Ultra Quite PC

[Sklo]

Recently I upgraded my PC and I wanted to make it as silent as possible. So my I choice the Define R5 Black. The results were good, but far from impressive.

So I decided to do it on my own with a small budget. How much it will cost you strongly depends on where you are.

Everything here can be done ghetto style, but you can by those parts if you wish so.

I will also include some things you might wana keep in mind when choosing components.

 

 

What do you need?

 

Double sided tape

cardboard(various thickness)

noise dampening foam(3cm)

sheets of rubber(various thickness)

Sharp knife

 

 

What does make noice?

Hard-drives

Fans

Components(Coil-whine,...)

 

HDDs

Hard-drives have moving parts including discs that move with a rpm greater than 5k. No mather they will cause vibrations and if those transfer to thin surfaces such a hard-drive trays,

they are inevitable going to cause sound. Except for switching to SSDs there is no other way then to screen them of via cardboard or rubber grommets. Rubber grommets can be bought everywhere and are reasonably prized. You can avoid buying them by layering double sided tape and cardboard/rubber. Unless you plan to carry around your PC allot you will be fine with that solution, since the tab is really strong, but if course it is not as firm like screws. 

 

Fans:

First of all, people tend to go balls with their fans. There is in most cases no point in going to for more than 3 Case fans.(Luke did a good video on it). Make sure your fans are either firmly screwed in or only touch the case/cpu cooler via rubber(no cardboard on cpu and gpu cooler!). Turn case fans down to their bare minimum(they need a certain amount V to start spinning), you can reach this by using low noise adapter, hubs or fan controller. If possible make sure you use 4 pin connectors on fans so you motherboard can control them. But bare in mind you can only reduce the noise level to a certain degree since most of the noise is made by blades,  engine and barrings themselves. So you spending some bucks for noctuas or other premium fans may pay off. 

I strongly recommend big aftermarket cpu coolers. Make sure you use a 4pin fan for the cpu cooler. And running your components on higher temps with lower fan curves is an option too. There is no real need to keep your CPU at 35dec when your fan is runnign at 100%.

 

Noise dampening foam:

What I did was basically order three 50x50cm sheets of 3cm foam and applied it to every surface there was. I used tape to firmly attach it to my case. If like in my case you have problems with it not sticking on the foam all so well, just put tape on the foam (and massage the tape, yep massage it) and on the case itself.

Only thing you have to keep in mind is, that you make sure your foam is not cohesive, so it is basically just foam. And do not stick it on components and make sure it doesn't touch any either.

Try not to disrupt the airflow.Leave Intakes and outtakes open so your fans can breath. But other than that you can close all other "holes" in you case.

 

Result:

After tweaking the fan curves I reached a near silence in idle and and slightly noticeable noise under full load with a mild overclock(4,2Ghz). While in idle it is death silent from the other side of the room, I can basically download while I sleep.

With closed headphones on(even without music playing) it is dead-silent.

 

Conclusion:

There is really no need to go go balls on the cost when you want to go silent, a few hours of tweaking a under 20 bucks is just enough.

 

This post is still WIP, if you have any addictions please post below.

- thanks

[SolarNova]

One way to make a silent build is to buy silent components, Don't use HDD's, use SSD, don't buy cheap fans, use Premium ones like Noctua's..

Could build a water loop and use an external rad mount and put the rad fans and pump in another room.

 

I plan on doing something similar by building a Chiller water loop using a aquarium water chiller placed in my loft and piped down to my PC. The PC case will only contain 3 moving parts. PSU fan, Fan for a small cold rad (to control case temps), and the fan inside the mini dehumidifier ill be placing inside said case, the case will have all vents and seams sealed and will be almost air tight, so the air stays dry and internal case temperature under control and be padded with noise dampening sheets. Should be near silent.

[TheRandomness]

One way to make a silent build is to buy silent components, Don't use HDD's, use SSD, don't buy cheap fans, use Premium ones like Noctua's..

Could build a water loop and use an external rad mount and put the rad fans and pump in another room.

 

I plan on doing something similar by building a Chiller water loop using a aquarium water chiller placed in my loft and piped down to my PC. The PC case will only contain 3 moving parts. PSU fan, Fan for a small cold rad (to control case temps), and the fan inside the mini dehumidifier ill be placing inside said case, the case will have all vents and seams sealed and will be almost air tight, so the air stays dry and internal case temperature under control and be padded with noise dampening sheets. Should be near silent.

No need for a PSU fan... 

[Stefan1024]

Nice short quide, but I'm beyond the "foam" stage

Look in my signature.

 

@TheRandomness

This PSU still needs water cooling and the internal pump makes a lot on noise. But Seasonic makes some nice passive PSUs up to 550 watts.

[Darkman]

Nice short quide, but I'm beyond the "foam" stage

Look in my signature.

 

@TheRandomness

This PSU still needs water cooling and the internal pump makes a lot on noise. But Seasonic makes some nice passive PSUs up to 550 watts.

Go passive or go home. I'd do it if I had the money and time for fun, also a strong enough desk to put a heavy computer on.

[Guest]

Nice short quide, but I'm beyond the "foam" stage

Look in my signature.

 

@TheRandomness

This PSU still needs water cooling and the internal pump makes a lot on noise. But Seasonic makes some nice passive PSUs up to 550 watts.

There was one brand with a fully passive 750W at Computex.

[Stefan1024]

There was one brand with a fully passive 750W at Computex.

 

Oh I NEED the brand name and the model number

[Guest]

Oh I NEED the brand name and the model number

Swear to god there was a 750w version: http://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/Computex-2015-Enermax-Shows-New-Highly-Efficient-550W-Digital-Fanless-PSU

[Stefan1024]

Swear to god there was a 750w version: http://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/Computex-2015-Enermax-Shows-New-Highly-Efficient-550W-Digital-Fanless-PSU

 

Well I use this one rigth now and it gets very toasty even at 500 watts.

The software reports 60°C, but in fact it was running at 95°C! Don't dare to pull 750 watts for more than a few seconds