this article combines performance and usability. If your interested in building a fast pc that you don't have to put in " See my thoughts on this as well.

Comments

again?

[Sebastopol]

What a terrible article. With the exception of the power supply, there is absolutely nothing new! There are three really good articles on this in /. already. And he doesn't even mention the 5-1/4" sleeves for HDDs! Why is this article even posted?!

Other articles on /.:

Shhh! Constructing A Truly Quiet Gaming PC by Hemos with 397 comments on Wednesday October 31, @08:30AM

Building the Quiet PC by CmdrTaco with 171 comments on Sunday July 01, @02:08PM

Building Quieter Computers by Hemos with 398 comments on Monday June 04, @06:51AM

Beware of bad advice!

[uncle isaac]

Thermal compound is optional and isn?t required. If you?re going to use thermal compound, I suggest you scrape off the thermal pad on the bottom of the Volcano 7. We suggest the use of Artic Silver II which is one of the best thermal compound solutions available. This can be found for $8.50 from our friends at Heatsink Factory as well.

A few weeks ago, I finished putting together a shiny new Athlon XP 1900+ for my son, and was very disappointed to see that heatsink grease is indeed necessary on the newer processors. The CPU and power supply fan worked just fine, the heatsink was in very close contact with the CPU, but there was no grease. What happened when I turned it on nearly made me cry: the CPU overheated within minutes of seeing the KDE desktop on this new system, and I was out $200 for a new CPU.

I learned my lesson the hard way: don't try to skimp on thermal grease, especially on the new Athlons. They run hotter than ever now and you're risking your system's life if you don't take the proper precautions.

-Isaac

Re:Beware of bad advice!

[CtrlPhreak]

What is meant by this is that replacing the thermal pad with thermal compund is optional. You definatly need a thermal conductor between the heatsink and the proc. That's just common sense.

Re:Beware of bad advice!

[markmoss]

It was Linux (KDE), but this is probably hardware, not OS related. AFAIK, shutdowns due to thermal thresholds being exceeded are done by the hardware alone, with no input to the OS. (This does give you a shutdown without proper preparation by the OS, requiring a file system check when started up again, but if your box waited for Windoze shutdown the CPU would fry for sure...) Or does anyone know different?

The newest Intel CPU's will detect overheating and either shut themselves down (P3) or throttle back the clock rate (P4); it's not an OS function. Athlons have a built-in temperature sensor, but depend on motherboard circuitry to act when the temperature rises. And until quite recently (when a hobbyist magazine demonstrated Athlons melting down when the heatsink fell off), the circuitry recommended by AMD didn't react quickly enough to save a chip that wasn't thermally connected to a heatsink. (At least not where 800MHz+ systems are concerned; older, slower CPU's just didn't heat up that fast.)

Re:WTF ...

[Brento]

Has this system even been built? All I see are pictures found on the products web pages. Where is completed project? Where is test of the decibals of it?

Read the last sentence of the article. It's very clear that they didn't build it - rather, they just culled through product listings of items that had decibel quotes. When a "review" tells me that the finished product "should" produce less than 30 decibels, they've completely wasted my time. This was nothing more than the journalistic equivalent of a high school book report.

Re:Noise Schmoize

[Lumpy]

Yes, and it's dirt cheap and easy.

1 - build a wooden case that allows you to slide the computer into it with about 2 inches of space all around. insulate the box with sonex. or hospital bed padding (same stuff, and loads cheaper.) make the door out of plexiglass, 2 layers spaced about 1/4 inch apart and not parallel to each other (I.E. a slant on the inside pane.

on the back you add 2 ducts, one high, and one low. duct these with dryer vent outside the room and place a blower on the out vent, a small filter on the in vent ( the in must be in the building, the out can be vented outside.)

Voila, 100% silent PC god enought for a recording both (well that's what we use in our sound booth. the equipment registers no sound change at the microphones with the computers in the box on or off. or with the blower on or off. and a human cant tell either.)