Optimising for silence

[Tyranade]

Hey guys

 

I am looking to make my PC as silent as possible and to do that I am looking at changing my entire cooling setup and potentially buy a new case to one optimised for silence.

 

Right now I am using the stock case fans that come with the S340 case and I was using the H100i V2 but the pump died on it so I am now using a stock Intel cooler (YAY > >). So what I would like to do is change over to an Air Cooler to something like a Noctua NH-D15s simply because it is the same as the NH-D15 just off set so it's not obstructing my top PCI-E x1 slot and I can add an extra fan for a dual fan setup like the non S variant and get the same performance and the reason I don't want it obstructed is because I use the top PCI-E x1 slot for a WiFi Card and maybe even some silence optimised case fans but not compromise to bad on case air flow and component cooling.

 

So right now I am looking at replacing all my case fans (4 of them) because the 2 that come with the H100i are freaking loud under load and the 2 that come with the case Vibrate, stop, Vibrate, stop and I can hear that with headphones on and they are not the greatest. I also need to replace the CPU cooler and I also need a sata/molex power to PWM fan adapter cables so I can just run them with low noise adapters all the time from the PSU and I would not be connecting the PWM headder on the adapter cable to the motherboard for PWM control because the Gigabyte fan control software is horrible so I am just looking to maybe control the CPU cooler fans with it or plug them into a fan power splitter like the other fans, that I am undecided on. Any reccomendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

My current system specs are

• Core i5 6600k
• Gigabyte Z170X-UD3
• 16GB Kingston Fury DDR4 2400 MHz
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 (I only really play WoW so I don't need more than that and will be jumping to the RX480 if it lives up to some of the hype)
• Corsair H100i v2 (Dead - Predated this build was the only part other than 1 SSD that came over from my old build)
• NZXT S340
• Fractal Design Newton R3 800w 80+ Platinum PSU (Total overkill but got it for cheaper than a Corsair 600W PSU as it was on sale and the fan RARELY spins up if at all)
• A Samsung 840 Evo 120GB and Kingston Savage 120GB SSD in RAID0 as my boot drive (I got the Kingston one really cheap and couldn't say no hence the RAID0)
• 1TB Western Digital Blue 7200RPM.
• TP-LINK N900 PCI-E x1 card.

I have a budget of around £300 to dump on this maybe possible a new case as well?

 

This screenshot here are the parts I was looking at but would like your guys input.

 

 

So yeah if there is any changes you would make for silence I would like to hear it. The reason I want it to be silent is my PC is right next to me and when I am gaming the last thing I need to hear is it spinning up and sounding like a jet turbine. Also as said before I am unsure if I should hook the fans up to the motherboard headers for both CPU fan headers CPU Fan and CPU OPT, or buy a Y splitter and connect them to CPU Fan (The NH-D15s I belive doesn't come with a Y splitter as it ships with only 1 fan but you can add a 2nd fan and get the same performance as the non S variant) and hook it up to 1 CPU fan header or buy a 2nd PWM fan splitter and hook up 3 fans to each so I am not overloading the SATA power on the 5 way splitter running 6 fans off of it.

 

Any help is appreciated.

[Laputacake]

For me, when I achieved full silence like full 0db I had my fans only turn on when over 50c so from that i'd say get a nice fan controller like the grid+ to do the same and the D15 should be good for cooling the 6600k passivley though it will probably be hotter than the E5 2670 I had. For GPU depending on your current temps maybe a Raijintek morpheus might be a good cool to increase passiveness and will allow to use larger fans that run slower.

[Tyranade]

6 minutes ago, Laputacake said:

For me, when I achieved full silence like full 0db I had my fans only turn on when over 50c so from that i'd say get a nice fan controller like the grid+ to do the same and the D15 should be good for cooling the 6600k passivley though it will probably be hotter than the E5 2670 I had. For GPU depending on your current temps maybe a Raijintek morpheus might be a good cool to increase passiveness and will allow to use larger fans that run slower.

I have never really been a fan of cooling any sort of desktop passively I would like the fans to be on but be as quiet as possible. And with an overclock on my 6600k I am not going to be running without fans spinning on it.

 

As for the GPU I don't want to touch the cooler on that as I am going to be going for either a RX 480 or GTX 1070 depending on RX 480 benchmarks.

 

I did look into the grid+ but it doesn't look like you can plug 4 pin fans into it, it looks to be 3 pin only.

 

EDIT: So it does indeed support 4 pin fans it just doesn't have the 4th pin present so I think I'll pick one of those up then.

 

I am still unsure if I should use both CPU fan headers or use a Y splitter and use 1 or connect them to a fan splitter / controller instead of the motherboard.

[Tyranade]

This is what I have now.

 

Anyone got an other suggestions?

[brandishwar]

Instead of switching your entire chassis, have you considered buying dampening material for your current chassis? Something like the AcoustiPack Ultimate could help with quieting noise along with going with quieter fans.

[Tyranade]

2 minutes ago, brandishwar said:

Instead of switching your entire chassis, have you considered buying dampening material for your current chassis? Something like the AcoustiPack Ultimate could help with quieting noise along with going with quieter fans.

I did think about doing something like this but I am not the handiest when it comes to doing things like that and I know I would make a mess of sticking it down and I would end up spending more on foam than a pre-done case would cost.

[Tyranade]

So I have decided to go with the Gigabyte Software after all. After tinkering around I have gotten to the point where I am happy enough to say I can make it work. All I am going to need to do is buy 2 Y splitters (For the CPU Cooler and 2 fans on the front) and some extension cables (I would rather have them just so I know all the cables will reach). 

 

My current idea being

 

Swapping to the Fractal Define S with 3x NF-F12 fans in the front with Low Noise Adapters as intakes 2 which will be connected to 1 fan header closest to the front with the 3rd connected to a different fan header using an extension cable routed behind the motherboard tray connected to the fan header on the bottom of the board.

 

The rear NF-F12 will be an exhaust connected with a LNA to the fan header near the 8 pin CPU power which I will just have to tuck out of the way to the side of the fan.

 

The NH-D15S will be my CPU cooler with a 2nd NF-A15 fan added so it performs the same as the NH-D15 the only difference then being it's offset so it doesn't interfear with my Wi-Fi card. Connect to the CPU fan header with a Y splitter and LNAs so I can control both fans in the Gigabyte software under the 1 Fan instead of having to deal with 2 fan curves so I can just deal with both of them with the 1 curve.

 

Anyone got any ideas on if this can be improved?

[Bcat00]

This question has come up before but ill just lay down the key points for you.

 

ditch the nf-f12s because those fans are the loudest model in the noctua 120 lineup and the design of those fans are seriously flawed.

 

get the nf-p12 or the nf-a15.

 

now heres where the magic starts

 

get a 6 way fan splitter for 10 bucks on amazon and hook all your fans to the cpu header, then you can just leave the fans running at 500rpm or lower.