aener Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 (edited) I'm soon to start work, which means I'll finally have some money to spend on things other than the bare essentials of life. The thing that bugs me the most at the minute is the volume of my PC. It's just about loud enough that when listening to music with a high dynamic range, the noise of it obstructs the quietest parts. It's got three fans: case, PSU and CPU. I've tried disconnecting the case and PSU fans momentarily to determine which is the loudest and it made next to no difference, so it's gotta be the CPU fan. On reading some reviews, the "silent" fans sold aren't actually that quiet, so I'd like to know if you guys have any suggestions in that area, or if the results will always be disappointing and I should look in to liquid cooling. Ta! Edit: On reading that back, I thought I should clarify - by "noise" I don't mean a buzz or rattle. It's an airflow noise. Would I be Ok to take the CPU fan off and boot up for a very short time to see if that's what makes so much racket, or would it start getting very hot very quick? (Hardware n00b. Sorry.) Edited August 24, 2012 by aener Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake. Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Why not get a water cooled system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aener Posted August 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 ...That's what I just asked! Main reason why not is expense. Gonna have money, but liquid cooling seems a lot of money when there might be ultra-quiet fans on the market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake. Posted August 24, 2012 Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 Oh wow I read it all and missed that one bit. Well with fans, the 'quiet' ones from what I've heard are smaller in circumference and spin faster, but they're more flush and higher quality. There will always be noise when it comes to fans, and if you want a good quiet one that'll keep your PC cool I wouldn't be surprised if you couldnt find one below £30-40 that'll be good enough. The reason I mentioned a water cooling system is because it's 100% silent, and they cost 80-100 at the cheapest but if you're not too worried about cost it may be the way to go? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weirdoku Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 I'm soon to start work, which means I'll finally have some money to spend on things other than the bare essentials of life. The thing that bugs me the most at the minute is the volume of my PC. It's just about loud enough that when listening to music with a high dynamic range, the noise of it obstructs the quietest parts. It's got three fans: case, PSU and CPU. I've tried disconnecting the case and PSU fans momentarily to determine which is the loudest and it made next to no difference, so it's gotta be the CPU fan. On reading some reviews, the "silent" fans sold aren't actually that quiet, so I'd like to know if you guys have any suggestions in that area, or if the results will always be disappointing and I should look in to liquid cooling. Ta! Edit: On reading that back, I thought I should clarify - by "noise" I don't mean a buzz or rattle. It's an airflow noise. Would I be Ok to take the CPU fan off and boot up for a very short time to see if that's what makes so much racket, or would it start getting very hot very quick? (Hardware n00b. Sorry.) PSU fan you can't really do much about unless you change the whole thing, so that will cost the most. CPU fan you can get a new heat sink and fan on there, don't know if yours is the standard one that came with the CPU but after market ones are mostly better/quieter and better looking haha. Case fan... I'm guessing it's at the back? Simplest would be to get a bigger fan, some have lower rpm but move the same amount of air flow as smaller fans. But this depends if you have the right mounting holes for a larger fan. What size fans are on there anyway? I wouldn't bother with a water cooling system, cost too much just to cool your CPU and it's too much hassle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 Well with fans, the 'quiet' ones from what I've heard are smaller in circumference and spin faster, but they're more flush and higher quality. There will always be noise when it comes to fans, and if you want a good quiet one that'll keep your PC cool I wouldn't be surprised if you couldnt find one below £30-40 that'll be good enough. The reason I mentioned a water cooling system is because it's 100% silent, and they cost 80-100 at the cheapest but if you're not too worried about cost it may be the way to go? Got that backwards. Generally a larger fan at a lower rpm will be more quiet whilst having a similar CFM, however you would lose static pressure. There are a lot of options out there for quiet cpu coolers and quiet case fans. With cpu coolers you can get them to run pretty damn quiet if you aren't overclocking Couple of suggestions would be a be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced or Noctua NH-U9B-SE2. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haydon_peter Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 Do you have a fan on your graphics card? I replaced mine with a heatsink which made everything much quieter (http://www.overclock...2330&subcat=787) Case fans - Sharkoon Silent Eagle This case fan review might be old now but it is very detailed - http://www.bit-tech....best-case-fan/1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davey1991 Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 MY freezer 7 pro rev 2 is nice and quiet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Reynolds Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 The reason I mentioned a water cooling system is because it's 100% silent, and they cost 80-100 at the cheapest but if you're not too worried about cost it may be the way to go? WRONG! you need a pump to pump the liquid, which creates noise. You also still need fans to cool the radiator/s. IMO i've found alot of the water cooling systems to be nosier than fan cooling, and generally more expensive. It's only a route you wanna go down if your seriously into OC'ing. Saying that, there is some cheap H50/H70 sealed loop CPU coolers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake. Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 At the fan mistake I made, sorry haha. Was tired and not focusing. Thanks for spotting it out though! WRONG! you need a pump to pump the liquid, which creates noise. You also still need fans to cool the radiator/s. IMO i've found alot of the water cooling systems to be nosier than fan cooling, and generally more expensive. It's only a route you wanna go down if your seriously into OC'ing. Saying that, there is some cheap H50/H70 sealed loop CPU coolers. You're kidding? I've seen a few and they were completely silent, and the pump wasn't that noisy either? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Reynolds Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 I've used laing ddc3.25,swiftech mcp655 and thermaltake pumps. I found the swiftech mcp655 moved massive amounts of water, but was the loudest, the laing was a good mixture of water flow/noise, and found the Thermaltake pump to be the quietest, however it was still audible. They all make a high pitch 'hummm' which i found more annoying than fan noise. However the new Swiftech mcpx35 is ment to be alot better, and have fully variable speeds aswell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trials hoe Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 cleverly placed acoustic foam? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted August 25, 2012 Report Share Posted August 25, 2012 With almost all of the sealed all in one pump/rad/block loops the stock fans are horrific, yes they move lots of air but are very noisy when they spin up. If you want to keep them quiet without impacting performance you will need to spend another 20-30 quid on fans for push pull. So you'd be looking at around 100 quid total just for a cooler which is daft unless you are pushing the voltage way up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted August 26, 2012 Report Share Posted August 26, 2012 (edited) On the watercooling debate, I think a line needs to be drawn. Watercooling means a custom built watercooling loop, costing hundreds/thousands of monies. You're talking about "closed-loop" or "single-unit" watercooling solutions, which are all cack, every last one of them. They're all stupidly (painfully) loud and don't perform very well. The Corsair H100 (considered the best one), has had lots of pump issues recently on the forums I go on, because of a voltage issue. Running it at 12v is fine, but if your PSU runs it at 12.1v or higher, it rattles and vibrates. It also gets beaten by most big air coolers anyway in every test. (D14, PH-TC14PE, Silver Arrow etc). That's why I bought a PH-TC14PE. If you want a decent, cheap CPU cooler, I have one of these in my server. If you enable the fan scaling feature on the motherboard to slow the fan down when the temperature is low, then it's very quiet. It's also powerful enough to to cool pretty much any CPU on the market at stock settings, and some overclocked. It's quite tall though so measure up your case to check it will fit. Edited August 26, 2012 by Muel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Reynolds Posted August 26, 2012 Report Share Posted August 26, 2012 On the watercooling debate, I think a line needs to be drawn. Watercooling means a custom built watercooling loop, costing hundreds/thousands of monies. You're talking about "closed-loop" or "single-unit" watercooling solutions, which are all cack, every last one of them. They're all stupidly (painfully) loud and don't perform very well. I agree with you. I wasn't arguying for either side of the Water cooling debate, i was telling JMCD that he was wrong If you've got some money for a new cooler, maybe its worth looking into a new case? I've got the haf 912, which has 1 230cm top fan, 1 140cm side fan, 1 120cm exhaust fan, and 1 230cm front fan which are all pretty much silent and i think they retail for £50. The more airflow you can get through your case, the less the CPU fan has to spin to get air through the heatsink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted August 26, 2012 Report Share Posted August 26, 2012 I wasn't picking anyone out, just adding to the general debate. Airflow is very important though, I agree. I just bought a Bitfenix Shinobi XL, mainly for the looks but also in an attempt to make my computer cooler and quieter. It has a 230 and a 120 in the front running at 12v, but the front of the case is too restrictive so they don't shift enough air. Got some plans to mod it to improve things but not impressed with it. It's made almost no difference to my temps. Looks good though and is a bit quieter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.