Gadgetory

excellent so I've heard a lot of people say that they want a silent computer but a lot of the builds that I see online are a lot more geared towards functionality and performance than they are how much sound the machine will actually make when you put it together and turn it on now I could go ahead and say here's a bunch of parts put them all together this will make it fairly silent builds but I know you guys are tinkerers out there your customizers and if you watch my channel you probably want some leeway to choose your own parts so with the help of an tech I'm gonna be building a system today in there p100 case I'm going to be focusing this video on what steps you can take to first identify the parts in the system that are making noise and seconds what you can do to eliminate that noise or at least reduce it as much as you possibly can so will I go ahead and get started building my version of a silent computer let's ask the question what components in your computer actually make noise first we have fans this is the number one nose maker in your computer actually there's several subcategories within the fans category so we're going to come back to that towards the end number two is optical and hard disk drives these have moving parts and moving parts make noise spinning disks and the seek click sound from the hard drive read/write heads these days I'll just pass on the optical drive completely actually have a spare optical drive that I keep around with the SATA to USB adapter and I'll just plug that in if I actually need to burn or read a CD or DVD hard drives are still the best option for mass storage so if you do get one opt for a lower rpm version go for 5400 RPM instead of 7200 I do recommend the WD green series because they're well known to be quiet running hard drives the third thing is other because I wanted to group a few things together we have electrical noise or coil whine that can come from components but honestly this is more indicative of actual faulty hardware or at least hardware that's not quite up to par your PC shouldn't make electrical noise or coil whine so we'll leave out solutions for that just see if you can get those parts replaced also we have the water cooling pump that is if it's present you don't need a water cooling pump if you go with air cooling but if you do have one shot for a pump that's been well reviewed for quite operation or one that you know you can control the speed of I guess we could also list the motherboard speaker here for your being picky but I don't know unplug it disable it it only beeps when you boot up anyway so it should be a big deal we also have a special bonus category these are items that don't make noise but they can help reduce noise the first one here is the case cases with padded side panels can be very helpful for reducing internal noise and vibration case with a solid front panel door instead of an open space can help block noise from coming from inside foam padding can also help out here some cases like the P 104 man tech here can have covers over certain areas like on unused fan mounting locations here again the payment on P 100 has used padding to help reduce noise from coming out and the lastly cases can have rubber feet that reduce noise and vibration rubber pads for the power supply to sit on rubber grommets or mounts for the hard drives to sit in all of these can help reduce noise and vibration some cases can also have a built-in fan controller which can help and I guess speaking of which moving along this special bonus category a fan controller could be another item that can reduce noise but not add noise itself it controls your fans this is an add-on though there's an extra cost involved so we'll come back to the fan controller again later in the video the third item here is a motherboard that is if the motherboard does not have a chipset fan and these days most motherboards don't so I recommend getting a motherboard without a chipset fan especially if you're building a silent system but motherboards can have fan headers that can provide voltage or PWM control for fans to plug them directly into the motherboard voltages three pin and PWM is 4 pin and then motherboards can also have BIOS UEFI or software controls to reduce the speed of the fans that are plugged into the motherboard which is a great option let me run down the parts that I am using for the silent Bill's that I am building right now we have the CPU which is an Intel Core i7 4770k I would recommend considering a lower TDP CPU for a silent build that has power savings built in especially like the core the core series from Intel this is going to make it easier to cool basically the sit 4770k has an 84 watt TDP which is not the lowest TDP CPU out there but it it's not the highest either the motherboard is the Asus z87 Pro this one of course does not have a chipset fan and it's also got some really cool fan expert software that I'm going to be using to control my fans later on there's other more that motherboards out there that have similar features but I do particularly like a Souza's implementation of fan control the memory is a couple 4 gigabyte sticks of corsair 1600 speed ddr3 not a consideration for noise but wanted to point it out the video card is the EVGA gtx 760 this is a graphics card with an aftermarket cooler and a couple fans on it so they can dissipate more heat without having to work as hard individually and the EVGA ACX cooler cards are known for running very quiet I also went with an SSD for this build rather than a hard drive just to reduce noise again this is a 248 Corsair Neutron GTX if you want silent storage then get an SSD these last four items are all provided by an tech so a huge thank you to them for supporting this build and this video the case is the Antec p 100 it has all of the things I mentioned earlier in the case category like foam padding and rubber mounts doesn't have a fan controller but that's ok because we're going to be plugging in directly to the motherboard the CPU cooler is the Antec cooler h2o 950 this is the probably the most controversial choice for this silent build I would generally go with an air cooler for silence and to eliminate the possibility of having any noise coming from the pump in a liquid cooler the h2o 950 at high fan RPMs is actually very powerful but also very loud fortunately though turning the fan speed down with the ACS utility dropped the volume way down and the pump noise here was pretty minimal you don't even really notice it the power supply is the Antec Edge 650 watt if you guys recall I reviewed this and it has one of the quietest fans I've ever heard outside the premium 80 plus platinum range lastly the fans that I've swapped out here are going to be an Tex true quiet 120 millimeter case fans they have rubber mounts to reduce vibration never built in 2-way switch for 600 or 1000 rpm operation now the last and most important topic in this video for building a silent PC is fans I said I was going to come back to this and if you haven't noticed already they're all over you have case fans you have CPU cooler fans you have a fan on the power supply you have fans on the graphics card and all of these make noise you can add fans to other things in you a computer as well like the memory maybe but that's much less common and why would you do that when you're building a silent computer anyway I would just make more noise so your options for finding quiet case fans let's start with that one is you can go big in general larger fans are going to move more air at lower rpms and generate less noise so 120 millimeter fans should be your baseline don't use anything smaller than that consider 140 millimeter fans or even 200 millimeter or larger size fans if you have a compatible case also consider the fan motor bearing type that's very important I would recommend avoiding sleeve or rifle bearings double ball bearing fans can be less expensive but they can make a little bit more noise than the other options fluid dynamic bearings are the best in my opinion because they offer the greatest balance between noise and performance but they do cost more finally there's magnetic bearings that are really really quiet but they can actually be fairly inefficient at moving actual air so that's why I generally recommend fluid dynamic bearing fans if possible on your fans opt for a 4 pin connection that will give you PWM or pulse width modulation control instead of the 3 pin connections which will give you voltage control only PWM fans can often spin at much lower speeds than non PWM fans which is cool also check the noise rating when you're shopping for fans or for a case that has fans in it most computer fans have a noise rating listed lower is better but not all manufacturers use the same methods for measuring the amount of noise generated so check the reviews too while you're at it finally plan your airflow and manage your cables this can make a huge difference in your overall system temperature which means your fans can stay at nice low rpms most cases use front intakes which is where I installed two of the true quiet 120 millimeter fans and rear or top exhausts which is where I installed the cooler h2o 950 radiator having more than one intake then exhaust creates positive pressure inside the case which helps keep dust out and since there's ventilation at the back there's still be room for that air to escape for CPU cooler options take a look at the radiator or the fin stack on the air cooler that you are considering if silence is your goal look for a cooler with more spaced out fin stacks or radiator fins less densely packed bins will allow air to move through more easily meaning that you can run your fans at lower rpms you will sacrifice some cooling performance of course large heat sinks are also an option they can be cumbersome but they can be a very effective way of dissipating more heat without adding fan noise due to the added surface area finally you have closed-loop liquid cooler options like the cooler h2o 950 they offer some of the best performance if you're going to be overclocking just make sure you can control the fan speed on your CL LC and if you can control the pump speed - that's a nice bonus for the power supply emphasize a power supply with a quiet fan since you can't usually change that out on PS use higher efficiency 80 plus bronze or better power supplies will generate less heat at the same wattage so they'll need less airflow some power supplies want to actually even turn the fan on until they go over a certain set temperature that can be a very nice option - so look out for that fanless power supplies are also out there I would definitely look into those if you're building a lower wattage system for the graphics card like the power supply I would emphasize buying a graphics card with quiet fans check reviews consider a lower power GPU as opposed to a flagship model that has a higher TDP and then I tend to lean towards open GPU cooler designs instead of blower style when it comes to noise generation they tend to be quieter just remember that they leave more hot air in the case so you will need to have ventilation so if you finally got the silent system of your dreams built and you boot it up for the first time and it makes noise sadface what do you do well you need to tame those fans that are making the noise with fan control so let's go over a few methods of fan control before we close first you can plug your fans directly into the power supply I normally don't recommend this at all because it will mean the fans will run at max rpm but for fans like antics through quiet 120s that which have a built-in low rpm switch it is an option so just plug them into the power supply just make sure you have that switch turned to low the next option is to control the fans via a motherboard 3 pin or 4 pin headers this is my go-to with most systems as long as your motherboard has enough headers of course I prefer the 4 pin PWM control when possible which is usually the standard for CPU fans with my case and CPU fans connected to the headers and my a to z 87 Pro I can access controls in the UEFI BIOS or I can just run the fan expert software from within windows to automatically test and set up controls for each fan then connection capacity and control capabilities are going to vary from motherboard to motherboard and manufacturer to manufacturer though so here's what it pays to do some pre build research or you can always go out and pick up a dedicated fan controller the ones that come built into cases like the fractal define are five for example are usually pretty simple voltage control setups with a three-way low medium high switch but I always like a dedicated 3.5 inch or five and a quarter inch bay fan controller that lets you manually control each fan with a knob or buttons these can actually get really fancy with temperature probes and zone control for within the case but honestly that's a subject for another video I think one final method for a fan that just won't quiet down is to add a resistor extension to the plug between the fan and its power source that will reduce the fans available power and thus its rpms just make sure it still has enough initial power to actually start rotating when you power on your system so now that you know the components in your system that might be making a racket and some techniques for how to silence them maybe you can turn your loud and noisy gaming machine into an epic ninja stealth killer system but thank you so much for watching this video guys and thanks to Antec for providing the components that you saw this build today links to them are down in this video's description you can also click my Amazon link and bookmark that if you want to click it before you buy stuff at Amazon that always helps me out don't forget to like and share and subscribe to my channel if you are haven't already we'll see you all in the next video you