Quiet cooling PC for review

[gebbly]

Could you guys give the following a quick look and see what you think? Will things start to melt? Will it be nice and quiet?...

Anyway, on with the spec.

Kingwin 436S case with 6 fans
A7N8X mobo
AMD 2200+ xp with Globalwin TAK II 58
Radeon 9700 Pro Ultimate (with heatpipe/sinks instead of fan)
scsi controller
Old Cd-rom drive
CD Re-writer
[havent looked into quietening cd drives, anyone have any thoughts?]

Fujitsu MAN3735MP scsi 73.5GB U160 (might down-size to 36.7GB version)

 

[error_911]

well your 6 fans and globalwin cooler aren't exactly the qietest way to go, and as for quieting the cd-rom, unless you feel like encasing it in sound-absortion mating then there's no reallly good way i know of to do so... as for your hard drive, since its a scsi it is a generator of some good noise too... and that Radeon passive heatpipe heatsink, though quiet, is kind of a pointless investment with the rest of yur loud hardware...besides, its cooling capactiy is not great... add one side mounted fan to blow on it and its a lot better. What kind of PSU are you looking at ?

<b>people are only idiots when they don't realize - when they do it just gets funnier, like a dog chasing its own tail, or like george bush's public address(es)</b>

 

[gebbly]

I choose the globalwin based on tom's review and dB readings here :
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030113/cooler5-39.html
I didnt want to go to the expense of water-cooling (although I did look into it at one point)
After speaking with people who own kingwin's they say they are fairly quiet fans so I'm hoping they are quiet enough.

If they arent quiet enough do you suppose cooling would be adequate if I disabled a fan or 2?

I hadnt thought of sound-absorbent padding for the cd-drives, how prone are cd-drives to overheating?

I've always liked my scsi disks and when I saw the new fujitsu drives designed to be quiet I was most interested. Tom had a good review here :
http://www17.tomshardware.com/storage/20020117/index.html
along with a couple of bits of info like dB levels here :
http://www17.tomshardware.com/storage/20020415/index-05.html#noise_level
which suggest the fujitsu MAN drive is quieter than other nice drives like seagate baracuda or western digital.

I know the cooling on the Radeon wont be as effective as a nice big fan but it should be adequate shouldnt it? (otherwise surely Sapphire wouldnt be selling it as they would be inundated with melted cards and refund requests) And in case it isnt one of the fans in the kingwin is side-mounted and should blow almost directly on the Radeons heatsinks (a cunning plan) )

The PSU I got from QuietPC.com http://www.quietpc.com/uk/psu.php
(the 400W one)

 

[error_911]

well no, saphire wouldn't put something completely innadequate, but its nonetheless the difference between keeping your GPU at 55*C and keeping it at 35*C... but if you do have the side-mount fan thats a perfect combination.

And yeah, disabling a fan or two is fine, just watch your temps... if you see it going up too high, plug in one more fan.. i mean, right now I'm running with one 120mm side-intake and a dual-fan enermax psu, thats all for case ventilation - only when I'm playing a game do i plug in my vantec tornado exhaust and turn up the speed of the 120mm fan. As for the SCSI drive, i didn't know the fujitsu was quieter than a barracuda, surprising news, thanks (i was planning on purchasing a SATA WestDigi drive soon and I think I'll have to take a look at fujitsu).

As for the PSU, "quiet PC" relabels a large part of the products they sell, though the PSU you purchased seems to be some random brand, "Q Power" or somethin like that... as long as it performs well, its noise ratings seem nice.

Oh yeah, and CD drives aren't prone to overheating (since they rae never used for very prolonged use, and their design in general has barely any heat-producing circuitry), so don't worry about encasing it in some sound-proofing foam.

<b>people are only idiots when they don't realize - when they do it just gets funnier, like a dog chasing its own tail, or like george bush's public address(es)</b>

 

[gebbly]

"keeping your GPU at 55*C"
AMD publish ideal running temperatures, does anyone know anywhere to get ideal running temps of GPUs?

"just watch your temps"
I've seen people mention doing this with software before. Does anyone know of any freeware that can do this?

Doesnt sound like you have many fans in there error_911. Think I'll take your advice and experiment a little unplugging some fans and seeing what temperatures I get.

Apparently IBM do some quieter drives too but the fujitsus were easier to find info on and people who reviewed them seemed to like them so I went for one of those over an IBM.

Sounds like its worth me investigating some sort of sound absorption equipment for the cd drives. Anyone know of any handy sites? I've seen some devices for quieting HDDs but never cd-drives.

 

[error_911]

Good luck finding operating temps for GPUs, most manufacturers will need to be contacted in order to get 'em, but I've heard the same thing from Asus, MSI and Chaintech - they all tell me to keep GPU temps within the same range of CPUs - but as usual, the lower the better.

Good freeware? Yeah, Motherboard Monitor 5 is pretty good - takes a little getting used to but its good - better than any that comes with the mobo.

About the fans, heh, you guessed right. I used to have two 80mm Vantec Tornados (84cfm each), one intake, one exhaust, my 120mm window mount (104cfm) and the dual fan PSU exhaust as well, but then I realised that for the ambient temps here, i wasn't getting anything cooler than I was with just the PSU being used as an exhaust and the slower, less noisy 120mm fan. Now, once the temps go up in the summer, thats a different story, and thats why I decided to go with watercooling - silence and cooling capacity.

As for quieting down the Cd-Rom, you best bet is to look for a closed-cell foam with a thicker rubber backing... you can even use some cut-up mouse-pad (works pretty well)... something nice and thick and heavy to dampen it out.

<b>people are only idiots when they don't realize - when they do it just gets funnier, like a dog chasing its own tail, or like george bush's public address(es)</b>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

GPU's run hot. ive got a geforce2pro i can run fanless and it gets up to 65-70C according to the onboard sensor and it still runs fine.

an old TNT2 i had got hot enough to burn fingers in seconds.

I wouldnt worry too much about it untill you start getting game graphical corruption and game freezes.


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