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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Jose on April 26, 2004, 06:07:57 PM
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I really don't ilke the ressonance of the towercase of my Athlon and I've seen a lot of PC's with the same problem.
PowerPC's don't have the same problem of course.
Is there anything I could do to lower that vrrrhmmm sound ? Maybe I'm just paranoid but I really don't like it :-o
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Jose wrote:
Is there anything I could do to lower that vrrrhmmm sound ?
Just load winamp and turn the volume up.
It usually works for me ! :-D :-D
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My Antec PLUS1080AMG was pretty ressonance free with the stock 4 fans running, I think it depends greatly on the quality of the case. You can also purchase rubber gromets that sit between your fans and their mounts.
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I think alot of it has to do with the fact that alot of cases are just thin aluminum, some maybe even steel, sheet metal that just pop rivited together with slide on sides. Which means not a tight fit for all pieces, so there is plenty of room to rattle around.
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Yep.... Tighten down everything you can, and maybe add some rubber seals or something to cut down on the vibrations. Also, I've found using better quality fans (I run Enermax ultra-cools) helps quite a bit. Most of the noise in my case is now my stupid chipset fan (which is failing) and the rustle of airflow noise.
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There's no way I'm gonna buy a new tower for this thing. It would have to be a good one and so expensive.
I've put it in rubber supports, tightened the screws, hit it :-D, but still the same. At least it's a good excuse to use my A1200 more in case someone starts pissing me 8-)
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Get a heavier case. It will be less effected by viabration.
Get a HUGE steel full-tower, with as many drive bays as you can find.
Not only will it be a quiet and durable case, it will have plenty of expansion space too.
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I've spent a lot of time trying to make my computer quiet. It's easy if you buy the right parts and put it together carefully. I'll mention vibration later, but first, a few noise/cooling tips...
First, have one fan on the front of your case and two in back. Front-to-back airflow works best, and the exhaust is facing the wall so you don't hear the noise. It also draws waste heat away from the CPU and chipset, because the case fans are usually located above the PCI slots next to the Venus ports (the connectors on the back of the mobo). Heat from the chipset will affect the CPU if it isn't forced out of the case.
Fans blow air, rather than suck, so pay attention to where the fans are getting air. Airflow comes first, fan placement comes second. I'd avoid a case with holes in the side, or a side-mounted fan. They cause more turbulance than anything, and make the whole side of the case vibrate.
I custom wired my case to have the three case fans running on a 5 volt "bus", instead of plugging each fan into its own power connector. My case is very cool even in the summer. I might put a dial on the front of my case so I can throttle the fans manually, but my case is so quiet I don't know if it'll be worth the effort. Most cases don't need fans running at the full 12 volts to provide adaquate cooling. 7 volt conversion wires are really nice to have if you're a fanatic. 5 volt power is OK if you're not a performance monster. Lots of slow-spinning 80mm fans will do you much better than a 70mm, 6000 RPM monster on your CPU.
Getting a mobo with a hardware monitoring tool is a must. Of all parts you put in your box, cheap mobos are to be avoided AT ALL COSTS. Do PowerPC boards come with thermal sensors? Due to market demands, it won't be long before PPC is pumping out as much heat as an x86 chip. Today's PPCs are made for efficiency, but sooner or later the performance bug will bite. Better learn your lessons from the Intel boys instead of the hard way, as cooling plagues all computer manufacturers. Keep in mind that video cards are free of the legacy bagage that haunts x86 chips, and they are certainly not the pinicle of thermal efficiency, either. The nVidia 6800 ultra will require TWO power connectors on their own, dedicated PSU lines (needed for power stability, not wattage). When will these guys wake up to reality?
A power supply with fan speed control is a big plus. I have an Antec power supply which keeps the PSU fans running slowly to cut down on noise. I'm also more comfortable with having a reputible brand in my case. I'm willing to bet a LOT of PC issues are blamed on the parts, but the fault lies with a flimsy power supply.
Today's video cards are pretty stupid. The fans are huge and they blow the hot air into the case, against the flow from the fans at the front of the case. I'm replacing my stock Radeon 9800 Pro cooler (which is the loudest "small" fan I've ever heard), with a blower from Arctic Cooling. It blows air out the back of the case like the ill-fated GeforceFX, but unlike the NVidia "leafblower", the fan runs at ~1500 RPM, so it's dead silent. Remember, you can advocate the PowerPC all you want, but that won't do much good for noise if you plop in a high-end video card or your PSU sucks.
Stock CPU coolers are fine if you don't overclock. The Intel P4 stock cooler is the quietest out there, and you can probably put a 12->7 volt converter on the fan without affecting your cooling too much. My Mobo has CPU fan speed control and throttles the fan to 60%, increasing it only if things get hot (which never happens, in my case). It never gets hot no matter how hard I push it, and it's very quiet. The P4 dumps out lots of heat, but I have to say Intel's cooling solutions are stunning, even without any copper in the heatsink! I'm very, very glad I got rid of my scorching hot Athlon, which I couldn't cool quietly despite trying out five different heatsinks. Athlons are generally much louder than Pentiums.
One thing about coolers is that you MUST use a proper thermal adhesive. Stock P4 coolers come with metal thermal pads sandwiched between two layers of carbon empregnated parafin. It acts as a pillow for the CPU in case you're not careful with installing the heatsink, but it's bad for cooling. Strip it off with a plastic scraper and denatured alcohol, and put on a real thermal grease (brand is irrelivent). You'll instantly see your P4 go down 5 degrees or so. If your cooling comes with a single-layer thin parafin thermal pad, that's probably fine.
Thermal grease is a short-term solution and should last a year or so. After that, the grease dries up and must be replaced. Thermal pads are more permanent solutions and will last for years. Use what you need. Basicly, thermal grease works better for cooling, but needs regular maintenance.
Water cooling is rediculous overkill for quiet cooling, and the water pump will certainly result in killer vibration for your case. I've never seen a water cooler I liked, and they have fans so they are NOT totally silent. Water coolers are for overclockers, only. Others will be just fine with fans.
Case vibration is almost always caused by the hard drive. In my case, the HD doesn't transmit vibration through the mount, it's the sound of the drive that reverbates through the case. Re-postition your drive and you may notice a difference. I've found rubber grommets to be of little help, but your milage (or kilometerage) may vary. :-)
If your case is hot, it's proably because you have too many cables, you don't have enough fans in the back of the case, or your heatsinks are badly shaped/positioned. Waste heat from the video card can be a problem, so look into a PCI blower, or, even better, upgrade your GPU heatsink.
If your case is noisey, reduce your fan speed and reposition your hard drive. A good CPU heatsink shouldn't run very hot if chip's die size is large enough. Athlons are a pain to cool since the dies are very small, about the size of a pencil eraser. Athlon cooling should be easier now that AMD is (finally) capping their cores with heat spreaders... a very, very good cooling trend started by the P4. I wonder when nVidia and ATI will learn to do that? 100% copper coolers seem like they cost a heck of a lot more than a good CPU cap. Sigh.
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Get a HUGE steel full-tower, with as many drive bays as you can find.
I've found big cases make more noise because they have more air inside. Steel over aluminum is a plus, but expensive and friggin' HEAVY. Big cases are actually harder to cool, too, because the air doesn't flow in the right places, which either heats up your case, or requires more fans and thus makes more noise.
A three-bay mid-tower is your best bet for noise control. Minitowers are kinda tight inside, and full towers (or server cases) amplify the vibration of the hard drive and other things, even if the case itself is solid as a rock.
Server cases tend to come with decent power supplies, but a 400-watt supply isn't neccesarily going to give you the cleanest power -- or come with the quietest fans. All power supplies I've seen generate almost as much heat as a top-tier CPU, so efficient PSU fans are pretty important. Antec supplies come with two slow-spinning fans. They're awesome no matter what case in which you install them. :-)
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Or spend a fortune on one of those totally passive cases that use heatpipes to cool the entire system and turn the entire case into a heatsink.
Not a single fan in then :-D
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I've found big cases make more noise because they have more air inside. Steel over aluminum is a plus, but expensive and friggin' HEAVY. Big cases are actually harder to cool, too, because the air doesn't flow in the right places, which either heats up your case, or requires more fans and thus makes more noise.
Aluminium is a better heat conductor, also. Even so, I still prefer steel cases for their quality.
And HEAVY is the whole point! HEAVY is nice. HEAVY has always ment QUIET.
Server cases tend to come with decent power supplies,
Server cases are also usually built better.
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Karlos wrote:
Or spend a fortune on one of those totally passive cases that use heatpipes to cool the entire system and turn the entire case into a heatsink.
Not a single fan in then :-D
Buy an iMac.
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< Boris the Bullet Dodger >
"Heavy is good. Heavy is reliable..."
< /Boris the Bullet Dodger >
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iamaboringperson wrote:
Buy an iMac.
Eugh! I'd sooner use every page in the Greater Manchester telephone directory to paper-cut my scrotum :lol:
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Karlos wrote:
iamaboringperson wrote:
Buy an iMac.
Eugh! I'd sooner use every page in the Greater Manchester telephone directory to paper-cut my scrotum :lol:
Okayy... Buy a G3 Pegasos, but it in a small steel case with a small PSU fan. :)
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Well, if I move it to the kitchen I could put it in the fridge :-) With the added benefit of beer being closer...
I think I'm going to try to get a better CPU fan... There seem to be some quiet PSU's around too.
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@Waccoon
Good tips, I can't believe you had the patience to writte that :-o 8-)
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Could make a case out of Copper. Then again I suppose wood would dampen the sound more. Of course, Titanium is much cooler! :-D :-P
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And HEAVY is the whole point! HEAVY is nice. HEAVY has always ment QUIET.
I wonder if I could fit a motherboard inside an anvil... :-?
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Could just put it in the other room. :-D
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iamaboringperson wrote:
Karlos wrote:
Or spend a fortune on one of those totally passive cases that use heatpipes to cool the entire system and turn the entire case into a heatsink.
Not a single fan in then :-D
Buy an iMac.
From what I have seen all new Macs have fans now.
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I wonder if I could fit a motherboard inside an anvil...
Or, you could just drop the anvil on the computer. I don't think it would make much sound after that. :-D
Of course, for serious advice... I see people mentioning small fans. Avoid those. Go with larger fans at less RPMs. Smallest fan in my computer (except for the malfunctioning chipset fan) is an 80mm case fan. I run a Thermaltake copper CPU heatsink with an Enermax UltraCool 80mm case fan on it. Better cooling and quieter than any other HSF I've seen. And, if I want to overclock, I just turn up the fan on it, and suddenly I've got one of the highest rated heatsinks on the market. At 3500 RPM, it managed to keep a severely overclocked AMD below 45C. At 2500 RPM it has no problems with my P4 3ghz. haha!!
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Here I was thinking I was nuts having a Jet Turbine on my CPU.
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Argo wrote:
Here I was thinking I was nuts having a Jet Turbine on my CPU.
What...a Coolermaster Aero 7+??? :lol:
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A good way of eliminating resonance I once read about was to suspend the case fans from rubber bands. I don't know how you would do that the PSU fan though.
Vibration is greatly reduced when there is no direct contact with the metal parts. Even the Cpu can have a fan suspended over the CPU rather than fixed to the heatsink directly. It won't affect the cooling much if you get it close enough.
Read up on defferent mods and hacks that people have done to make their PCs silent. Some quite good advice out there especially about insulation and fan noise reduction.
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Quote: Argo wrote: Here I was thinking I was nuts having a Jet Turbine on my CPU. What...a Coolermaster Aero 7+???
Close, I have the lite version.
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My PC is very silent, almost unhearable. I got some cheap engine soundinsulation mats, which are made of a kind of foam with aluminium foil on one side and sticky stuff on the other. I put that all over the inside of my case leaving as few holes as possible (otherwise sound will escape through the holes) and it worked very well.
The only thing to watch out for is that the mats are heat insulating so you need to make sure that you have good airflow through the case or your cpu and other things will overheat. You need at least one case fan. I bought a near silent Pabst one.
In my case cooling was actually improved since all the air is now sucked in through the front of the case where I left a hole in the sound insulation, which causes all the air to travel from the front, over the cpu, and out the back. Before I put in the sound insulation there were holes all over the place in the case where air was sucked in.
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GadgetMaster wrote:
A good way of eliminating resonance I once read about was to suspend the case fans from rubber bands. I don't know how you would do that the PSU fan though.
Vibration is greatly reduced when there is no direct contact with the metal parts. Even the Cpu can have a fan suspended over the CPU rather than fixed to the heatsink directly. It won't affect the cooling much if you get it close enough.
Read up on defferent mods and hacks that people have done to make their PCs silent. Some quite good advice out there especially about insulation and fan noise reduction.
I can't think of anybody who uses suspended fans...
/me peers over at GadgetMaster's 1200T... Yes, suspended fans are pretty quiet ;-)
Which reminds me, I need to get a speed limiter for that new fan on the BPPC - it's a little noisy at the full 12V.
It sure draws the heat out of the thing though, its actually 20C presently ;-)
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If the problem genuinely is resonance, then the offending part of the case has a natural vibration frequency which is the same, or similar to, one or more of the internal motors.
Vibration frequency depends on the mass/inertia of the panel concerned, so adding some mass to it will change its natural vibration frequency. This can be done by adding a few pieces of thin sheet lead. Attach them to the centre of the panels with those double-sided sticky pads.
If your problem is simply excessive noise from within the case, then sound insulation is the way to go.
Cheers,
JaX
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I'm using self-adhesive foam rubber to keep my drives in place. It keeps the resonance away. Dunno how well that would work on fans, tho'. :-)
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My PC is very silent, almost unhearable. I got some cheap engine soundinsulation mats, which are made of a kind of foam with aluminium foil on one side and sticky stuff on the other. I put that all over the inside of my case leaving as few holes as possible (otherwise sound will escape through the holes) and it worked very well.
The kind they put under car hoods? That's a good idea, though it must take a lot of space inside when the case is closed. I've also heard that old mousepads (with the cloth removed) work pretty well. Still, nothing beats just throttling down your fans and improving airflow.
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Hi,
You can get some stuff at your local car stereo shop that maybe all of 1/8" thick. self adhesive, very dense, works well. I think it's called "Dynamat".
Chris
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Waccoon wrote:
The kind they put under car hoods? That's a good idea, though it must take a lot of space inside when the case is closed. I've also heard that old mousepads (with the cloth removed) work pretty well. Still, nothing beats just throttling down your fans and improving airflow.
Yes, that's the kind. It was available in 10mm thickness where I bought it so there was no problem fitting it on the inside of the case and it's not taking up much space either. It was dirt cheap too, like $4 for half a square meter.
The andvantage the sound insulation is that it will dampen all sounds from the inside of the case. I have a pretty silent WD harddrive in there and with the insulation even the noise from the drive heads is almost unhearable.
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There was/is an automotive spray product called "Noisekiller Blue" that I always wanted to try; designed for stereo installation deadening, apparently a very light thin foam, for a similar effect to the asphalt sheets without the weight and sticky mess. (Water soluble cleanup before drying.)
Apparently it was or wasn't folded in under someone else's "Roadkill" brand, which used to belong to a competing, more tarry/less useful spray... I never managed to find the stuff, not that I was looking hard, and my current tower is an IBM tank with few noise issues, so it's been less of a personal concern.
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GadgetMaster wrote:
A good way of eliminating resonance I once read about was to suspend the case fans from rubber bands. I don't know how you would do that the PSU fan though.
Oh yeah, the noise-tolerable IBM has the CPU fan (Pentium II exhaust-style, so it's mounted to the case, not the processors, with one of those plastic ducts) mounted on little rubber nipples instead of screws; I believe it's Antec who are now marketing the same bits of rubber to normal humans.
Probably a little foam weatherstrip on the edges of the fans (where they'd press to the case), with normal screws in rubber washers, could approximate. Or strips of rubber band, anything 'gaskety' to keep the rattle from coupling.
IBM were also nice enough to drill the HD mounting holes wide and insert rubber grommets, which help as much; for those without, there's the "two rubber bands and pencils" trick for suspending 3.5"s in 5.25" bays.
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Karlos wrote:
I can't think of anybody who uses suspended fans...
/me peers over at GadgetMaster's 1200T... Yes, suspended fans are pretty quiet ;-)
LOL :-D
I used plastic ties rather than rubber bands. Not the same effect but surreal looking nonetheless :lol:
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Hm, I think the "NoiseKiller Gray" at NoiseKiller.com (http://www.noisekiller.com) is what's become of that product, but I'm not really sure, and they haven't updated since 1999. Dropped them an email for correctness's sake, and I'll report any findings back.
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Argo wrote:
Quote: Argo wrote: Here I was thinking I was nuts having a Jet Turbine on my CPU. What...a Coolermaster Aero 7+???
Close, I have the lite version.
They are actually quite good at cooling, not to mention quiet compared to a high speed 80mm fan. I did find that the Aero 7+ was a tad bit tricky to mount with the fan still attached. Is the light version all copper like the plus??
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Is the light version all copper like the plus??
No, the Heatsink is aluminum with a copper core.
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Argo wrote:
Is the light version all copper like the plus??
No, the Heatsink is aluminum with a copper core.
Probably the same sink that my X-Dream uses, I've been able to push quite a few extra MHz out of my 2500+ with that.