Cooling and how to keep it quiet (1 Viewer)

[Grant B]

I built my own quasi-HTPC and it's in my 19 inch audio rack which is in my listening/ HT room. It's a little on the noisey side for my tastes but the way Victorians are laid out, I have no choice in location.

The processor an AMD athlon XP 2200+, had it's own fan which is the noise. Since the case has a large amount of open space I thought by using the foam that deadens noise in car doors might help. I was wrong
I next got a blower that goes in a PCI slot. Helps a little.
I am afraid to disable the processor fan or get another.
Are my fears justified or are there better fans via 2rd party choices?
I have gone to a few web sites and came away more confused than ever.
Also adding an expensive Ni cooled system is not possible right now due to the price.
Any ideas would be great!
Thanks!

 

[Chris]

You can do something like this:

http://heatsinkfactory.com/cgi-bin/H...talogno=HS-010

Get a larger heatsink, slightly underclock the processor, and put a rear vent fan nearby.. you can get something like a Vantec Stealth, and underrun it, so that it is close to noise free.. whalla!

Actually, there are lots of good solutions out there for hte looking.

 

[Christian Behrens]

There are much quieter fans out there. These are expensive, but they do quiet down a system considerably (at least did on mine):

http://www.veraxfans.com

For your Athlon, a P14Cu would be appropriate. I have a Duron 1.3 GHz and use it with a P14, and it's sooo much better than the original fan.

I'm sure there are more fanmakers out there that would help.

-Christian

 

[Christian Behrens]

Double post, sorry (darn dialup) ;-).

-Christian

 

[ThomasC]

Try www.endpcnoise.com.

 

[Grant B]

Sorry about the dumb questions but I never put my own computer together or played around with the clock.
I take it you can do that in the Bios...do you monitor the temperature to see how far to underclock it?

Thanks very much
Grant

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Grant,

Take a read of this one:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-118-1.htm

I found some useful stuff in here.

And I found some good reviews here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/

 

[Kevin T]

grant:

i'm having some issues with htpc noise as well, i have an ahanix d.vine 3 case so it already came with a quiet power supply and quiet rear intake / exhaust fans. i'm going to add a fanless zalman double heatpipe video card cooler ($40) to lessen the video card noise and i'll probably get a scythe ncu-2000 fanless cpu heatsink (~$60). what do you use your quasi-htpc for? the scythe might work well for you if you're not doing anything that's very processor intensive. my htpc consists of:

soyo p4vgbm mobo
1 gb micron pc2100 ddr ram
intel celeron 2.7 ghz (using a good but load ultra fan)
ati radeon 9600 pro (with a pretty loud fan)
m-audio revolution 7.1 soundcard
maxtor 160 gb hdd

granted, my htpc is enclosed in a salamander synergy rack with a glass door. however, i can still hear some fans whirling away when the room is silent. hopefully the zalman / scythe combo will eliminate this entirely. from what i've read in trying to quiet my pc, the best option should be buying a fanless power supply ($125) and a zalman reserator w/ vga block (~$250). no fans = no noise. the water pump on the reserator does hum a tad, but from what i understand, it's not noticeable. just a tad too pricey for me to consider.

kevin t

 

[Christian Behrens]

I don't think these can be had anywhere but online. The prices are listed here:
http://www.veraxfans.com/Merchant2/m...tegory_Code=CC

Hope this helps,

-Christian

 

[Grant B]

A friend of mine is stopping at Fry's on the way up from sunnyvale and he is checking for the fans mentioned above. Let you know if he finds anything good there.
Kevin
I use it for mainly A/V besides the internet. DVD & cd burning , streaming radio mainly. I have my 19 inch rach pulled out now for my new DVD changer and adding a RS 232 to my computer which I want to use to control it

The desktop case is black and fits well on my rack. I bought it from a guy and don't know who made it
I have a FIC AU13 MB with 512 RAM which I hope soon to increase.

The MB came with it's own audio add on card. Got the coaxial output working but having trouble with the optical input.
I also have a compro personal cinema which I use to send the desktop to my TV and a Nvidea video input card for S video input from my LD.

 

[Kevin T]

sounds like you're not using the htpc for very intensive processing. kinda what i thought. my htpc is setup only as a digital jukebox. i was going to use it for dvd playback as well, but since i already have a denon 5900 i decided to let the denon handle movie duty. the htpc is connected to my projector via s-video to run the winamp visualization while mp3's are playing. the htpc stays on at all times and winamp is constantly playing my entire collection on random. the winamp visualization only runs when there are parties, otherwise it's off. if you're not using a case designed for htpc use, you might wanna look into getting a quieter power supply and case fans. i think for what you use your htpc for, the scythe ncu-2000 would work fine for you (even more so if you have a fan some where that is able to blow over the fins). i don't know if your video card has a fan so the zalman might not be necessary. another quiet fan name to look into is nexus. good luck with your project. once i get all the necessary components installed in my htpc, i'll try to let you know how it worked out.

kevin t