Hi all,

Was wondering if anybody would be able to advise on whether it might be worth purchasing a new CPU cooler just for the purpose of making my machine quieter?

I built my system a couple of weeks ago. I'll give the full specs for reference:

Antec Solo Case ("Ultra Quiet" )
Antec NeoHE 500W PSU
Gigabyte 965P-DS4 (rev 1.0)
Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair TWIN2x2048-6400 (DDR2-800, 2x1GB, CAS5)
MSI GeForce 7900GTO 512MB
2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB drives running in RAID-0 configuration
Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T PCI
Philips 190CW 19 inch Widescreen LCD 5ms

On the whole it runs very quietly, but I'd really like to make the machine as silent as possible. I can't really hear any noise from the PSU, but there is the noise of some fan(s) that's apparent during usage. The only other fans in the system are a large 120mm fan mounted at the back of the case, running on its lowest speed, the fan on the GPU (which speeds up and down depending on load) and the CPU cooler (which is the stock Core 2 Duo cooler and also alters speed depending on load). I was wondering if a Zalman cooler to replace this would be likely to reduce the noise level any further (I've read that they are very quiet). Is the CPU fan likely to be the largest noisemaker?

I don't plan to do any overclocking for the timebeing (as much as I'd like to get the extra performance, the idea of voiding my warranty is too scary), so (for now at least), the purpose would be purely to reduce noise. Is it worth it? Anybody got any experience of how quiet or otherwise these are? Any alternative suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

u cant distroy a core 2 if u keep voltage under 1.4, so voiding ur warrenty is just a silly excuss not to over clock just get a great hsf and overclock, also is ur gfx card silent?

Well, it's not so much that I'm worried that the overclocking will kill the processor. More that if the processor were to fail anyway (unlikely, but suppose it was a bad one), if I'd overclocked it I wouldn't have any comeback. I always wonder how they'd know, of course...

I'm struggling to tell how quiet the graphics is. Certainly when it's taxed hard, I can hear the fan on it spin up faster (at least I'm pretty sure it's that fan and not the CPU fan), but as for basic running, it's hard to tell where the noise is coming from. I'll probably take the cover off later today and see if I can figure out what noise is coming from where, but I just thought I'd post here to see what people thought about the differences between the standard CPU fan and others.

they know u overclocked it when u change the voltage and it triggers a short in the cpu and thats how they tell or sumfin along those lines

The noise from your PSU fans will resonate through the case and sound like its coming from somewhere else. Try mounting your PSU on a rubber grommet made for this purpose.

Also - I would eschew advice from someone who is plainly unable to write in English.

Yes, of course, take off the cover and try to tell. GPU fans vary quite a lot in their level of noise, so its hard to compare to the stock C2D fan.

If you really wanna make it quiet, change both the CPU and the GPU. An example would be this for GPU:
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=91
and a Zalman for the CPU as you say (like 9500 or even better 9700 model)

According to the specs, the CPU is designed to run up to 1.3525V anyway, so as long as you stay within that range, there's nothing wrong with the voltage used.

Interesting thought - I'll look into it. However, I'm inclined to believe that the PSU is not a major culprit since many reviews I read before buying it commented on how silent it was (one of the things that encouraged me to buy it).

I have to confess that the idea of changing the cooler is rather daunting and also likely to invalidate my warranty (and we've already established how touchy I am about those! )

I'm not in the mood for getting the case out and taking it to bits tonight, but I will do some diagnosing in that area soon.

Edit: oh, the other thing I'll have to weigh up is what will and won't actually fit! (in terms of CPU coolers)

You don't need to take it apart, just open it up whilst its running.

As for invalidating your warranty with an after-market cooler, you can't, especially with the cpu. There is no way for them to know what cooler you run. The graphics cooling is a little more complicated, but even if your card were to die you could just put the stock cooler back on and send it in. No trouble (I've had to do that once, no problems).

You misunderstand me. When I say "take it to bits", I just mean "move all the stuff that's in the way and pull it out to where I can access it and then remove the cover".

About the cooler, I didn't make myself clear either. I've got no issue with changing the CPU cooler - afterall, I fitted the stock one to it during installation. It's the GPU that concerns me more since it arrived pre-attached and it's unknown territory as to how easy it would be to remove and also how effective a new cooler would be compared to the stock one - according to a review I read, the stock 7900 GTO/GTX cooler is a "true engineering marvel". It also says it's "efficient and quiet", though I suppose everything is relative.

Sorry for not making myself clear anyway.

Thats no problem, maybe I misunderstood.

The Arctic Cooling company started by making fantastic revolutionary coolers for GPUs, so they are really the best of the best. All of the GPU heatsinks you see nowadays where the air is blown directly out of the case - their idea! Many card makers actually buy coolers from them and then sell them on their cards (ie it comes as the stock one). Could I see the article that you quote regarding your GPU card and fan?

If you can get your hands on any Noctua fans they will definetly reduce noise by a good margin. Ofcourse you need to mount it on some sort of heatsink other than the stock one. For my part i felt that the C2D stock cooler was to loud when it got abocve 60% Max RPM. So i shifted to the Noctua solution and the temps dropped around 12-15 degrees which i think is alot. The Fan i so silent that i cant even hear it when its running at a 100% speed when i put ear next to the open cabinet. I literally need to stick my ear almost into the fan to be able to hear it rotating. The fans are also great for mounting inside the cabinet cause they move alot of air without making a sound.

anyways if you need silence noctua it is.

Definitely open up your case to pin down where the noise that is bugging you is coming from. I'd also go check out the various "Silent PC" type websites, as they specifically rate various components for noise.
At the least, you may want to get a fan controller to be able to manually adjust the speeds of the various fans. First, though, you need to figure out how to monitor the various temps in your system, to make sure you don't turn the fan(s) down too low.
In general, using a larger-diameter fan at a lower rpm will reduce noise while maintaining airflow. There are also certain fans that a quieter than others -- this is where the specialty sites I mentioned come in really handy, as they are serious about noise. Around here, one person's "quiet" is another person's rock concert.

I suspect that you are good as is. I have a similar system(e6600, solo case, 8800gts), and it is hard to tell where the noise(what little there is) is coming from. I took a long cardboard tube from some wrapping paper, and used it to listen to the sounds from several components. No one thing jumped out. On startup, I hear an increase, but I think it is the VGA fan, Since I do not have a cooling problem, I might try undervolting some fans with a Zalmate to see if it makes a difference. The 7900gto cooling approach exhausts the heat out the back of the case, like the 8800gts. I like that. If you get a vga cooler that gets the heat off the vga card more efficiently, but does not exhaust it, then you are simply transferring the problem to the cpu cooler or the PSU. The stock intel cooler is pretty good, and reasonably quiet. I use a scythe ninja + with a 120mm constant slow speed fan. I am not certain that it was necessary, but I think a constant fan speed is less noticeable that a variable one. If you want a truly quiet system, research the zalman reserator. Also there is a good forum for quiet computing at silentpcreview.com.

Sure. If you follow the link back to the previous article on a 7900GTX, you find that the reviewer refers back to another article (again!) on the 7800GTX, which is where the two quotes I listed came from.

The interesting thing I find about the GPU cooler is that whilst the card "idles" (because with Vista I suppose it's always doing something) at 42C and runs at load at around 60-65C (as far as I remember), I can never feel any hot air coming out of the vent at the back at all, even when it's been working hard for a long time.

Thanks for the suggestion: I'll look into it.

I'm not keen on turning fans down, since (the CPU at least) is a little warmer than I'd like it to be anyway. The case fan already has a speed switch and is at lowest speed. If you have any particular specialist sites that you can recommend, that would be great.

Thanks for the suggestions (particularly the website which I will look at later today). I do wonder whether I'm overdoing it since the computer is the quietest I've had to date as it is - I'd just like to make it as silent as possible (in an ideal world, totally so, but that's not going to happen). I know what you mean about a noise on startup - something revs right up for about a second immediately after poweron.

Thanks for all the suggestions people. Keep them coming, and I'll update on my research as I get it done.