Tips for making PC quieter?

Rev

My CPU runs at anything from 24° to 38° depending on what I'm doing. And I'm happy with that considering there's only two fans keeping the whole thing cool.

It could be the hard drive, I have two 80gn Maxtor's and a 160gb Samsung. One is from my old PC so I know that's not the problem.

I might try anti vibration feet, just to try and sort that throbbing noise out (I'm pretty sure the occasional throbbing is the hard drives vibrating). And because it's the cheapest lol. Need to save some cash before I can try anything more expensive, damn Christmas!! lol.

Does anyone use the fanless CPU coolers? If so are they any good? What kind of temps do you get with them?

Or can anyone recommend a completely silent LGA775 cooler?

Thanks

spakkker

Your cpu figures are well low -this is good but it could be because your cpu cooler is working overtime. Just stand the pc on a folded towel , you could even try wrapping an elastic band around the hard drives as a damper. I noticed a difference after I cleaned the cpu cooler on my pc maybe yours is working overtime . Did you try and stop the cpu fan for a second? Can you just pull the power supply from the other h/drive? Use a thin paintbrush to clean as much dust as poss. with careful app. of a vac.
Which cpu?

bookduck

Swan wrote: »

my last pc was really noisy, I mean helicopter taking off noisy, after a bit of investigation we found it was the twin fans on the graphics card

anyway, we took it all apart & oiled them with sewing-machine oil & it sorted it

so, if you find the culprit, oil it & see if that helps

I would not do this. Buy new fans. Oiling fans is often a temporary fix. Most fans are designed not to be oiled and causes the fan to be deadly silent, as in oil acts as a dust magnet causing the fan to stick and seize

Rev

The cooler is less than two months old so dust isn't an issue, I have checked. I use compressed air once a month to clean the PC out just to be sure dust doesn't build up. It's the C2D E4400 cpu.

It's running at around 2000 RPM. According to Artic's site anything between 900 - 2500 RPM is as it should be depending on the settings.

spakkker

C2D are cool running , not like older pentiums, so maybe your fan is going a bit fast- is there an option in the bios to run it slower? My e2180 is running at 2000 now tho' so try and swap out the psu- I just got one for £11 nice and quiet. Am using standard cooler.

Rev

Yeah there's an option in the BIOS, so I'll lower it a bit and see if it makes a difference.

Swap out the PSU? It's also less than two months old, so I have no reason to do that. Thanks for the suggestion though.

b33r

Before someone else mentioned it my guess would have been the hard drive(s) from your description of the noise. There are a few computer cases where the hard drives are mounted using soft joints (i.e. not screwed directly to the case). I have the antec p180 case which has this feature and also samsung spinpoint hard drives which are amazingly quiet.

If money is no object then you can get fanless PSUs, Large heatsinks for your cpu so only a slow turning 120mm fan is needed (or non at all) and also solid state hard drives (very pricey)

mb2_2

seriously,
silentpcreview.com

take your proposition there. obviously state you want to do it on the cheap or people will suggest expensive stuff.

avoid quietpc.com

here is my what i did with mine ages ago for an example.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33131

all i spent here was the money for one fan (er, £1.20 or something from ebuyer).
the only thing you can hear at all is the hard drive (which was brought for its quiet-ness). [and i've since enclosed it anyway].

The general point is less, bigger, slower, fans (you can slow down any standard fan to 7v or 5v ( http://www.silentpcreview.com/article6-page1.html ) ), and directed airflow helps too.

Amalea

Whats the graphics card? Silent heatsinks can be an issue on powerful cards-putting more strain on other fans. Personally with only two fans I'd be wondering if they are having to work harder as there is less air flow in the case.

ormus

a mate has a shuttle system with no cpu fan. yes its very quiet but it needs cleaning very regular otherwise the temps shoot up and its starts crashing.

pays me well but i still hate the damn shuttle things.