The Devil wrote in message news:1ce0r0l7qhm4j4i04hbhu6spicebfe3suc@rdmzrnews txt.nz...
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:34:41 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

The answer to your question is no, not I.

OK.. was interested if you had an opinion, but I bit the bullet and
bought it anyway. Is very nice..

Not familiar with it, I'm afraid.

I'm eager to play Doom 3 and drooling to play Half-life 2. I don't
have a PC that will run the games, though. It's been a while since I
put together a cutting-edge games PC,

I know guys that are playing both games on less than cutting edge
PCs. Doom3 multiplayer sucks from what I have heard. HL2 is
awesome and runs fine on ATI9800 cards (which isn't bleeding edge)
according to guys in my clan who are playing it. I have to wait as
I've been given the hint that it may occupy my Christmas stocking.

Some of the guys have these kickass alienware duplicates with latest
64 bit athlons and ATI X800 cards and they still get audio glitches.
I'm waiting till they finally rollout PCI express or SATA audio cards
that fix the audio bandwidth problem that seems to be the root of all
glitches in multiplayer games. I know guys with machines that can run
200+ fps on max settings on CoD or UO and still get the lag glitch
when a nade is going off nearby while facing off at close range with
mg's.

Why don't you just waste a few bucks and get Alienwares Area 51-5550
and let me know if it doesn't glitch since it has the same audio card
I do. I think the old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz used less CPU than the
audigy but doesn't support EAX3 which, IMO, is awesome.

http://www.alienware.com/Product_Pag...ll_gaming.aspx

ScottW

The Devil said:

While I'm on it, does anyone know of a decent ISP-independent email
service? Something with pop3 (hate webmail) that I can log into from
any ISP and send mail. All the free ones I've used in the past
wouldn't allow sending unless you were dialled into their ISP. TIA.

Dunno if this is of any use to you, but I sometimes use www.twigger.nl
The buttons are in English.

--
Sander de Waal
" SOA of a KT88? Sufficient. "

"Paul Dormer" wrote in message


Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

Yup, I flew over to the UK and dropped a bomb on Dormer's cell in the
institution where he lives. ;-)

The Devil wrote:
On 3 Dec 2004 12:15:42 -0800, (ScottW) wrote:

I know guys that are playing both games on less than cutting edge
PCs. Doom3 multiplayer sucks from what I have heard. HL2 is
awesome and runs fine on ATI9800 cards (which isn't bleeding edge)
according to guys in my clan who are playing it. I have to wait as
I've been given the hint that it may occupy my Christmas stocking.

Some of the guys have these kickass alienware duplicates with latest
64 bit athlons and ATI X800 cards and they still get audio glitches.
I'm waiting till they finally rollout PCI express or SATA audio
cards
that fix the audio bandwidth problem that seems to be the root of
all
glitches in multiplayer games. I know guys with machines that can
run
200+ fps on max settings on CoD or UO and still get the lag glitch
when a nade is going off nearby while facing off at close range with
mg's.

Why don't you just waste a few bucks and get Alienwares Area
51-5550
and let me know if it doesn't glitch since it has the same audio
card
I do. I think the old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz used less CPU than
the
audigy but doesn't support EAX3 which, IMO, is awesome.

http://www.alienware.com/Product_Pag...ll_gaming.aspx

Thanks for the advice. Are the 64 bit AMDs currently the fastest
chips
around?

Pretty much although the faster FSB and larger cache on some of the
Intel stuff makes is close.

Even running 32 bit XP applications?

I think that still depends on the application so you just can't say.
From what I've seen, none of the office applications push any of the
newer processors (2.8Ghz P4 or better), so after a point it doesn't
matter. Personally, I've had better luck stability wise with my
Intel machine (after going through 4 generations of AMD Athlon machines
with 4 different chipsets), so Im reluctant to go back on the AMD
wagon, but I know a couple of AMD guys who get some kick ass numbers
out of the various system evaluators.

IME, bleeding edge performance isn't worth the cost or the headaches to
get it stable. Stay one step behind and you won't have half the
headaches nor waste near the money. I'm sure my 2.8Ghz P4 will play
HL2 without any more problems than everyone else is having and there
aren't any major games on the horizon (according to some teenagers in
our clan who live for this stuff) just yet that need more resources.
Beware though, on install that stupid game resets your audio input
settings so it mucks up your TS or ventrillo.

ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:9ok9r018gblofqkaiiim2dnj745b3bmg8v@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:06:57 +0000, Paul Dormer
wrote:

Mine is the lowly 650Mhz Intel overclocked to 1Ghz (stock fan etc)
with a Voodoo3 that Krueger tried to blow up. I have a faster machine,
but that's dedicated for work and has a bogus graphics card.

What's a bogus graphics card? On-board video?

I fancy a completely silent machine.

Me too! I see there's been a lot of development in this area. Huge,
slow-turning processor fans than spin almost silently. I recently
fixed one of my PCs up with a new power supply. The new PSU had a
single huge fan in it. Almost silent. Seems to be the way to go.

Bought a shuttle style
motherboard that *claimed* to be "fanless", but when it arrived I
couldn't help notice the rather obvious fan attached to the processor.
It's gathering dust...

You should hear the fan in my PS2. Now *that* is noisy. Still.. for
hassle free gameplay - can't beat a console.

Could never get the hang of them--not much practice really, though. I
like moving around with a mouse and the arrow keys. :-)

I borrowed this long e-mail from a Computertalk group at work. The guy who
wrote it is pretty good and I never vouches for anything without having
tried it himself. Its a bit dated but still applicable to quiet computing
without going watercooled.

I just built a super-quiet computer. Checked Dell, HP, etc, but didn't find
what I wanted. They didn't come with Seagate (quiet) disk drives or the
combination of features (Gig E, etc) I wanted.


The approach below is not the only one possible. I just provided the details
to show one way it can be done.



Lian Li 65B black aluminum case with window
http://www.xoxide.com/lianlipc65b.html
Yes, it has a window, but I decided to skip the fish tank. I was a bit
worried that the window wouldn't allow me to apply damping material to the
left side panel. Fortunately it looks like that's not a problem. If it were
a problem, you could buy the replacement no-window left side panel to get
rid of the window. This case has 4 5.25" external, 3 3.5" external, and 5
3.5" external in a mid-tower size. In my last case I ran out of drive bays.
Don't expect to do so this time. In most cases you can't use all the
internal 3.5" bays because hard drives mounted adjacent overheat. In this
case, the internal bay is right in front of the case air inlet, so cool air
flows between the drives. If that isn't enough, there are case fans at that
inlet to blow turbulent air on the drives (although I decided I didn't need
them).


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard -- with intel 875 chipset, dual channel
RAM, five PCI slots, and every interface known to man, ie 1G Ethernet,
Firewire, 8x USB2, RAID on either IDE or SATA, etc. If something is wrong at
boot time, it SPEAKS to you thru the speakers telling you what is wrong
instead of beeping. It actually says "No CPU found" if you forget to plug in
the CPU!
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/sock...d/overview.HTM
This motherboard includes variable-speed fan control (even for case fans)
driven by CPU temperature, for quiet operation. (Note: You have to enable
this in the BIOS.) Also has a BIOS designed for overclockers which allows
you to adjust power supplies and various clocks and timings. Woo hoo! (Well
beyond what I need.)


Intel P4 2.8GHz Prescott Socket 478 FC-PGA4 800MHz FSB CPU
http://www.computergate.com/products...rodcd=IP5I828E
2.8GHz may not be the fastest available, but its close enough, and I wanted
the 800MHz front bus and 1MB cache, ie the new Prescott chip. This seems to
be the fastest Prescott in retail distribution right now. Prescotts are a
bit of a challenge to cool so probably better to not buy the 3GHz ones
anyhow.


1 GB of Kingston DDR400 memory


Replaced noisy stock intel heatsink with Swiftech MCX478
http://www.directron.com/mcx478v.html
You can use 80mm or 92mm fan on this sink. I used 92mm of course. Larger
fans spin slower and are quieter for equal amount of air. Used a Zalman fan
on it, as the Silenx fans were a little too weak. Air comes out of this
heatsink on all sides, as with the stock sink. That's a good thing because
the Northbridge chip next door needs some cooling air too. Some aftermarket
sinks don't exit air on every side.


I also lapped the processor, ie ground its lid with #600 wet/dry sandpaper
on a flat glass surface, to get the processor lid flat for max thermal
transfer to heat sink. The Swiftech heatsink was already very flat and
polished.


MSI quiet (no fan) video card (Nvidia based)
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/fx5200.html


Silenx 350W power supply with powr factor correction (quiet 14dBA!, and
variable speed fan which starts out at something like 6dBA. You really can't
hear it without putting your ear up to it.) They even make a 600W version!
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=2


Silenx 14dBA 80mm case fans
http://www.silenx.com/productcart/pc...p?idCategory=3
The Lian Li case has 4 fans. I'm only using one (the exit fan on the back).
chose this one because it has the best (most open) grill of the 2 exit fans.
No need for others. Will plug them in if I ever need them.


Case damping material
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=47&CATID=6
I'm told that some rubber doormat material works well too.


Lian Li IDE RH322 mobile rack (for a front-panel exchangeable disk drive for
backups)
http://www.directron.com/rh322.html
Only problem with this model of rack is that it contains a little fan
(necessary to cool a drive in an enclosure) which stays on all the time,
even if no drive in the rack. One cut and jumper on the pc board fixed this.
Now fan runs only when the rack key is on. I still have the problem that
when the drive is not in the rack, the empty rack is acoustically like an
empty drive bay, ie not plugged with foam rubber, so some sound can get out
the front thru this hole. Not a big deal. I may just leave a drive in it
most of the time.



Seagate Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Mfg Part #: ST3120026AR (super quiet model)
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=304906&pfp=BROWSE
Beware the price of these jumps around a lot. Get 'em while they're cheap.
Some places have 'em for under $100 from time to time, although some
mailorder places sell you the OEM version, which doesn't come with the big
nice retail foam-rubber padded box. That would be ok if mailorder guys
understood how delicate disk drives are and padded them for shipment well,
but they usually don't. CompUSA runs specials on various Seagate drives that
last for a few days each, and they sell the retail drives in the nice padded
boxes.


Sony CD/DVD/RW/+-/...
Lian Li reader for compact flash & other media (fits in 3.5" bay)
Floppy
Its a little hard to find black peripherals to match the black case, but
doable.


Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for same
amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx makes really
quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.


Fill unused drive bays with foam rubber. Otherwise fan noise comes out the
front.


The Lian Li case is very nice, but it has a case fan in the top with a
stupid grill punched into the aluminum skin. The grill is too close to the
fan, and doesn't have enough punched out area, so a fan in this location
makes some noise, even if its a slow fan. (I'm into fine points here. If
you're used toa noisy computer, you may not even hear it.) I just
disconnected that fan. Didn't need it. If I need it later, I will put a
spacer made from an old fan body between the fan and the grill, so the grill
won't be in the turbulent air right next to the fan blades.


Removed "air filter" from the front of the computer. Freeer airflow means
lower fan speed and noise.


All fans on rubber fan isolation posts, not screws. They come with Silenx
fans or can be bought separately.


Round cables, instead of flat. Makes for better airflow and puts an end to
"flat cable origami", also come in nice colors. My last computer had so many
flat cables that it was a miracle that any air flowed. Be sure to get the
ones with pull-tab handles on the ends.


The end result is dramatically quiet. When I compare it to my older home
computers the comparison is absurd.


I've wanted a quiet computer for many years. Luckily us quiet freaks have
achieved critical mass. Now there are lots of vendors selling the components
you need to make a quiet computer.
www.siliconacoustics.com
www.endpcnoise.com
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silenx.com


ScottW

http://www.ardice.com/Business/Trans...r/Aftermarket/

"ScottW" wrote in message
news:Z49td.178947$bk1.69943@fed1read05

Slow fans are quiet. Fast fans are noisy. Big fans can be slower for
same amount of air. Get biggest slowest fans you can find. Silenx
makes really quiet fans, in a variety of speeds.

I've been preaching this all over the audio groups on Usenet for years, so
its good to see someone actually getting it and acting on it.

In many cases absolutely stock cases, fans, and CPU coolers can be
dramatically quieted using one or more of this inexpensive device:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/cnpsfanmate.htm

I've found this device sold all over the net, sometimes for less than $4.

The manufacturers instructions seem to be a bit deficient. For best results,
you turn the fan speeds down until CPU and parts temperatures are as high as
you want to tolerate them being. This means that you have to come up with a
way to monitor CPU and parts temperatures.

In some cases there is even software that will control and monitor the
speeds of fans plugged into the motherboard so you don't even need a Fan
Mate, you just need to exercise some options that have been provided for
you.

Temperature sensors are built into a lot modern PC motherboards. In many
cases software to read these temperatures out are included with the
motherboard. Asus motherboards are exceptionally likely to have this
feature. In other cases, third-party software can be obtained that gives
reliable indication of system temperatures.

"The Devil" wrote in message
news:biiar0l80agtincqlje4pjc9pgmrtqjuii@rdmzrnewst xt.nz...
On 6 Dec 2004 14:44:41 -0800, "ScottW" wrote:

Thanks for the advice. Are the 64 bit AMDs currently the fastest
chips
around?

Pretty much although the faster FSB and larger cache on some of the
Intel stuff makes is close.

Hmmm.


Even running 32 bit XP applications?

I think that still depends on the application so you just can't say.
From what I've seen, none of the office applications push any of the
newer processors (2.8Ghz P4 or better), so after a point it doesn't
matter. Personally, I've had better luck stability wise with my
Intel machine (after going through 4 generations of AMD Athlon machines
with 4 different chipsets), so Im reluctant to go back on the AMD
wagon, but I know a couple of AMD guys who get some kick ass numbers
out of the various system evaluators.

IME, bleeding edge performance isn't worth the cost or the headaches to
get it stable. Stay one step behind and you won't have half the
headaches nor waste near the money. I'm sure my 2.8Ghz P4 will play
HL2 without any more problems than everyone else is having and there
aren't any major games on the horizon (according to some teenagers in
our clan who live for this stuff) just yet that need more resources.
Beware though, on install that stupid game resets your audio input
settings so it mucks up your TS or ventrillo.

Sounds like good advice. Something else that's confusing me: this PCI
Express. It seems to have been invented to overcome the bandwidth
limitations of AGP. The latest and greatest motherboards with the
shiny new chipsets seem to have PCI Express instead of AGP. This seems
to be the future. But the graphics-card makers only seem to have their
low-end cards out in PCI Express format. If PCI Express was invented
to give ultra-fast cards the bandwidth they need, why aren't the
top-level cards available in PCI Express? Is it just early days yet,
or do I have it all wrong?

Not all wrong but for one thing bandwidth has not been an issue for vid
cards since AGP4x. If you don't believe me find some performance reports
showing 4x vs 8x. Very little difference. It will ultimately offer more
bandwidth by running parallel PCI express connections to the card but it
isn't necessary yet. I suspect the highend cards (due to their memory and
processing capacity) actually require less i/o with processor and RAM so
they may benefit even less from PCI express than a lowend card but I cant
find an analysis saying its so.
The thing PCI express fixes is bus hogging on the PCI bus. Things like
100gig ethernet cards and other I/Os can bog down the bus so chipsets and
mobo mfgs are doing things to take them off the bus. PCI express with
individual addressing fixes this and with parallel PCI-ex connections you
can add b/w to devices.

Does buying a top-notch motherboard
therefore mean you have to compromise, at least for the moment, on
graphics performance--even though you have a theoretically superior
graphics card interface?

No, as a matter of fact, with so few PCI express cards out, I wouldn't
bother with it....yet. I'm waiting.

Heres a good article on PCI express for graphics which does mention that
high end cards benefit less.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...0/pcie-01.html


Also, how many different processor sockets are out there now? I was
looking at motherboards that were for 900 pin processors, 901 pin
processors, 902 pin processors--all of the same speed. Not exactly
those numbers (don't remember them exactly), but you get the idea.
Don't understand what's going on there. I presume there's something
different about the processors, but how are you supposed to know what,
and how are you supposed to know which processor is superior? Just go
on price? It would be nice if someone could point me to a website that
had a straightforward breakdown of what's available. Even looking at
the processors themselves wasn't helpful. The only obvious difference
seemed to be price and number of pins the thing had.

As I said, I've not been in the market for some years and *am* fairly
clueless about what's going on at the moment. And it really *does*
give me a ****ing headache flailing around in the dark like this.

I don't pay any attention to that. I go straight to the graphics benchmark
and decide if the cost/performance is there.
Both AMD and Intel are great for bells and whistles that don't improve
performance. Both have occasionally come out with devices that performed
worse than predecessors in tests due to some f'up.

My 2.8Ghz P4 still makes the chart after a year and do I care if I can get
another 100 fps for about a grand more than I spent?

http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20...et_939-19.html

If you're not editing video or something like that, I can't see a need for
any Athlon FX or Pentium extreme. If you pencil in processor prices on
these charts it get interesting. For example, the P4 3.2E (1MB L2 cache) is
about $260 US. The Athlon 64 FX-53 is $990. Not like the $700 delta
breaks the bank but it strikes me as kind of silly especially if your max
power application is a game and your doing it to get a video frame rate 3x
your monitor refresh rate.

One note: the intel LGA 775 socket devices aren't included in tom article
(too new) but I can't find a performance reason to go there unless you plan
to upgrade processors for planned faster parts (1.2 Ghz FSB). I never do
this because, by the time the faster part comes out, the chipset you thought
would work, won't and you need a new mobo anyway.

ScottW