Scotoma said:
Hi all
How do I make my PC run silent. My mate got a new P4 hyper-threading Dell
computer for about £800 and it's silent and I mean silent. Not a sound from
it. If it weren't for the monitor, LED's and the CDr/w (when
reading/writing) I would swear it was off. My soon to be upgraded Athlon
1800 system sounds like a vacume cleaner!!! He won't let me look inside it,
so does anyone know what cooling system, disk mounts, PSU etc Dell are
using?
Thanks if you can.
Scotoma
Unless you use water-cooling, your computer needs fans to move air to keep
the interior and components like the video card and CPU cool. Even if you
use water-cooling, your power supply still has at least one fan running.
When trying to build a "silent" PC, you need to understand that ONE noisy
fan can easily drown out the noise from several other "quiet" fans. I built
a XP2500+ system for my wife that is air-cooled and virtually silent, with
five total cooling fans. I could have reduce that number to TWO total
cooling fans, but it's hidden inside a desk where it has very little airflow
outside the case. Plus, I settled for recycling a video card from a
previous system, and that video card has a cooling fan, unfortunately.
If you want to upgrade your athlon system to make it silent, you simply need
to choose the right components for it.
1) Power supply . . . I'd recommend just about anything Seasonic brand.
This is important as the fan(s) in the power supply can easily drown out the
noise from all other components, if you choose the wrong power supply.
2) CPU cooler . . . look for Speeze "Whisperrock II" or similar, make sure
it is rated at LOWER than 30dBA.
3) Video Card . . . look for a mid-range video card that is PASSIVELY
COOLED, such as Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT ultimate, which uses a heat pipe
with an oversized heatsink, but no fan. If you can't live with the mediocre
selection, try to at least find a video card that can be modified to accept
a passive cooler by Zalman or another good brand.
4) Motherboard . . . it's OK to have a heatsink on the chipset, but choose
a motherboard with NO cooling fan on the chipset
5) It's a good idea to use at least one case fan to draw in cool air near
the bottom of the front panel, or through an opening in the side of the
case. But look for an 80mm case fan that is low noise and adjustable or
thermally controlled. Enermax makes one that is rated for 18 -29 dBA and
thermal controlled. There are many others, but watch the ratings and try to
stay below 2700RPM and below 30dBA.
If you follow the above, you will end up with a system that is nearly silent
without resorting to water cooling.
Good luck, -Dave
) It has an article on the Dell Optiplex GX240: