badmotorvision said:
Hi, I just built a new pc.
abit ab9 pro
Intel Core 2 duo e6600 (Thermaltake Golden Orb II Cooler)
4 gig corsair ram
nvidia GF7900GT
CTX 500 watt PS
Cheap flimsy case
This rig is running vista home premium with a tv tuner hooked to a 22
inch wide screen
dell monitor.
It's also in the bed room. Wife say's make it silent or be gone.
Based on what you see here what can I do?
First thing is to replace the power supply for TWO reasons. The MAIN one is
that it's likely to fail on you soon and take other expensive components
down with it. Second reason is, if it's silent you want, then it's Seasonic
you need. You don't need 500W, anything over 400 will do, in the Seasonic
line. Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023
The next noisy component would be the fan on the video card, if the video
card is actively cooled. I don't know about the 7900 chipset, but in the
nvidia line the 7600 chipset cards are available passively cooled. Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150212
So if you have an actively cooled video card, exchange it for a passively
cooled one. You might even save some money by doing this, that you can
throw at the power supply you should have purchased for this system.
Third source of noise is case fans. Remove ALL current case fans and throw
them away. Add ONE case fan to the front of the system, sucking air into
the system. It will need to be silent, and preferably 120mm, or 80mm if
that's all that the case will support. Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185028
expensive, but worth it, if it makes the pc quiet enough to sleep in the
same room with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835119072
This one will do also, but use 120mm if you can
Not much you can do about the CPU fan. The one you got is darned near
silent, the only way to improve would be to water-cool, but that would be
major expense, as you'd have to water-cool the whole system, and you'd still
need a new case fan. (water-cooling doesn't prevent stale air from heating
up)
That's as close to silent as you are going to get with that rig, without
water-cooling AND investing in a passively cooled power supply, which I do
not recommend (and it's damned expensive anyway)
Those improvements should be done, even if the computer system is eventually
moved out of the bedroom. But it's the best chance you have of keeping the
system in the bedroom, also. (without investing TONS of money in
) -Dave
