please recommend a QUIET p4 wireless ready, with sound card pc for me to buy?

icefall

I currently have a fujitsu siemens p4 pc bought in 2002, 1.1 usb, xp,40gb, which is really really loud all the time (the drive), I would like to buy a new pc which is QUIET, and wireless ready.

I would like to set up a wireless network as I have had a Dlink-G604T wireless ADSL router (with free card for the laptop) for 2 weeks, that I want to set up with my sons laptop. I have a vague idea how to do it, but will be doing that once I have my new computer.

I do not want spend too much, but it would be nice to have it wireless ready with sound card, 17in TFT, lots of usb 2's and maybe a dvd writer. I already have speakers and want to upgrade from my current 17in crt.

know I am asking a lot but if you could recommend lots of QUIETLY running pcs it would help me out a lot!

albertross_2

It would be much cheaper to upgrade the one you've got. If the HD is making the noise, a new one is about £20, usb 2 card £10, wireless card 10-15. If the fan is the source of the noise, you can get quieter ones. A P4 isn't a bad machine.. The 17" TFT would cost a bit though.

If you setup wireless, don't forget to setup WPA encryption, there is advice on how to do this in the wireless sticky thread at the top of the techy forum.

£$&*"($£&(

What ever you buy to make it quiet your going to have to modify things. You'll need a quiet power supply, hard drive, processor fan and case fan, if they are included, depending on how noisy these things are to start with. I haven't seen many people selling PCs which are optimized for quiet except for specialist music PCs but these are fairly expensive.

wolfman

For a reasonably priced silent case, the Antec Sonata II is very good.

It has 92mm fans (can spin slower to generate the same amount of movement), rubber grommets to reduce hard drive/dvd-rom vibrations, and a 450W psu that is nice and quiet. I built a system for a friend with the Sonata I and it just produces a quiet hum noise, barely noticeable.

With my system (Lian Li case) I've found the main noise once you've silenced the above, comes from the cpu fan and graphics card fan. I've got a ThermalTake Xp-90 heatsink and Panaflo low noise fan for the cpu, so it's just my graphics card, which is rather noisy. The solution there is to buy one of the Artic Cooling units for it.

If I do get greedy I'm tempted to give my Lian Li to my brother and get an Antec P180, should have things running nice and quiet.

pealy

Have you considered getting a laptop to work like a base unit? My experience has been that they're generally very quiet but I suppose it depends whether you're looking for hardcore gaming or internet & office type use.

With Dell apparently offering £399 laptops you're not paying more than you would for a standard base unit.

Also, if power's not critical you could look at the Passively cooled Via Eden motherboards and a case with a fanless PSU (eg, at http://linitx.com/index.php?cPath=12_45) The only thing making any noise at all is the hard disk. I have one of these in my HiFi rack using a 2.5" hard drive and you really wouldn't know it was switched on if it didn't have the LED's.

If you're looking to re-use some of your existing PC bits, LinITX also do barebones case & board combos like the NEO CV860A..

I love Mini ITX, PC's you wouldn't know were there..

icefall

:T

thanks all for your replies and suggestions, my current computer is louder than most, I have used various other pcs, in different areas of work and amongst 6 friends and mine is unusually loud, I have not heard one louder yet.

my heart is set on getting a new computer, been looking at dells 3100, 5150, just wondering if there are any alternatives to dell - perhaps refurbished maybe?

any cool sites around?

gavinp

If you are comfortable building a PC yourself, this site has a lot of good info:

http://www.quietpc.com/uk/

I built a PC myself using quiet components as our PC is in the lounge and the old one was drowning out conversation and the telly..

Quite a few companies now specify the noise level of components so you should be able to shop around and get a quiet machine at a good price.

Thanks

Gavin

icefall

building a pc myself is not for me, I would not know how to start!

pealy

If your heart is set on getting a shiny new PC and you're not comfortable building one yourself then my suggestion would be to go ahead and get the best spec for your money and then look at hushing it up. (sorry I can't help with the best deals but this site is full of advice)

The three noisiest bits of my file server were (in this order) the CPU fan, the Case fans and the Power Supply fan. I quickly replaced the CPU fan and case fans with Temperature Controlled Arctic Colling fans. Instead of just spinning their hearts out all the time they go as fast as they need to according to the temperature (which is closely linked to how hard the machine is working). They're cheap , really easy to fit and make a massive difference to the volume.

The Power Supply was another matter. There are silent PSU's and Quiet PSU's on the market. The truely silent are very expensive but many of the quiet ones work on the same principal as above, the fans spins as fast or as slowly as necessary depending on the temperature. I ended up replacing the PSU fan with another Arctic Colling fan instead of buying another.

A word of warning though - it's easy to get obsessed and there are some wierd & wonderful (read 'expensive') ideas out there (like water cooling..) So when you start thinking the noise of your hard disk spinning is too loud to ignore, take a break!

wolfman

If you want one of the quietest, or best fans available get Pabst or Panaflo.

You can get some well priced and decent fans from here, very reliable site. Have bought from her on numerous occassions.
http://www.dorothybradbury.co.uk/

Also, if you're fans aren't intelligent (varying), you can change the voltage they recieve. I often run my fans at 5v as it makes them near silent, whilst keeping the air flow moving slightly.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article6-page1.html

Or you could buy a control facia to change their speed. The vantec's are very nice, once had one myself.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Vantec.html

icefall

:T

thanks all, you have given me a lot to ponder over and look at

goes off to check links out