Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 1:19 pm
For those who are building new pcs or who are simple fed up with the racket their existing pc makes you may be interested in this.
I recommend the following from experience
Q power supplies from http://www.quietpc.com - Very quiet, I gather these are better than the enermax whisper series.
Silentdrive enclosures - very effective at cutting out harddisk noise. also from http://www.quietpc.com. (although i gather that the seagate drives are so quiet you may not need these)
Alpha heatsink and pabst fans - pricey but worth it. the slowest pabst fans run at a staggering 12db and still shift 19cpm of air!! the alpha heatsinks help distribute the heat quickly. you can get these at http://www.overclockers.co.uk and most good online overclocking/cpu type stores.
I have a pc using all of the above and It runs much quieter than my new carillon music pc which is designed to run quiet - they claimed around 24db. Im about to replace the heatsink/fan in that with alpha/pabst combination.
Other items of interest..
Northboard heatsink - some motherboards have fans to cool this chipset cos they are cheap. You can replace them with a good heatsink - checkout one on http://www.quietpc.com.
When choosing a graphics card you may want to make sure you find one without a fan on it. Matrox cards dont have fans, neither do some of the slower geforce cards and ATI cards. But the latest greatest games cards are normally equipped with very noisy fans.
If you can afford to, get a heavy case - I just invested in a carillon pc from http://www.carillondirect.com because i wanted their case! its nice and heavy, rackmountable and has some cool features for audio like neutrik 1/4inch jack at front and bays for midi transport controllers. (ill give a more detailed review of this soon along with the rest of my studio once i get it all up and running.)
Coolermaster also make some very nice aluminium cases that act like one big heatsink, helping to keep everything nice and cool. these are also expensive but they look gorgeous.
Last tip, tighten everything up well and rest something heavy on top of your pc It helps reduce any vibrations.
I recommend the following from experience
Q power supplies from http://www.quietpc.com - Very quiet, I gather these are better than the enermax whisper series.
Silentdrive enclosures - very effective at cutting out harddisk noise. also from http://www.quietpc.com. (although i gather that the seagate drives are so quiet you may not need these)
Alpha heatsink and pabst fans - pricey but worth it. the slowest pabst fans run at a staggering 12db and still shift 19cpm of air!! the alpha heatsinks help distribute the heat quickly. you can get these at http://www.overclockers.co.uk and most good online overclocking/cpu type stores.
I have a pc using all of the above and It runs much quieter than my new carillon music pc which is designed to run quiet - they claimed around 24db. Im about to replace the heatsink/fan in that with alpha/pabst combination.
Other items of interest..
Northboard heatsink - some motherboards have fans to cool this chipset cos they are cheap. You can replace them with a good heatsink - checkout one on http://www.quietpc.com.
When choosing a graphics card you may want to make sure you find one without a fan on it. Matrox cards dont have fans, neither do some of the slower geforce cards and ATI cards. But the latest greatest games cards are normally equipped with very noisy fans.
If you can afford to, get a heavy case - I just invested in a carillon pc from http://www.carillondirect.com because i wanted their case! its nice and heavy, rackmountable and has some cool features for audio like neutrik 1/4inch jack at front and bays for midi transport controllers. (ill give a more detailed review of this soon along with the rest of my studio once i get it all up and running.)
Coolermaster also make some very nice aluminium cases that act like one big heatsink, helping to keep everything nice and cool. these are also expensive but they look gorgeous.
Last tip, tighten everything up well and rest something heavy on top of your pc It helps reduce any vibrations.
