"Silent audio computer", ...how to build a pc for music listening Options

[NumLOCK]

Hi all,

What about sharing our personal experiences with building silent, flexible home audio/entertainment devices?
This was my first time - and the choice of components was not easy ! Very often, you can't have both speed and silence. Here's what I did.

I've just built a PC on a following basis:
- ABIT KD7-E mainboard (VIA KT333 chipset / allows cpu multiplier setting / voltage lowering in BIOS / down to 1.1V in 0.025V increments).
- AMD Thoroughbred 2000+ 1.65V cpu (multiplier is unlocked out-of-the-box).
- flower CPU heatsink -- it rocks: depending on cpu voltage, there's no need for a fan !!
- 256MB of cheap PC266 ddr sdram
- nice black midi-tower case without PSU.
- special, ultra-quiet 300W PSU
- 7200RPM, 80GB WD HDD
- ATI Radeon 9000pro with VGA, DVI- and TV-out

The following components were modified:
- cpu was underclocked and heavily under-volted (running as 1500+ @ 1.2V). Can also run ~1200MHz @ 1.1V.
- Radeon 9000 pro was modified for passive cooling
- northbridge fan of the motherboard was replaced with passive cooling solution.
- HDD was put in silent 5 1/4'' acoustic armor.
- the case was stuffed with custom acoustic damping material.

The special components were mostly Zalman stuff, found on:
- http://www.quietpc.com/cpucool2.php (CPU flower cooler)
- http://www.quietpc.com/psu.html (silent PSU)
- http://www.quietpc.com/silentdrive.html (HDD armor)
- http://www.quietpc.com/vgamb.php (VGA and M/B heatsinks).

Results:
- there are two fans in the system (PSU & CPU), one of which can be deactivated.
- runs smoothly at 1500+, 1.2V, ~40 Celsius with big, silent 600RPM fan to blow some air into the case (no fan is fine also: ~42-55 Celsius depending on cpu voltage).
- pc is near-silent (just about "undetectable" from 30cm distance).

Additional thoughts:
- I'll add a soundcard and a LAN card (no fans, so no problem)
- I'm still hesitating about what DVD-rom drive I'll put in there.
- I've put the 7200RPM HDD because that's all I had.. but maybe I'll replace it with a 5400RPM (or lower) one.
- operating system not chosen yet.

Epilogue / What I learned:
- I'm VERY satisfied with this silent PC.
- In the future I'll be careful about the noise when buying components for other pc's.
- There's no way I'd buy a GeForce FX (think noise..)
- Silent machines need more expensive cooling components, but I think it's really worth it !

This post has been edited by NumLOCK: Feb 24 2003, 11:01

[Delirium]

I'm a bit late on this thread, but I'll add a few of my experiences. I have a Zalman 5100CU CPU fan/heatsink combo, and it's nearly silent in my setup. The fan is variable-speed (manually variable with a knob, not heat-sensing, though you could probably rig up something ify ou wanted), and I keep it around 2200 rpm, which is inaudible when the case is closed.

My hard drives are also nearly silent with the case closed. I have 3 5400 RPM hard drive I can't hear at all (I manually spin them up and down with hdparm and I can't tell the difference), and a 7200 RPM hard drive that I can only hear when it's spinning up, not during normal operation. The 7200 is a Western Digital, the others are Maxtors. This seems hit-or-miss though; my brother has a 7200 Maxtor that's incredibly loud (makes a noticeable noise when reading/writing data). If yours is loud and you use Linux, read through hdparm's manpage; most modern hard drives have multiple modes of operation, and you can move it to a slower head-motion mode that will significantly decrease noise (by default they're on the noisiest/fastest setting, but if it's just a drive for MP3s or movies, you don't need anything near the max speed).

I also have some entirely silent 1800 RPM case fans.

The PSU I'm much less happy about. I bought the 300-watt PSU from quietpc.com, and it's still fairly loud. To be fair, it is quite a high-quality PSU; it's one of the few 300-watt PSUs approved for use on Athlon Thunderbirds, because its power is very consistent and doesn't get dirty under load. It has no trouble handling my Athlon T-Bird 1.33 GHz with four hard drives and a CD-RW, which would require a 350-400 Watt PSU from most manufacturers. It also is much quieter than the stock PSU I had before. But it's far from silent, and still a bit louder than I'd like considering that I sleep in the same room as it. Unfortunately, the quieter ones seem to be far more expensive.

On that note, does anyone have any particular recommendations for quiet power supplies that are reasonably-priced?