Noise and my PC (1 Viewer)

[Martice]

I am building a PC juke box and would like to know if modern day hard drives are less noisy than the ones a few years back. I was considering purchasing the Seagate Barracuda 80GB hard drive because it was known to be one of the quietest hard drives available. Howevr, a friend of mine said that most hard drives are quiet nowadays and that I could get 80GB for less than the Seagate.

Is this true?

Also, I was considering a heat sink instead of a fan for my CPU chip and was told that heat sinks aren't very safe when it comes to CPU cooling. Any information regarding my questions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Masood Ali]

Seagates are still the quietest; some of the new fluid-bearing Maxtors are too, but I'd stick with Seagate to be sure.

Depending on the CPU you use, you can either use passive cooling (quietest; uses just a heatsink with no fan, to dissipate heat), or active cooling (uses a heatsink with a fan, not as quiet but more effective). Athlons, Pentium 4s, Durons, Pentium 3s, and Celerons all require active cooling to be safe. Cyrix C3 chips can be passively cooled, but their performance is about as good as a 500MHz Celeron. However, for just an MP3 box, they should be fine.

Otherwise, if you need active cooling, get a heatsink with a low-rpm, low-dB fan.

 

[Eric Alderson]

Today’s CPU's run real hot compared to a "486SX" processor. You will definitely want a fan/heatsink combo. If you search around the WEB, you should find some that are really quiet. As for the hard drive noise, I bought a Maxtor 40GB 7200 drive over x-mas and it's pretty damn quiet compared to my old 13GB IBM drive. In fact when I booted up the 1st time, I thought I hooked it up wrong since I didn’t hear the drive.

 

[Martice]

My use for this computer is to have a very high quality sound with endless storage. I was going to start with 80GB's but I will probably go with 160GB's if possible. I invision me buying a CD and loading it in to my computer and putting the actual CD's away for safe keeping.

I think I will go with the combo heat sink and fan to be safe. However, how low of an RPM should I go? Are there any places I can go to research CPU's and cooling methods?

 

[Masood Ali]

What CPU are you planning to use?

 

[Martice]

It looks like I will be going with the Athlon XP 1600 for the CPU. I'm not sure about the mother board yet but I think I like the Soyo Dragon K7 I believe it is.

 

[Christopher Collins]

http://www.hardocp.com
http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.arstechnica.com
http://www.heatsink-guide.com
I am sure there are 100's more but most of the ones listed are unbiased and give very detailed reports as to why they do or do not like a product. You will find reviews of everything computer. toms hardware and anand have some great buyers guides. hardocp is pure performance. ars technica is deep geek tech and i think the last speaks for itself. If these are not on your daily computer reading they should be ;o)

 

[Salvador]

you should be more worried about the noise of the cpu fan than the hard drive. If you have the money, try investing in a water cooler or peltier unit. They are quite but need constant maintenance (specially the water cooler). It's true that the new seagate HD's are the quietest. It's even quiter than my IBM 60GXP although my IBM is barely audible unless you stick your ear about an inch from the HD itself.

 

[Masood Ali]

Water cooling solutions are generally expensive though ($120+), and require more installation and maintenance. Peltiers can be used with water cooling units, but add to the risk of ruining your equipment (you have to seal your motherboard to prevent condensation).

If you want a simple solution, buy an Alpha PAL8045 heatsink which uses 80mm fans, and buy a Panaflo 24CFM 21dB 80mm fan to go with it. 21dB is very quiet. Shouldn't cost you more than $50.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

My main drive is a 60GB ATA-100 Segate Barracuda and it's

one hell of a nice drive.. And it's dead silent on my machine.

I would also check out the fluid bearing Maxtor's but they

are even more pricey than the Barracuda's.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

The Seagate Barracuda ATA IV is the quietest drive available. I've owned IBM 75GXP and 60GXP drives in the past and both are a lot more noisy (though the 60GXP is quieter than the 75GXP). Because of the fluid mechanism, there is no (or practically no) resonance from the drive. Makes a big difference. When you lower the overall noise floor of the PC by improving the power supply and other fans, you'll appreciate the Seagates, believe me.

 

[Martice]

Thanks all. I am now going to take all of this wonderful information and go back to the cave for some real research

and education. This is my first PC I'm building so I'm excited about this.

I will post my findings and progress in a couple of weeks.

See you then.

*** Oh yeah. Who makes the Alpha PAL 8045 heatsink and the Panaflo 24CFM low noise fan?

 

[Masood Ali]

Alpha is the name of the company that makes the PAL8045 heatsink, and the Panaflo fan is manufactured by Panasonic. However, both items can be found at 2cooltek.com a great e-tailer, btw.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

IMO, most of the new drives are quieter because of their faster RPM's. They had to 'fix' whatever they were skipping on before.

I have a ton of fans in my system, and no, I do not hear them, or the drives. On some sites, if the specs for the fans are listed, you want to get the ones that run around 30 - 32 db or so. If it is up at 40, you'll hear it for sure.

No, my system is not quiet. For all of the extra research and time that I put into it to make it quieter, I ran into one small problem. That's the fan on my video card. (Nvidia GeForce II). You see, the fan on it is loud. Sucks, don't it?

Glenn

 

[Jon_R]

My pc is really loud. It has to be. I can't sleep well without that sort of white noise. However, if I wanted to make it quieter there are lots of things to do.
You could get some sound dampening material and line the inside of the case. This will deaden the case and surely quiet the hard drive. Next, and I'm suprised this hasn't been mentioned, make sure all the fans are not blowing through the factory cutouts. Those cutouts have jagged edges and thus make more noise when air goes over them. If you take a dremel, or tin snips, and cut those out then use a quality fan cover it will also lower the noise floor.
Low RPM fans are great if, they don't have anything behind them, such as jagged edges, and they don't blow directly onto anything for a few inches. If they do they will make a bit more noise.
Whenever there is a metal to metal contact make sure it is a tight a connection as possible or grommets are used.
I wholeheartedly recommend www.2cooltek.com as I have dealt with them in the past and had good luck.
BTW www.tomshardware.com is a fine place for information, but not about overclocking, as he always gets "special" usually versions of cpus not available to the public.

 

[Richard_s]

maybe something useful for Maxtor owners.
As far as I know the default setting on all maxtor drives is set to the "quiet" setting. The following Maxtor utility can be used to determine your current setting and you can change it if you wish.
http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm and get the SETACM.EXE
This utility can allow a user to set the acceleration profile of ther head. Quieter operation has a somewhat higher seek time but very little difference. the noise difference between the setting is quite dramatic however.