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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.
It seems to me like it'd be a better idea to build a system that isn't quite the highest end, and don't buy expensive overclocking equipment. Then, when it seems to be getting a little slow, buy a new processor that will likely be faster than anything you could have overclocked for the same or less money. Sure it sounds cool to say you have an ultra high clocked system, but in 6 months when there's faster non-overclocked, who's laughing?
I am torn as to wether or not to put stock in this. Every page lists the parts to buy then offers links to buy them. It looks a little slanted on the choices there. Additionally, I would think that tweakniks (or speedfreeaks, whatever you call them) would not put so much FLASH on their page. My poor Windows box (I am at work) kept wanting to get this flash 5.0, I convinced it that we could live without.
Other than the last complaint this seems a very noteworthy resource at least and I thank you for pointing it out.
Cheers
One more article about this subject and I fall asleep. BORING!
On the good side, it matches what I just did yesterday: I ordered parts from QuietPC.com to replace power supply and fan in my Sun Blade 100.
What I found sucks is the shipping from UK to the US that cost about $30 or 25%. No warehouse over here makes these things more expensive than they should be. Hope they realize that the biggest market for computer stuff is in the US not in the UK.
Second thing I did was to order a Seagate 80GB ultra quiet drive. These drives rock. A friend of mine got one to replace the HD in his Apple G4 Cube. Absolutely quiet!
Now I need to a neighborhood where they ban leafblowers and I will be able to concentrate on my screen.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
You are basically saying that the thermal threshold went undetected by the cpu and the chip fried instead of the system trapping to the shutdown code. Wow! Was it running Linux or Winblows?
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Better yet, go with the case sold from Koolance.com It's a liquid cooled setup. This will be my next case/cooling solution. My friend got one a couple months back. I couldn't believe how quiet it was. And for about $200, this is a nice setup. He raves about the low (and stable) temperatures in his system. He also moves his system around a lot, so it's a pretty sturdy setup.
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
Yes, you just need to add noise-dampening panels to the sides of the case.
A lot of the noise you hear when the case is closed is the case resonating at the 1/2, 1 and 2 * wavelengths of the sound coming off of the cooling equipment (the fans tend to put off white noise of many wavelengths).
You just gotta make sure you aren't obstructing the airflow. I'm going to do this myself, and on my case, you can put panels on the left and right, top and bottom without obstructing airflow. Front and back have to remain unblocked, although the front is possible to do too if room is left where the built-in vent areas are. Worse designed cases may make this impossible.
The stuff I'm going to use goes for about $4 per square foot, and is about 1/4 inch thick.
If you can't get this type of noise-reducing panel from your local computer retailer, go to a hardware store and get drop ceiling tile, as thin as possible (preferably 1/4 inch if they make it), cut it to size, and glue it into your panels.
What is the reasoning behind the dual-layer-skewed plexiglass door?
I just got a new desk which has a perfectly sized cabinet for my tower with some very noisy fans on the dual athlons.
I planned on making vents similar to what you describe in the back but was just going to leave the wooden front door.
Now, most people aren't going to care about this but those who are trying to build a quiet PC are -- if you put a P4 in your system you could conceivably cool it passively and take the performance hit. I don't know how much of a performance hit you'd get by cooling passively versus actively but the video on Tom's Hardware about what happens when you remove the heatsink from various processors shows the framerate of Quake III returning to something close to the original just by reattaching the heatsink to the P4...and the fan isn't running on it at the time. Of course, that's probably because the heatsink itself is cool and will warm up significantly after being attached to the CPU for a while.
My question is this: what heatsinks exist out there that are designed for passive cooling purposes? I'm sure the design of such heatsinks differs significantly from those designed to accomodate a fan.
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