Too loud?

[manomanx2]

My system is louder than I expected that it would be. The case is a Lian Li PC-7B Plus II with two 120 mm fans, and one Yate Loon on a Ninja. I thought the system would be dead silent, but when the fans whirr up during load, it gets to be quite loud. I can't specifically pin down why, as all three were very quiet when I tested them separately.

Could it be my Powerstream 520w, or my chipset fan? Also, the Yate Loon has 3 power connectors, does it matter which one I use, or does one take more power than the others?

This noise is driving me crazy, please help. Thanks in advance :) .

Edit: Oh woot, 200 posts.

[Serra]

I personally have a ModStream PSU (same fan as the PowerStream) and find it silent to the point of not mattering at all. As far as fan noise goes, there is the fact that computer cases are essentially resonance chambers to consider... what you hear coming out at any one time could very well be more than the sum of what is currently being produced (in that you could be hearing the sound from that second and an echo from the previous one as well).

I am a little surprised to hear that considering the fans in your case... I have 5x Yate Loons, 3x 80mm fans of various types, and my power supply... and all together they make less noise than some people's stock machines. Mind you, once I threw the 120mm fans against a radiator and thew a pump in there for water cooling the noise quotient did raise notably.

One thing that many people have had great success with quieting their system down with is to take some sound-dampening material of some kind (compared to reflective metal, this really means almost anything) and placing it in those few areas in your case which contribute most greatly to sound reflection. If that isn't something you feel like trying right now though, I might suggest powering up all the fans in your machine and then removing each one, one at a time, in order to pinpoint whether it is any one fan in particular. Sometimes if you have too much near a fan or even just get the wrong air current going you can produce more sound than you could with simply a fan in free air.

Though not a terrifically entertaining or particularly enlightening read, you could also go to www.formfactors.com, navigate to their 'technologies' link, and check out their paper on chassis acoustics and fan noise information. Like I said, it's not particularly interesting or helpful... but worth a skim through at any rate (iirc anyway... I've read so many whitepapers on fans recently that my head is a little exploded).

Serra

Serra

[Marlowe]

My system is louder than I expected that it would be. The case is a Lian Li PC-7B Plus II with two 120 mm fans, and one Yate Loon on a Ninja. I thought the system would be dead silent, but when the fans whirr up during load, it gets to be quite loud. I can't specifically pin down why, as all three were very quiet when I tested them separately.

Could it be my Powerstream 520w, or my chipset fan? Also, the Yate Loon has 3 power connectors, does it matter which one I use, or does one take more power than the others?

This noise is driving me crazy, please help. Thanks in advance :) .

Edit: Oh woot, 200 posts.It could be your 7900GT if you have not changed the cooler wich I hope you have :)

When you say that when the fans whirr up during load they get loud.. are they silent otherwise like in windows? So you must have connected your fans to some fan-controlled output on your motherboard, right? Do something about that then. Give the fans constant low voltage somehow :)

[lowfat]

Videocard fans are in my opinion always loud, so you might want to start there. Or you could be like me and find even moderately quite things still loud.

I myself have have 2 Yate Loon case fans, a Yate Loon fan on my CNPS7700, a VF700Cu with the fan @ 5V. and an Enermax Noisetaker PSU. I still find it quite loud at times.

[manomanx2]

Thanks for the help, I'll try out a few of your suggestions on the weekend. While we're on the subject of my cooling: on a DFI Ultra-D, how hot does the PWMIC and chipset generally get? I'm usually hover around 45idle/50-60load PWMIC and 40-45 chipset. Put some AS5 on the chipset and position a fan over the PWMIC area? Anyone with some pics/help?

[Serra]

Thanks for the help, I'll try out a few of your suggestions on the weekend. While we're on the subject of my cooling: on a DFI Ultra-D, how hot does the PWMIC and chipset generally get? I'm usually hover around 45idle/50-60load PWMIC and 40-45 chipset. Put some AS5 on the chipset and position a fan over the PWMIC area? Anyone with some pics/help?

I'll start by mentioning I have a DFI NF4 SLI-D, pretty well the same board as far as component temps go.

Those temps you report sound a little warm but not unheard of for the PWMIC's. It all depends on your cooling really. If I remember correctly someone once did a heat test on them and found they could go to something like 80c (software reported - don't kill me over the number) safely... not that I would want to. Some type of active cooling is suggested if possible. For me, that cooling just involves a freestanding fan blowing on them (now 31 degrees software reported).

As far as the NB goes, I think that short of pulling out some crazy heatpipe contraption, the best thing on the market that will fit well with a video card in place is the Vantec Iceberq 4 Premium (NOT the Pro Premium model - it's too high). I use that on my NB with a dot of AS5 and my *reported* temp is a constant 34 idle/36 load, down from the 45-50 degree area. The local cost for one of those is only $30CDN, so it's not a terribly expensive solution (compared to some).

Serra