What's the best way to make my pc quiet?

[N3051M]

Interesting stuff there.. i might go make a couple myself soon if i have the time lol..

 

[Rik]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but Daveskater, have you got any ideas on how i can get the hdd activity led output upto 12v so that i can get it to flah el wire or something along those lines?

I have almost 20 years experience on both a professional and amaueur level at building but absolutely no experience with design.

 

[Daveskater]

that's ok. i'm not quite sure, although i don't exactly know what you mean by "flah el wire", a typo i expect but i can't think what it should be.

 

[Rik]

Soree, eye karnt tripe tu sav mi file. Hehe.

Ive been experimenting with making a transistor switch using bc547's but havent quite gotten my head around it.

 

[N3051M]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but Daveskater, have you got any ideas on how i can get the hdd activity led output upto 12v so that i can get it to flah el wire or something along those lines?

neh? I'm guessin you want to change the voltage from what was teh original to 12v so that you can do.. somethign with it?

Find out the original voltage and get yourself a little power amplifier or transformer...?

 

[Rik]

Basically, i want to step the 3v for hdd activity upto 12v in order to make el string flash with the hdd activity. Then get a couple of ata cables with el wire in them.

 

[N3051M]

ok.. so its some sort of flashy thing you're trying to make..

then yeh, you'll need some sort of step-up voltage transformer.. um.. two ways you can do this. One is to buy one and the other is to make one.

Although a little tip, don't put it [the transformer] near the HDD... or anything criticaly magnetic...

 

[Daveskater]

That's a good tip, you defiantely don't want a transformer near a hdd or anything else like that.

I've got a couple of pgotos of inside my pc. I did a bit of tidying with the wires and stuff and I took a hoover to it, not touching anything of course, and it looks a bit better now, hopefully I'll have better air flow, but you can see for yourself. sorry about the size and quality, I had to keep it under 100k.

 

[N3051M]

woah was that some dust i saw in the first pic? lol..

is that a standard ATX PSU you got? its maybe the angle of the pic but it looks pretty chunky lol..

And you still have space to put i think a 120mm fan at the front?

Hey guys, i'm thinking of sticking a 10mm thick sheet of foam on the side case of my other pc, to reduce the noise the 1 cpu fan makes (since its hard to get a zalman or a quiet aftermarket fan for the P3 socket 370).. rekon it'll work?

 

[Rik]

is that a standard ATX PSU you got? its maybe the angle of the pic but it looks pretty chunky lol..

It is a standard atx but its mounted 90 degrees to the "norm" like most of the hp pavilions. If you look carefully you can see the end of the 4 screws that are used to screw the pcb down that would most usually be at the bottom.

With your P3, can you not just replace the fan with something quieter if less noise is your goal?

 

[Daveskater]

i do have the space for an 80mm fan at the front, i'm just looking at some now, if it would be worth getting.

it probably was haha i took pics as i went along. i took a couple then decided to do some more then took another then did some more and so on... but the bottom one (if it's got the highest number in the file name) is the last one i took.

oh and at the back i have a 45mm fan over a 50mm gap, would it be worth getting a new 50mm fan, seeing as the 45 one is pretty old.

 

[N3051M]

With your P3, can you not just replace the fan with something quieter if less noise is your goal?

Its actualy the crappy stock HSF you get when you got the CPU originaly.. the one with the moulded fan-cage ontop of the heatsink, so changing the fan may be a bit of a hassle.. although i'm still open on ideas to where i can get my hands on some aftermarket CPU HSF for it

Maybe a software speedfan-type thing for ubuntu is what i need....

oh and at the back i have a 45mm fan over a 50mm gap, would it be worth getting a new 50mm fan, seeing as the 45 one is pretty old.

well it depends.. is the old one broke its bearing or too noisy?
Although getting a new one you might as well get the quietest one you can at the moment..

 

[Rik]

I dont know a great deal about P3's as i only ever owned one for 2 weeks. Perhaps its possible to fit an old amd slot A cooler onto it? They are qute a bit bigger. i'm looking at one now, its about 50mm in depth including 2 50mm fans, roughly.

 

[N3051M]

Hmm.. an amd slot A.. i heard that it was similar to the P3 i guess... gives me a few ideas to work on now

But enough of me and my audiable thoughts.. So Dave, hows the modding going? any luck?

 

[Daveskater]

a bit, yeah. i got my new ram in the post today but i was going to post that in the other thread haha

i've got one of those headset-mic things so i was pointing it at some of my fans but my pc has a kind of medium-high pitched sound as well but i've pinned that down to my hdd/hdd fans. in a minute i'm going to turn off my pc and start it up just for long enough so i can see if it's the fans or the drive, although i expect it's the fans.

i've got some mp3 clips here of my recordings if you want to take a listen. oh and just to explain the "80" part, it's because i saved thm at 128kbps but they were too big so now it's 80k, but i don't know what they sound like quality wise.

 

[N3051M]

*cringe*80k.. well at least it wasn't 64......... you could've cut it down to 5 seconds or something..

they sound alright.. but i cant realy tell much from here..

if you want a fanless HDD cooler i got one like this http://www.arc.com.au/?FANCPUZA14
Its great and does minimise the vibrations coming from the HDD by the rubber spacers and makes it kinda cool but since my HDD is running crazy i guess it shaved a few 'Cs of it.. then i attatched a 90mm fan in front of it and i'm laughing

Trying to go as fanless/passive as i can but since i've got a Prescott on my main rig i dont think my pc will be quite quiet untill i can go conroe..

 

[Daveskater]

i just started up my pc without the hdd fans on, and i've put the most part of the noise down to my hdd. it's a maxtor 60gb (don't know what model exactly) but also having it in a 5.25" bay doesn't exactly make it quieter with just the plastic cover in front of it.

is there a good way to cover the sound some how (without making more) or should i just totally replace it?

 

[Rik]

Try putting a thick piece of cardboard between the drive and the cover plate as an experiment.

 

[Daveskater]

i've put some card off a wine box in the front, and it's actually working quite well! just goes to show that you shouldn't underestimate the sound proofing properties of cardboard. i think that most of the sound now is coming from one of hte fans, altohugh i can't pin it down to cpu or psu. only thing is though is that i started my pc up (with the card in) and put the side sof the case back on, but it seems that if you're not careful then one of my drives clicks (possibly skipping) then spins down and back up again, and sometimes everything's going ok then the screen will freeze fo a second then go back to normal again

 

[Daveskater]

since i last posted my pc's been off and it seems ok now (i wiggled some wires) but thanks, it's quite a bit better. should i get some proper sound dampening stuff though or just leave the card in for now?

 

[Rik]

If the cardboard works, stick with it, its a lot cheaper than the proper stuff!!!

 

[Daveskater]

haha good point. now just to get rid of this psu then i'll be laughing. unfortunately not to the bank...

 

[Rik]

You may well have a power molex where one or more of the contacts has opened up. If you use a small precision screwdriver you can carefully close them up a bit. I had that problem once, spent 3 days trying to figure out why my pc wouldn't boot, i got fed up with it and kicked it and it started working. I then spotted it was an opened up contact in the molex to the hdd.
P.S. I broke the front of my case when i kicked it, hot glue, great stuff!!!

 

[Daveskater]

oh right well the power cable to the hdd was a bit loose in the fan thing really (it kind of goes through it if you know what i mean) so i pushed it in and put some sticky tape on it so it won't come out again in theory, anyway

 

[Daveskater]

hi again all, just posting to say that i reveived a coolermaster 80mm fan in the post this morning , which will hopefully help cooling a bit. oh, and it says <13dB which sounds quite good to me