Re: [Sheflug] Options for a quiet system upgrade?

[John Southern <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 15 March 2009 14:17:16 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Sunday 15 March 2009 13:49:57 Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> > On Sunday 15 March 2009 13:17:32 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > So now I want to investigate options for a 64bit motherboard and
> > > processors but I don't know where to look for quiet ones.
> >
> > My domestic AMD64 machines are very quiet.  After I built the first
> > one I switched it on and thought I had blown up the chip.  No noise.
> > I had to get down next to the machine to hear it running.  In
> > comparison my firewall box uses a Pentium II chip.  Sounds like an
> > express train going past.
>
> Ah, now I used to have a dual PII box, and it too was big, loud and clunky.
> My firewall these days is a P4, and is sits in its cupboard very quietly.
> Maybe I should get another to be a desktop ;-)

I suffer from excessive system noise, but that is usually down to dust. 
Building a new system and all is quiet, but with carpets and soft furnishings, 
the fans eventually get a thin layer of dust which then makes them noisy.

Go for something with a big slow fan. There is an Asus V60 fan that is very 
quiet, although I have put some extra supporting on mine as it is quiet tall 
and I did not want it to rip away from the board. My next upgrade will be to a 
Noctua NHU12P

Cases vary and I have had more than a fair share of ones which are just out of 
tolerance so the hard drives can start to rattle. I am now using rubber bands 
to suspend hard drives and give as much air gap between them and rubber 
washers everywhere possible.

The other noise maker is the PSU fans. I have not quiet gone to the length of 
buying one of the silent models yet.

For 64bit processors make sure you get one with the AMD-V or Intel VT so you 
can play with the hardware assisted virtualisation support.

For quiet PCs I now look for the CPU cooler first, then the CPU, then the 
motherboard and then the RAM.

John

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