Cooling Making my stuff quiet, recommendations?

The PC I built about a month ago is going along fine, and due to space constraints it's currently sat on my desk next to the monitor. This is usually fine, but when I'm playing games it starts to sound like a 747 preparing for take-off.

I've got a Phenom II X4 965 with stock cooler and an EVGA GTX460 with stock cooler too, and I'm sure the latter is the main culprit. I'm considering replacing both coolers with nice, quiet alternatives, but I'm not really sure what's good or not, so I thought I'd turn to you good folks for your opinions.

So, any suggestions? Ideally without me selling a kidney to pay for them.

Thanks all

 

Replace the stock AMD cooler first, then see how noisy it gets.

To be honest, almost all GPU coolers will get noisy when gaming, they are meant to do that to stop your GPU melting.

A Gelid Tranquilo is reasonably priced CPU cooler at £26: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/geli...5-1366-1156-1155-and-amd-754-939-940-am2-am2p. Dead silent, even under load.

Gelid have also released a new, well priced, GPU cooler that is compatible with the GTX 460: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/geli...n-rev2-vga-cooler-for-high-end-ati-and-nvidia. However, I have not seen any tests of this yet.

Replace the AMD cooler first, then see how it is.

By the way, what case and fans are you running? It could be that you don't have enough airflow getting in.

 

Great, thanks, I'll take a look

 

Okay, I've done a little more homework.

Firstly, consider the Arctic cooling Freezer 7 Pro as an even cheaper alternative to the stock AMD cooler: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arct...-1156-775-am3-am2plus-am2-939-up-to-130-watts.

It won't be as quiet as the Gelid Tranquilo but it is still quiet (I have two).

Secondly, I have read three reviews of the Gelid Icy Vision. One isn't good but the other two are okay.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1066-page1.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1374/1/
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3419/gelid_icy_vision_graphics_card_cooler/index.html

As before, don't spend the money on a new GPU cooler until you have replaced the CPU cooler. You may not need to spend the money.

Also, what case & case fans are you running?

 

It's a Silverstone PS03B with just the stock fan in it (1x120mm) if memory serves. There's space for more obviously, but I didn't see any point with nothing clocked and without waiting to see how hot it got.

 

Assuming the single 120mm is an exhaust (in the rear), definately consider another 120mm in the front as an intake. This could be the reason for the noise all along and a new 120mm fan is around £6-£12 depending on the model you buy. That case can also house a 140mm roof fan, a Fractal 140mm is dead silent and is under £10.

I would still replace the stock AMD cooler, they are noisy even in a well ventilated case.

 

This might be the culprit. Get some Gentle Typhoons and place both of them in the front. This way they produce positive airpressure in the case since "Air in > Air out" which also keeps your case somewhat dust free.
Remember to hook them up to your motherboard fan headers so you can control them via the motherboard software.

 

First things first stop your fans one by one to see which one makes the most noise.

 

LMAO. Mines was like that in my antec 900 with gtx 480. Rakes of noise. Eventaully went water cooling just finished it couple of weeks ago.

Artic Freezer Pro is great i have had 2. Make sure you get a Rev 2! the first version was the near impossible to mount. Cracking the davinci code would have been easier than mounting this beast

 

stop by hold on to the middle solid part of the fan. never try to stop a fan with its blades!

don't want to have broken fan blades or any danger to your fingers.


Legal disclaimer: DragunovHUN and I won't hold any responsibility for damage to your personal safety if things go wrong. cos it bloody hurts when the fan blade hits you.

 

Who the hell is stupid enough to use their fingers to stop a fan? Just use a pen or something

I don't doubt that it's the 460 that's making the most noise though, I remember reading that the EVGA 460's were pretty loud under load compared to other cards with non-reference coolers.

 

stopping with a pen will probably break the blade off. only safe way is to stop by pressing down on the middle of the fan, suing a large surface area with high fiction: fingers.

 

or turn off the pc ..unplug the fan ...and restart .. thus not endangering kittens nor children alike

 

The Gelid Icy video card cooler I think got some initial bad reviews and then Gelid redesigned it slightly so that it didn't have fitment issues.

At least that was my impression.

I love my Gelid Silent Spirit CPU cooler (I can't hear it, even with the case open and my ear next to it, at least at MoBo throttleing settings, set it to 100% and I can hear a quite whisper with my ear right up on it). I also love their case fans (I've got 3 80mm silent fans and a pair of Coolermaster quite 80mm fans and I can hear them very quitely when I first turn on the computer, but once my Lian Li TR5b kicks in and throttles them down the entire PC is basically silent. I have a passively cooled 5570).

I would go Tranquillo over silent spirit though if you are going to overclock at all. Beyond that, the 120w tdp of your X4 might benifit more from the bigger cooler anyway.

 

Sorry, I should probably add that the noise only gets going when it's something intensive. So after 10 minutes of BFBC2 for example it's VWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM, and after I quit I can hear it slowing down over the next 2 or 3 minutes, which is what makes me think it's the 460's fan, but a quieter CPU cooler is always good

 

1. Identify exactly what is making the noise under load.
2. Add a 120mm intake fan to the front of your case.
3. Identify exactly what is making the noise under load (if it is still doing it).
4. Replace stock AMD CPU cooler.

My suspicion is that a) you don't have enough airflow coming into the case, b) the stock AMD fan and EVGA GPU fan are spinning up to compensate.

 

Agreed. Your ambient case temp is probably very high. Plus an exhaust fan by itself can only pull so much hot air out of the case. Adding 1 (really should be 2) intakes will create positive pressure in your case which will help push hot air (and dust) out of your case.

Also, Bitspower makes wonderful anti-vibration silicon pads for fans. Here are some for 140mm. They are very high quality and really help reduce vibration noise. I'm very glad I got these

 

I've only got one intake fan slot in the front of my case, so I guess if I just go for something with high volume of throughput it'll create that pressure people have mentioned?

Seeing as how the top fan position (120 or 140mm) is already 'open', is it worth putting an exhaust in there, or would that simple negate putting the 120 in the front to create that pressure?

 

Just a quick question. What rads do you use to cool that lot. I am tempted of moving over to water myself

ta

 

Try the one 120mm intake first, then if you still find things are still hot you can always add a 140mm top fan later for under £10. Hot air rises in the case but as your GPU exhausts air out the back you may find the 120mm rear exhaust is more than enough for the CPU cooler.

In my i5 gaming rig, I replaced the stock Antec 300 Tricool 140mm with a Fractal 140mm as it runs quieter and doesn't cause resonance through the top panel. However, on my S775 rig, I don't use either of the top fan mounts in my R3 case - they are blocked off.

Whether you need to add a 140mm top fan later or not will depend on the results of your testing.