Why, yes, my home PC does sound like a jet engine. :-) 4x80mm Panaflos (filtered) on the intake and across the SCSI hard disk bays. Enermax PSU with whisper fans. One Thermal Millennium Glaciator HSF (1.5 copper) (not too loud) for the CPU. Combined with a Seagate Cheetah X15-36LP 15,000rpm Ultra160 SCSI and IBM Ultrastar 36LZX 10,000rpm, things are pretty noisy. The unit is a 19" aluminum 4U server case. I also have a Yamaha 16/10/40 SCSI CDRW, which is loud too (compared to plextor). And the Aluminum case does little to dampen ANY noise.
I haven't measured it but I'm probably pushing 42dBSPL outside of the case (though that estimate may be too high). Though my current system is still quieter than my system from four years ago. I had like 4x2GB Barracuda SCSI (7200rpm) drives, and added a 4.3GB Seagate Cheetah 4LP. You thought the 4 'cudas were loud? That first cheetah could be heard CLEAR ACROSS THE ROOM. Let's imagine a robot walking on rocks, shall we?? ;-) And 4 cudas AT IDLE will yield a sound that makes a _dentist's drill_ seem PLEASANT. I am not joking, ask anyone who ran those puppies.
I am so glad many of today's drive yield ample performance with so little accompaning noise.
BTW, I'm running a ACS33 Altec Lansing speaker system (cubes+sub) on that PC. considering how noisy it is, any more fidelity might be a waste. Those speakers were $20+tax at the local Sams Club. Not bad for the money. On some tracks the subwoofer module actually sounds better IN THE DESK DRAWER. No kidding. Although sometimes the boomiess will become unbearible. |
Would this work for a Power Mac G4? |
With all the cooling fans, what is your CPU temp? Just curious as I chose a low speed thermaltake for the CPU but the case fan makes the most noise. |
It used to sound like a jet engine. Then i filled the tower with J.B. Weld. One might think that the puter would stop working, but it actually runs much faster. All of the JB solidified and now acts as a heatsink. Who needs a fan ???? I was thinking about having the whole thing cryogenically frozen, but then i'd probably have to burn it in all over again. Damn puters.... : ) Sean
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Answer for Driver... 41C-47C under varying load and ambient temps.
I have a AYHJA AMD Thunderbird 1333/266 with Arctic Silver II thermal paste and thermal millennium "Glaciator I" HSF on an EPoX EP-8K7A (non-RAID) motherboard. I don't know how accurate the board's sensor is (I'm not running a callibrated 3rd party sensor). BTW, I'm running at 166x9.5= 1577MHz @ 2.85v. PC is in the basement, and I keep it "cool" (~68-70*F) year round.
I thought about running a SK-6 heat sink with 7krpm delta fan, but went with the glaciator since I thought it was "more awesome looking" than the SK-6. Considering the noise doesn't bother me, I should probably get fan that moves more SCFM than the glaciator's built-in fan. |
Hey guys, I see we have some computerphiles here too :)
I have tried all the fans listed above including the Enermax Whisper, which is falsely advertised as 'Whisper' when in reality it is much louder than standard Power Supplies. The Thermaltake Volcano 6 that I had previously had a cheap fan which also made lots of noise. I splurged on the silent power supply, silent case fans, Flower cooler for CPU and hard drive enclosure for my new Maxtor ata133. I have to put my ear next to the unit to hear if it's on... About 26db's, well below the measurement for a quiet room which is 28db. I'm running XP1700, 256 DDR, Geforce2 Ti200 32mb and 40gb maxtor. My Samsung 900NF makes more noise that the case.. I'm bringing the monitor in this week to see if it can be fixed (high pitched humming noise.) although this might be normal with the aperture grilles..
Yeah, my 3 year search for a quiet clone PC is now complete!
RE Mac G4... They're already damn quiet, but you could add the hard drive enclosure to further silence it. |
Great info Buckingham. I looked at quietpc & will prob. get the case fan to start with.
Aroc, I have two computers with the same mobo, CPU & fan(everything else is different) and get different temps from the same computer depending where I look. One tower is stuffed in a desk w/the back removed & the other is in the open. The open air one always is cooler. Bios reading is ~33 C from the one in the desk & ~40 reading Sandra software. No add on sensor either. What's worse is the CPU fan speed. The Sandra shows ~2700 rpm while the Bios reads around 4600. Fan is rated 4500 +/- 10%.
No big deal as it's only a Duron 800 w/mild OC. I bought my first computer about three years ago & have started down the upgrade path with it recently. Now that I think of it there are scary similarities to audio. A main system & second system. Wanting more power, regardless of whether it's really needed. Eyes glazing over when...Somebody STOP ME!!!
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Out of curiosity, what OS are you "computer geeks" using on a daily basis with your souped up puters ? Us "audio geeks" wanna know : ) Sean
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I just built a XP1700 w/1gig DDR, G-force Ti 200 and the Volcano CPU cooler that is the NOISIEST dam thing I ever heard!!! CPU and MB Run very cool though. The noise level is just unaceptable it might be ok stuck under under a mattress or something though....jeeezzz.
I found a website called B-Quiet.com for different reason. The inside of the case is going to get lined with their Beaver tail sound deadener. We'll see how much this helps in
a few days. Otherwise its a new fan for the CPU.
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Sean
I'm currently using the new Windows XP Professional with Office XP Professional.
It is the bomb! |
I was a hard core Linux user, but since administering Windows NT and 2000 Server pays the bills, I run the OSes as much as I can.
My main home rig (Athlon w/ cheetah) is running Windows 2000 Professional with Office 2000 SBE. Currently Windows 2000 is my OS of choice. (Been running NT-based OSes on the desktop since 3.51)
I have several other frankenstein lab machines, most which multiboot NT 4 ws/srv, 2000 pro/srv, and XP pro. Those are my "lab" PCs that I use for self-paced training in my basement. I own NT4 server, but the 2000 Server is the 120 day eval copy. Which isn't a problem since I use to to run Citrix MetaFrame, which has to be reinstalled every 35 days, anyway. FWIW, other than that, I'm legit.
I'd like to get a copy of Office XP mess around with. I hear nothing but Good Things(tm) about it! |
I have several PC's at home as well. Two of the machines for me and wifey are running M.E. The older machines are running 98SE. Also have one machine running NT server 4.0 and IIS 4.0. No plans to run XP in the immediate future. |
Well I put the Beaver tail all over the inside of the case and it did help. However to much noise from the CPU fan is going out the rear exauhst fan and power supply. |
Ctyler,
I also tried the case silencing thing and I ran into to the same obstacle as you... The sound will seep out of the output fan!!! But I did find that lining the inside of the case with thick carpet padding did have some effect and was FREE! I once tried to build a muffler for the output fan on the power supply and case fan but this was a total flop :) Probably because the only material I had was cardboard...Man Alive!!! |
Oh, water is the way to go.
I'm using a 250 GPH Danner with a Danger Den Maze 2 (my home made block worked quite well until the lexan split...) and the standard Chevette heater core, plumbed in 1/2", although I'll probably go 5/8" for the short run from the radiator to the pump intake.
:)
I had my EYHJA pretty happy at around 1600 (11.5 x 140) as long as I kept the room cool.
Oh, and of course it's quiet.
Man, this beats end user audio hands down for exclusive sounding discussion! |
Don't laugh about that a few years back Cadilliac had the brilliant idea of using water cooled alternators in the Seville. Well after a few of them burned to the ground and a few houses burned down(no injuries, thank god) they ordered a SERIOUS recall and told all seville owners to park there cars outside of there house preferably on the street and disconect the battery and wait for a flat bed to take the vehicle to the dealership and have a non-liquid cooled alternator installed. I think that brilliance deserves a nomination for the Darwin awards for the engineer whom thought of that one, two thumbs up buddy! The only reason I know this(GM kept this VERY quiet) is me and a friend bought new Cadilliacs at the same time I got the catera and he got the seville and they are both horrible cars, just a matter of which is worse, needless to say after that problem he got rid of his and then I got rid of mine. Moral of the story is water cooled electronics=bad idea.
I took a sigorski motor and mounted it to my wall and have it drawing air out of the room away from my computer, so it stays cool. FWIW I only run the engine when I am out of the room, sucks everything through the blades untill I installed a shrowd. So again moral of the story like a good porsche a computer should be air cooled! |
Yes, and my solution was to have a dedicated room built for it. |
