Fans off & humming noise from TH7II?

I decided to see how quiet I could get my system today, so I turned off all the fans except the Antec PSU fan which i'm running at 7v instead of 12v. The CPU is watercooled so thats how I was able to get just the PSU fan running.

After only having one 12v fan running at 7v for the whole system, I expected it to be quiet since my pump is very quiet but instead I heard a distinct humming sound from inside my computer. I'm almost positive it is the motherboard because I had all these parts in an older computer that was very quiet. These are the only new things I have: 512mb rdram, Abit TH7II-Raid, Antec 400w pp412x PSU, and an Antec 840 case. I also turned off the powersupply fan completely, just to make sure it wasn't that. I'm also sure that its not the pump vibrating against the case.

Did anyone else notice this? Its actually more annoying to have no fans running then to have some 60mm (running @ 7v) and 80mm fans running since the humming puts out a weird frequency that is annoying

Could it be your "Hard Drive"?

I don't think so. Its more of an electrical hum and I have a 40gb IBM SCSI DLTA 307045 (I think, something like that, out of my old dull err dell) which is 7200 rpm I think. I wonder how I could test to see if it is? I don't really have any other hard drives readily available. It still seems like its the motherboard though.

I noticed it too!

My system is supposed to be almost silent since I am running 4x Papst case fan @ 19dBA, the PSU fan is inaudible, my CPU and RAM fans ahave speed control (through software) which makes them totally silent at idle temperatures.

However I can still hear a very disting electric buzz (rather than hum ). I will try turning off all the fans for a few seconds to see if the buzz is still there.

You could plug your harddrive in with just the electrical wire, and lay it down on a table in front of you. When you turn on the computer, the drive will spin up. Just keep your ear close to it, and as far away from your case as you can to hear whether the drive is causing the noise.

Also: how do you cool your graphics card?

I have a retail PNY GeForce 3 Ti500. I'll unplug the mini fan on it to see if it makes a difference. I highly doubt thats it, its just a weak little fan on the heatsink. I don't think its my hard drive either.

Tell me if you still hear the buzz when you turn your fans off, arman68.

weak fans can be quite annoying

I have found my source of noise...

It's the hard drives! Without that noise my system would be silent

I have three hard drives, relatively old. Each of them individually is not too bad, but with all of them the noise is very noticeable due to its high pitch and the rest of my setup being silent.

Anyone has 'silent' hard drives recommendations?

i read an article the other day on Tomshardware about most cuurent harddrives also being relatively noisy. This is due to their high rotation speeds.

Not very helpful I know, but I think there is little you can do about it

arman68,

While their performance is about in the middle of the pack, the Seagate Barracuda ATA IV drives are among the quietest. An 80GB version of this drive can be had for $129 at mwave, $109 at newegg. Check this link as part of a Tom's Hardware Guide hard drive review to make a comparison:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/01q4/011120/wd1200-06.html

Notice, though, the Seagate in this review ran the hotest.

Hope this helps.

Peace,
Eggroll

Check this comparison of idle HD noise taken from http://www.storagereview.com/:

Idle Noise


Rank Drive Name Model Results in dB/A @ 18mm
1 Seagate U6 (80 GB ATA-100) ST380020A 38.8
2 Seagate Barracuda 36ES2 (37 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336938LW 39.3
3 Seagate Barracuda ATA IV (80 GB ATA-100) ST380021A 41.3
4 Maxtor DiamondMax 536DX (100 GB ATA-100) 4W100H6 41.5
5 Western Digital Caviar WD800AB (80 GB ATA-100) WD800AB 43.7
6 Samsung SpinPoint P40 (80 GB ATA-100) SP8004 44.5
7 Seagate Cheetah 36ES (36 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336706LW 44.6
8 Samsung SpinPoint V30 (60.0 GB ATA-100) SV6004H 45.0
9 Maxtor DiamondMax D540X (160 GB ATA-133) 4G160J8 45.5
10 IBM Deskstar 120GXP (120 GB ATA-100) IC35L120AVVA07 45.8
11 IBM Deskstar 60GXP (60.0 GB ATA-100) IC35L060AVER07 45.9
12 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X (80 GB ATA-133) 6L080J4 46.3
13 Quantum Fireball Plus AS (60.0 GB ATA-100) QMP60000AS-A 46.5
14 Seagate Barracuda 36ES (36 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336737LW 46.7
15 Samsung SpinPoint P20 (40.0 GB ATA-100) SP4004H 47.0
16 Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB (100 GB ATA-100) WD1000BB 47.1
17 Western Digital Caviar WD1200BB (120 GB ATA-100) WD1200BB 47.1
18 Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB (120 GB ATA-100) WD1200JB 47.3
19 Western Digital Caviar WD1000BB-SE (100 GB ATA-100) WD1000BB-SE 47.4
20 Seagate Cheetah X15-36LP (36.7 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST336752LW 48.1
21 Quantum Atlas V (36.7 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) QM336700XC-LW 49.2
22 Fujitsu MAM3367 (36 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) MAM3367 49.3
23 Fujitsu MAN3735 (73 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) MAN3735 49.3
24 Seagate Barracuda 180 (180 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST1181677LWV 49.8
25 Maxtor Atlas 10k III (73 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) KW073L8 50.1
26 Seagate Cheetah 73LP (73.4 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) ST373405LW 50.1
27 Seagate Cheetah 36XL (36.7 GB Ultra 160/m SCSI) ST336705LW 51.7
28 IBM Ultrastar 73LZX (73 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) IC35L073UWD210 52.8
29 IBM Ultrastar 36Z15 (36.7 GB Ultra160/m SCSI) IC35L036UCPR15-0 54.8