Silent PC

[Tim]

Sad I know, but there you go . . . look away now if you are 'geek' squeamish ;)

Anyway, as some will know I went to great lengths to ensure that when I built my last music server it was totally silent with no moving parts, more so from the SQ aspect but also because computers can be noisy buggers. So I have a completely silent music server, but I often sit at my computer whilst listening to music and whilst it was quiet I could still hear it, which was annoying. It seemed crazy to have a silent music server 15' away, whilst sitting right next to a desktop PC with fans and old noisy hard drives running - time for an upgrade.

The new PSU is fanless, I have a large heatsink for the CPU with 2 slow running under volted Noctua fans that I cannot hear, no other fans, no graphics card, 2 x SSD and a WD Caviar Green mechanical drive which is suspended so there is no vibration with the case when it spins (which is only when I rip CD's as its a backup FLAC music library, it's asleep the rest of the time). With the sides on it is totally silent, in fact its silent with the sides off! Its a little weird actually, as I have to check to see if its still on :D

The other great bonus is that the SATA III SSD boots from cold to the desktop in just under 22 seconds (my last SATA II SSD took 47s to boot), its more powerful than my old Intel E8500 machine, yet it uses 55% less power. Opening any application is instant, but any good SATA II SSD should give you that too, the main thing I am noticing with SATA III is the boot time.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/greatgig/silent1_zpsa160c9da.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/greatgig/silent2_zps892373c3.jpg

The next job is to rebuild my music server and add a linear PSU - after that I have nothing else to do except listen to toons :popcorn:

[Richard Kimber]

What make and wattage is the fanless PSU?

- Richard

[Tim]

It's a Seasonic X-400 (400W) Richard, very impressive too, but I'm a fan of high quality computer power supplies, they make all the difference to a stable machine.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1062-page1.html

[Richard Kimber]

Thanks. That looks interesting.

- Richard

[Marco]

The next job is to rebuild my music server and add a linear PSU - after that I have nothing else to do except listen to toons :popcorn:

What about adding a T/T to your system, daftee-boz? Did you sort that and nab the Heybrook, or what? I never heard :)

Marco.

[Tim]

What about adding a T/T to your system, daftee-boz?
Ah, caught me, never thought I would see you in this here puter thread Marco . . . :sofa:

No I never nabbed the Heybrook, the guy never got back to me, so I guessed he decided not to sell it - mind you, I never chased him up either. I'm going to wait until I retire before sorting a T/T, which hopefully won't be too long. I will be getting one though, just not yet ;)

[Marco]

Ah, caught me, never thought I would see you in this here puter thread Marco . . . :sofa:


Hehehe... I sees everyfink here, but don't always acknowledge it!


No I never nabbed the Heybrook, the guy never got back to me, so I guessed he decided not to sell it - mind you, I never chased him up either. I'm going to wait until I retire before sorting a T/T, which hopefully won't be too long. I will be getting one though, just not yet.

Glad to hear it, daftee - so, system-wise, you've still got *that* to do.... ;)

When the time comes, I'd like to bring my Techy down, and let you hear it - just before you commit yourself to the sadness of rubber-band land :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Tim]

Hehehe... I sees everyfink here
:lol: . . indeed.

Yup, still going to get a spinner Marco and not going to be too hasty before making my choice, as it will be a once only purchase. It would be interesting to hear your Techy, mind you I would like to hear your copper amp too, maybe next time I'm in Wales I should take the long road home :eyebrows:

If anyone else is interested in building a silent PC, these are two good websites;

http://www.quietpc.com

http://www.silentpcreview.com

This is what I put together, no good for gaming but great for everything else and only uses around 45W in general usage, 65W under load, so its very energy efficient too, which was also an aim as well as being quiet.

Gigabyte GA-F2A85XM-D3H mATX motherboard 8 x SATA III 6Gb/s
AMD A8-5500 APU - 4 cores 3.2GHz (TDP 65w)
Onboard Radeon HD 7560D Graphics
8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM - Crucial Ballistix
Noctua NH-U9B Special Edition CPU heatsink
Plextor PX-L890SA DVD/RW
120GB Kingston V300 SSD - 256GB Samsung 840 SSD (both SATA III)
2TB WD Green HDD
Seasonic X-400 ATX PSU
Lian Li PC-9 case
Windows 7 Pro x64 (for now)

[Marco]

Yup, still going to get a spinner Marco and not going to be too hasty before making my choice, as it will be a once only purchase. It would be interesting to hear your Techy, mind you I would like to hear your copper amp too, maybe next time I'm in Wales I should take the long road home :eyebrows:


Just say when, dude, and we'll do it! :exactly:

Marco.

[slate]

Thanks for the tip about the Seasonic X series; the other the old 520W PSU in my main desktop started sounding like a woodchipper. So I borrowed a good 700W Cooler Master BUT is it noisier than my old PSU used to be and uses 30 watt more in idle... seriously! so right now a X-460 "sounds" about right.

BTW I recently bought a AMD A8-5500 based system to replace my old Squeezebox+file server. The local Aldi had a Medion system for about 330£. Windows 8 and it came without Graphics Card.
Beside the 1 TB HDD that came in the box; I use a 120 GB Samsung 830 as systemdrive and moved a WD green over from the old system.

It idles along at 30W which was my goal; and is otherwise asleep until an AWOL comes along.
And it is very quiet; well so quiet that I can hear the HDD heads skipping about... not concerned about noise as it is placed down in the basement.

[bobbasrah]

Nice one Tim,
Beyond the paranoia some seem to have over fan noise, have never heard mine yet, or at least not before they clipped my ear.....
For all that the technology is not new, the engineering showing up on these fans is truly impressive, and incorporated in quite a few PSUs these days too, so passive cooling is not the only option...
Bob