I need decent quiet cooling!

I don't have alot of $$ to spend.

What are the "best" ways to get good quiet cooling. (No H20)

Currently I have

2 intake, 2 exhaust, power supply with instake and exhaust and a retail HSF.

Any suggestions?

Top quality cooler (Thermalright, Swiftech, Alpha etc) with a quiet 80mm fan, plus good case ventilation (which you may already have). oh, and a nice thin layer of AS3 to sum it up

How much money are you willing to spend and what's wrong with your current cooling setup?

If you were to sell all 5 fans, you could perhaps pick up a SLK800 and 5 Vantec Stealths (27CFM, and 18dBA each). It would make a very good silent system while maintaining some good temperatures.

I run SLK-800's with Panaflo L1A fans on them on two of my duallies. They cool nearly as good as a watercooling system. You can save $10 on the heatsink if you get the SK-7. It is very close in performance to the SLK-800, but costs $20, instead of $30.

If that is still too much money and you are looking for the absolute best cooling bang for the buck, get a SVC GC68 from www.svcompucycle.com. They are only $6 and come with an 80mm fan. It is a REALLY good heatsink for the money and fairly quiet. I use this heatsink on about 40 rigs, although I usually replace the stock fan (pretty quiet itself) with the slightly quieter Panaflo L1A.

If you don't already have case fans, then I suggest either the Panaflo L1A or PC Power & Cooling Silencer (slightly quieter than a Panaflo L1A.) Of over 30 fans that I've personally tested, those are the quietest. The Silencer makes a great case fan, but not a good heatsink fan. It doesn't seems to be able to push with enough pressure for heatsink use.

*EDIT* I have a Vantec Stealth and it is not as quiet as the Panaflo L1A or the PCP&P Silencer. It may be rated lower, but to my ears, it is definitely louder.

*EDIT2* Usually the fan(s) in a PSU are quite noisy. You can replace the noisy fan in your PSU with a new quieter fan, too. I usually replace the PSU fan in all my PSU's with Panaflo L1A's wired directly into the 12V line. I could hook them into the thermal controlled ouput in the PSU, but I prefer to wire them into 12V so they help with case ventilation. Either way is good, though. Most PSU's with two fans can run fine with just one, too. The one's that have a fan on the bottom are terrible noise makers. The bottom fan's airflow causes disruption in the rear fan and causes quite a bit of noise. I just take the bottom fan out and put duct tape over the big hole, making sure, that now, air comes into the PSU only from the side opposite the fan. This is prime airflow for the PSU, since it MAKES the air go over the heatsinks inside the PSU.

A good thing to do is to use an 60mm->80mm adapter (<$10 at compUSA for an Akasa clone) for whatever heatsink you have and fitting a quiet 80mm fan on it. I was able to mount a larger fan with higher CFM and lower noise with good performance results. Also, notice that even if a larger fan has the same noise level, it will generally be at a lower pitch and perceived to be less irritating.

In my setup, I used a Tt Volcano 6cu with lapped base, Arctic Silver III, Akasa 60mm->80mm adapter (not of the funnel type), and Tt 80mm fan (37 CFM, 30 dBA). Good luck! -- Paul

A good thing to do is to use an 60mm->80mm adapter

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If he's changing to a new heatsink (i think he's currently using a retail), then he might as well get a good 80mm cooler - more efficient than 60mm ones, and more fan choices

Good point. I guess I thought of it as a way to stall getting a new cooler. It'd also work in those cases where a larger heatsink base won't fit around capacitors, etc.

But you're absolutely right. Thanks -- Paul

cmcquistion said:

Usually the fan(s) in a PSU are quite noisy. You can replace the noisy fan in your PSU with a new quieter fan, too. I usually replace the PSU fan in all my PSU's with Panaflo L1A's wired directly into the 12V line. I could hook them into the thermal controlled ouput in the PSU, but I prefer to wire them into 12V so they help with case ventilation. Either way is good, though. Most PSU's with two fans can run fine with just one, too. The one's that have a fan on the bottom are terrible noise makers. The bottom fan's airflow causes disruption in the rear fan and causes quite a bit of noise. I just take the bottom fan out and put duct tape over the big hole, making sure, that now, air comes into the PSU only from the side opposite the fan. This is prime airflow for the PSU, since it MAKES the air go over the heatsinks inside the PSU.

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If you go to change your PSU fans, be careful! Let the PSU sit unplugged for a week at least, and mind the fat capacitors when you pop the lid

They are dangerous little ****s

You're absolutely right. PSU's are dangerous. What I usually do is hook a PSU up to a motherboard and boot into the BIOS, then pull the power plug from the back of the PSU. This way, all the juice is drained into the system. (In my head, this works. In real life, I have no idea.) Anyway, always be very careful and don't touch anything inside the PSU. Use a pair of insulated needle nose pliers, if you have to grab anything, like the fan plug.

i recently swapped out my psu fan for a 7v ystech- was a little scarey but im no idiot and tust myself- saying this i really should have had someone there watching, just incase

anyway that fan swap made a HUGE difference and im so glad i did it

In a lot of computers that I work on, the PSU fan is the loudest component on the whole machine, hard drives are a close second, and heatsinks third. On an overclockers machine, of course, the heatsink is often the loudest component.

Good points on the PSU fan. They're often low-quality fans that don't get a lot of speed for the noise they generate.

Another issue with them is that they usually have a hole / grill stamped into the metal casing of the PSU, rather than an actual grill. The airflow through those is pretty terrible, and the turbulence of the air flowing past those blunt, wide edges can be a contributer to the noise. Another thing you might well want to consider when replacing that PSU fan is to cut out that metal area and replace it with a real fan grill. (Be sure to be careful -- the metal will be sharp when you cut it! I recommend smoothing it with a rotary tool when you're finished cutting.)

When you choose a replacement fan, try to choose something that's close to the rated CFM of your stock PSU fan.

Good luck! -- Paul

Alpha 8045 with a Panaflo L1A

cmcquistion said:

*EDIT2* Usually the fan(s) in a PSU are quite noisy. You can replace the noisy fan in your PSU with a new quieter fan, too. I usually replace the PSU fan in all my PSU's with Panaflo L1A's wired directly into the 12V line. I could hook them into the thermal controlled ouput in the PSU, but I prefer to wire them into 12V so they help with case ventilation. Either way is good, though. Most PSU's with two fans can run fine with just one, too. The one's that have a fan on the bottom are terrible noise makers. The bottom fan's airflow causes disruption in the rear fan and causes quite a bit of noise. I just take the bottom fan out and put duct tape over the big hole, making sure, that now, air comes into the PSU only from the side opposite the fan. This is prime airflow for the PSU, since it MAKES the air go over the heatsinks inside the PSU. [/B]

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Yeah, 2 fan PSUs (or heck 3 fan PSUs like that Vantec [un]stealth) are probably happy with 1 fan. Quieter too. Although the heatsinks on those 2/3 fan PSU's need to be smaller to fit the extra fan and are therefore less efficient.

What I'm doing to help with PSU noise is to have it's intake ducted to the front of the case where it can get fresh cold air. If the PSU fan is thermally controlled, it can then run at a lower speed. It also helps the CPU temps because it's not stealing precious cool air from the HSF.

EDIT: Oh BTW - some may disagree, but ditch the 2 intake fans

I suggest that you dump your extra exhaust fans and one of the intake fans. Keep the air flowing, but don't bother trying to lower your CPU temp from the opposite sides of the case.

I'd cut out the fan grills from your chenming/chieftech case and wouldn't bother with any fan guards at all. My case is a dangerous place... don't poke your hands around the back when the power's on. However, low speed fans generally don't tear your fingers up even when you stab them. Further more, the exhaust fans cut on the inside; they push at the outside, so there's less risk.

I'd go with just the lower intake fan, close up the air port in front of the lower HD cage, close up the rear exhaust ports, and then put in sound absorber in the case.

I think Enemax "whisper" power supplies suck ***. If that's a whisper, I'd hate to be around when they fart. Those PSs are rather loud, the fans are cheap, and the lower fan just makes cooling more inefficient with smaller heatsinks and a direct rout for air to move that doesn't cross the heatsinks anyway. I removed the 92mm fan from mine and closed up the hole. Just might epoxy some extra heatsinks in there to help it out.

Use low speed fans for in/out. Panaflows have been great for me. I agree that they are quieter than Vantec Stealth fans, but the Stealth's are dual ball bearing and not sleeve bearing like the panaflows. Ball bearings are supposed to be longer lasting than sleeve bearings. Although, I have been running panaflows for years and they still work fine, maybe panaflo's "hydra brearing" (or whatever they call it) has something to do with their reliability.

Depending on the heat generation in your case, you MAY be able to get by with just one exhaust fan, one fan in the PSU, and no intake fans, at all. Duct tape over the other exhaust fan holes and all but the one intake fan hole, so the air has to come in from the front of the case and exit out the back. I use Akasa Pax Mate sound insulation in several of my computers, as well. I can't swear to it's effectiveness, but I believe it helps cut down noise. You can get it for about $12 from SVC.

If you uses very quiet case fans, then it shouldn't raise the noise noticeably, while allowing better cooling than no fans. If you can get away with it, then there's no need to put up with more noise

my athlon has no case fans, and a 20cfm fan on the volcano 7 h/s. does extreamly well, i think.

i suggest getting i decent H/S (AX-7, slk-800) and getting a low cfm panaflo if your temps are good enough (and they SHOULD be) then you can dump the case fans all together (except the psu fan)

The SLK-800 does extremely well with Panaflo L1A's, too. I have dual XP1600's overclocked to 1800 MHz with SLK-800's w/ Panaflo L1A's on them. My computer runs 24/7 folding proteins, so my CPU usage is steady at 100%. My full load temps average 86F on CPU1 and 102F on CPU2 with an average case temp of 73F. I have three L1A intakes and two L1A exhaust fans, in addition to the two L1A's on the heatsinks. Overall the system is fairly quiet. I can hear the hard drive over the fans and the fan noise is a low frequency sound of rushing air more than anything else.