| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56338] |
Sun, 30 November 2003 01:09  |
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npsmith82
Messages: 525
Registered: February 2003
Location: England, UK
Karma: 0
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I'm starting to get really fed up of the constant whooshing sound coming from under the computer desk, from all the fans inside my PC. If it would help if i posted pictures of the layout inside, i can get them easily.
Here is the spec, if it helps.
Motherboard: K7S5A
Windows XP Professional
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53 ghz)
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128mb
Primary HD (60 GB)
Secondary HD (80 GB)
512 MB RAM
CD-RW
DVD Drive
It has 5 fans in total, all of which are the generic ones from when the PC was bought a year and a half ago.
~ Two cooling the case, from front and back.
~ Two on the graphics card.
~ One on the processor.
It doesn't help when the graphics card alone has two on it, though they are relatively quiet. I have no easy way of monitoring the temperature inside the base unit, no sensors that i know of. It's also not been fully dusted out properly since i've had it, though i have cleaned all the fans once or twice.
~ Would it do much harm if i were to stop any of the fans, even just one?
~ If i left the case panel off the side of the case, would that help cooling if the fans were off.
~ Are there any cooling systems or more efficient fans that are relatively cheap and easy to install? I've seen a water cooling system at the computer store.
WOL: npsmith82
For RenAutoComplete, RenSkirmish, RenBuddyList and RenWOLstatus please visit (IE) TheCodeSmith.com
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56344] |
Sun, 30 November 2003 04:18  |
2000_years
Messages: 102
Registered: November 2003
Karma: 0
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I just use the CPU fan, Graphics card fan and PSU fan. Anything else can be disconnected (as long as you don't live in a hot area.)
Disconnecting them will probably do jack though if you have a noisy CPUfan, so try and buy a new one (they're only like £10 for a "silent" fan, which can cool a 3200+ and are little louder than a whisper)
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56345] |
Sun, 30 November 2003 04:45 |
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General Havoc
Messages: 1564
Registered: February 2003
Location: Birmingham, England, Unit...
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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Hey, you are in the same situation as i'm in 
My PC Spec:
Motherboard: Ga-7DX
Windows XP Professional
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 ghz)
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128mb
Primary HD (120 GB)
Secondary HD (20 GB)
768 MB RAM
CD-RW
DVD Drive
Here are my fans:
1 rear exhaust fan
1 front intake fan
1 Power supply fan
1 Graphics card fan
1 CPU Cooler fan
1 chipset fan
The graphics card and chipset fans are silent so they are no problem.
I have disconnected the intake fan as "AMD's Recommended Cooling Guide" suggests it is no help at all and in some situations just circulated warm air.
As for the power supply fan, I'm buying a smart silent one from "dabs.com" as the sleve baring on it has worn. It has a thermistor to speed up the fan when the air gets to a certain temperature. I would not recommend replacing the fan in the PSU unless you know what you are doing and have experience with electronics as the capacitors inside the PSU can store a high voltage.
For the rear exhause fan I will probably buy aother smart silent one from "dabs.com" and fit it. In my case, the rear exhause is designed for a 40mm one, "AMD's Recommended Cooling Guide" suggests a 80mm or bigger so the new one will be better. Although, I will need to drill an array of holes to allow airflow through the 40mm fitting.
For the CPU cooler, I invested in a Volcano 11+ Xaser II edition (£15) that has the option to use a PCI bracker or 5 inch bay potentiometer to control the speed. At around 40% speed it is silent whilst offering cooling if your not doing anything too intensive. I turn mine up to around 60% when playing Planetside, it's a really handy feature to have.
That how I plan to silence my PC.
I'd recommend having some sort of speed controller on the noisy ones, a potentiometer or a thermistor so they only run at full speed when needed. Ditch your front intakes as they probably are more trouble then their worth. If you visit some e-tailers such as dabs.com, komplett.co.uk, ebuyer.com you can find some great cooling fans for around £8 or less.
Watercooling is another option but it will cost you £100 upwards for a proper system (with radiator, some cheap ones don't have one!) and in reality it's only as cool as your ambiant room temperature, but more than likely higher.
Here are some pics of the Volcano 11+ Xaser II
http://www.n00bstories.com/image.fetch.php?id=1082614013 - The main heatsink + fan
http://www.n00bstories.com/image.fetch.php?id=1106632369 - The 5 inch bay potentiometer
http://www.n00bstories.com/image.fetch.php?id=1025569255 - The PCI potentiometer bracket
Visit my website at http://renhelp.laeubi-soft.de powered by laeubi.de
"SHUT UP AND MOD" - Dante
"ACK is the Simon Cowell of modding" - Ultron10
Scripts.dll Debugger, Map Scripter and Tutorial writer
Computer Science Bsc
Aston University in Birmingham, UK
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56422] |
Sun, 30 November 2003 17:42 |
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npsmith82
Messages: 525
Registered: February 2003
Location: England, UK
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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Thanks for the tips.
General Havoc, where can i see "AMD's Recommended Cooling Guide"?
WOL: npsmith82
For RenAutoComplete, RenSkirmish, RenBuddyList and RenWOLstatus please visit (IE) TheCodeSmith.com
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56446] |
Sun, 30 November 2003 19:36 |
echo
Messages: 9
Registered: November 2003
Karma: 0
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There are several ways the problem can be addressed; five cooling fans seem to indicate a problem with case design. As long as temperatures remain in the acceptable range, you may wish to alter the fan power supply line to supply 7 volts instead of 12. My second suggestion would be to switch to panaflo fans as they are more quiet but also cost more. The third pathway would be to mod fan enclosures for 120mm fans as they push an adequate amount of air at a lower voltage. In the extreme case, it may be time to switch to a new case that is better designed.
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56600] |
Tue, 02 December 2003 19:08 |
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Creed3020
Messages: 1438
Registered: February 2003
Location: Toronto, Canada
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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I love my computer when it turns on. That whosh just tells me there is something powerful in there requiring that much ventilation. Though my computer would be considered silent compared to my friend's he has 4 Vantec Tornado's. His house is HUGE and you can hear the computer all the way in the basement. Also the house lights dim when you turn his on.
At 5700 RPM these things are dangerous... http://www.n00bstories.com/image.fetch.php?id=1122058039
[Updated on: Fri, 05 December 2003 13:57] Report message to a moderator |
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56692] |
Wed, 03 December 2003 17:09 |
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General Havoc
Messages: 1564
Registered: February 2003
Location: Birmingham, England, Unit...
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General (1 Star) |
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Yeah I did that with a 7000RPM fan It was a cheap thing with no grill, I was in pain for a day or two, now I have fan grills on my CPU coolers.
Yano posted the cooling guide PDF I was looking at. I bough two of those silent case fans from dabs.com - I'll let you know if they are any good when they arrive as I've ordered a Freeview digital TV (Hauppage WinTv Nova-t PCI) card for my PC and I want to be able to run my PC whilst watching a TV hooked to the S-Video out port, atm it is noisyas hell.
Hopefully after all my modding it should be no louder than a PS2.
EDIT: dab.com corrected to dabs.com
Visit my website at http://renhelp.laeubi-soft.de powered by laeubi.de
"SHUT UP AND MOD" - Dante
"ACK is the Simon Cowell of modding" - Ultron10
Scripts.dll Debugger, Map Scripter and Tutorial writer
Computer Science Bsc
Aston University in Birmingham, UK
[Updated on: Thu, 04 December 2003 06:41] Report message to a moderator |
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56747] |
Thu, 04 December 2003 04:44 |
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npsmith82
Messages: 525
Registered: February 2003
Location: England, UK
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Colonel |
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| General Havoc |
I'll let you know if they are any good when they arrive. Hopefully after all my modding it should be no louder than a PS2.
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Excellent, thanks. That's the kinda ambient volume i'm willing to accept with this computer.
WOL: npsmith82
For RenAutoComplete, RenSkirmish, RenBuddyList and RenWOLstatus please visit (IE) TheCodeSmith.com
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56862] |
Fri, 05 December 2003 06:51 |
DanSolo
Messages: 107
Registered: December 2003
Location: London, England
Karma: 0
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well you have a few options.
Firstly i would recommend either changing you fans for pabst models which are very quiet and are completely balanced to cut down on vibration noise. buying rubber shims that fit between the heat sink and the fan also cut down on noise,
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Papst_Fans_61.html
Secondly you could get fan size adapters so that you could mount say, an 80mm fan onto a 60mm heatsink, this will cut hte noise as the fan can spin at a lower rpm, while pushing a larger/equal amount of air.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Fan_Grills_and_Fan_Accessories_34.html
Also picking up a fan control module to fit in one of you 5 inch drive bays so you can control each fans speed/noise output individually.
If you want to keep some case fans in the pc, make sure that the output fans have a larger CFM than the intake fans, this will create a negative pressure in the case and enhance cooling further.
Hope this is of help and apologies if i have repeated anyone elses suggestions, i dont have time to read all replys as im at work and the vultures are watching 
Dan
GSA : [D|F|C]-Dan_Solo-L
WOL: D4N50L0
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56917] |
Fri, 05 December 2003 21:35 |
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npsmith82
Messages: 525
Registered: February 2003
Location: England, UK
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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Okay, well i just decided to open the case up and give it a major dust out. It's unbelievable how much crap gets caught in the fans over 2 years - I swear i could've filled a pint glass with the amount of dust fluff i removed.
The original hope was to make the whole system a little quieter, but unfortunately it's had no effect.
Now... after removing/cleaning/replacing all the fans i've noticed that they're all basic ball bearing fans, except for one that's designed to be super quiet (a case fan at the front).
Finally decided to invest in some quiet fans and a controlling module i can adjust the speed of them from the front of the case.
General Havoc, lemme know how it goes when your fans arrive. I've also looked at my power unit in the case, and i see that it's not got a venting thing on the base, like the AMD Cooling Guide recommended, i'll probably get me one of them too.
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB: This has two fans on it, that aren't directly cooling anything, it's weird, here's a screenshot. I'm undecided whether i should unplug these two fans on the gfx card, but they gotta be there for a good reason... any tips?
WOL: npsmith82
For RenAutoComplete, RenSkirmish, RenBuddyList and RenWOLstatus please visit (IE) TheCodeSmith.com
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #56949] |
Sat, 06 December 2003 08:40 |
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General Havoc
Messages: 1564
Registered: February 2003
Location: Birmingham, England, Unit...
Karma: 0
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General (1 Star) |
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I'll let you know when they arrive, should be next week.
Your graphics card is using a jacket type cooler, this means that instead of seperate memory and core coolers, you have one big piece of metal with two fans to get rid of the heat. Mine is like the one in the image in the last post, but has memory sinks too.
You may be fine without the fans, but it depends. You can always use a Zalman or Thermaltake heat jacket, that has a heat pipe and cools down the geaphics card without any fans.
The best way is to test if your graphics card is getting too hot is to play one of your 3D games for a hour or so (running 3DMark will do) and check that you don't get white pixels onthe graphics or texture glitches. If you do then it needs some cooling.
Visit my website at http://renhelp.laeubi-soft.de powered by laeubi.de
"SHUT UP AND MOD" - Dante
"ACK is the Simon Cowell of modding" - Ultron10
Scripts.dll Debugger, Map Scripter and Tutorial writer
Computer Science Bsc
Aston University in Birmingham, UK
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| OT: Noisy Cooling Fans [message #57084] |
Sun, 07 December 2003 18:52 |
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npsmith82
Messages: 525
Registered: February 2003
Location: England, UK
Karma: 0
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Colonel |
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I really wish i knew of a UK based website that was AS good as newegg.com. I've been browsing there for all the decent stuff, then to realise they don't deliver outside of the United States.
Mainly for SILENT cooling fans or similar (one i have been checking is the CoolerMaster.com website). Anyone peeps suggest any?
WOL: npsmith82
For RenAutoComplete, RenSkirmish, RenBuddyList and RenWOLstatus please visit (IE) TheCodeSmith.com
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