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Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@maulz wrote:

also there is a  little free program called speedfan. it uses the  heat sensors and fan speed sensors on your motherboard

there is a firm called quietpc.com who specialise in v quiet fans  and non fan cooling solutions.


 Speedfan unfortunately doesn't like my workstation. It can't read any model numbers etc from the motherboard, any info from the ram or any of the fan sensors. All it can just about do is report some temperatures! No idea why but also when i run it the whole (8 core) system locks for a few seconds too yet my single core system runs it perfectly well.

Cheers for the quietpc.com link.. forgot they existed. Now i just need to find some funds lol.

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7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@HairyMcbiker wrote:
They CAN reduce the fan noise, if it is a rattlling fan and not air flow noise..

Thats the problem I think its fan and air flow noise. I don't think any one particular fan is knackered, I think they're all just generally cheap noisy things.

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VileReynard
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

Is it definitely one of the fans?

If you take the covers off, is anything else vibrating?

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7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

No nothing vibrating in there, just a lot of generic fan noise. I've always had noisy systems until the current single core machine and i learnt to live with it (they were also single core machines) however when its a machine with 8 of them (inc the power supply and maths co processor - or thats what i think it is) then its a bit much! My old single core machines literally had a cpu fan, power supply fan and maybe a graphics card fan but this rig is full of them - take a look:

 

screenshot_364

 

I listened to them all with the mechanics stethoscope a few minutes ago and these were my findings:

1) Power supply - not too bad but could only touch the metal near the fan

2) Rear case fan - touched on plastic grille, not too bad

3) Ram fan - quite loud when probe touched on label

4) Same as 2

5) Loud - a real whizzer! Think this is maths co processor or something?

6) Graphics - very loud - another whizzer but like 5, doesn't sound like it passes enough air to be making all that air flow noise

7) CPU - Moderately loud, pretty sure this is the air flow sound.

8 ) CPU - Moderately loud, also heard some knocking / rough sounds coming from it. Again i'm pretty sure this is an air flow sound generator.

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twocvbloke
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@7up wrote:

5) Loud - a real whizzer! Think this is maths co processor or something?

 

No, the Maths Coprocessors were built into the CPUs back in the early 90s when the 486 CPUs came along, that particular chip is usually the Northbridge, which handles IO functions for hardware and CPU & GPU interface, there's a lower chip called the Southbridge to which also does IO & hardware interface, usually for the HDDs & ODDs, PCI cards, USB, etc....

 

These days the North & South are combined into one chip, so just gets referred to as "the chipset"...

maulz
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

i think you have confused some of your fan labeling  pretty sure 3 is your cpu and 7and 8 are your ram.

the path of the airflow through a case is often ignored  with fans just blasting at individual components and fighting each other.  sometimes 1 fan will provide enough flow for several passive cooling solutions near it.  having all the case fans at the back puling air out  and the psu fan also doing that  means they are fighting for the same air. better to have  a fan blowing in at the bottom front directing that air to graphics  and on to cpu fan , the chipset having a passive heat exchanger  in that airflow. and the air then going on to exit through the power supply after moving past the ram. some of those seconadary fans dont need a high speed at all if they are working  together. sometimes a speed drop of just 20% is enough to totally quieten a fan in my experience.

some fan/heatsinks are directional and turning them around will improve the airflow to other components nearby. 

VileReynard
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

Graphics shouldn't be loud unless you are playing a seriously intense game.

Similarly, the CPU should be very quiet if its just ticking over.

Do you have software to reveal fan speeds & cpu/graphics/motherboard temperatures?

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7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@maulz wrote:

i think you have confused some of your fan labeling  pretty sure 3 is your cpu and 7and 8 are your ram.

I think you need to stop being so over confident in yourself. You mention in your text about your experience.. but you've not managed to lookup the manual for the device and check it out for yourself before trying to make me look daft?.

Note that number 15 is the memory fan - right where i said it was - MOUNTED ON TOP OF 8 x 2GB ram modules.

 

screenshot_365

  

No doubt you'll still insist i'm an idiot so heres a pic of the motherboard too - you're an expert so you should recognise where the two CPUs are.:

 

screenshot_366

 


@maulz wrote:

the path of the airflow through a case is often ignored  with fans just blasting at individual components and fighting each other.  sometimes 1 fan will provide enough flow for several passive cooling solutions near it.  having all the case fans at the back puling air out  and the psu fan also doing that  means they are fighting for the same air. better to have  a fan blowing in at the bottom front directing that air to graphics  and on to cpu fan , the chipset having a passive heat exchanger  in that airflow. and the air then going on to exit through the power supply after moving past the ram. some of those seconadary fans dont need a high speed at all if they are working  together. sometimes a speed drop of just 20% is enough to totally quieten a fan in my experience.

some fan/heatsinks are directional and turning them around will improve the airflow to other components nearby. 


None of which addresses the noise problem Roll_eyes Why did you bother posting?

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maulz
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

my apologies i have never seen that layout of motherboard before my mistake.

7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

There lies your problem mate - you've not seen it and thus you didn't believe it.

I have seen it.. I've also seen other quirky designs too. In my little single core machine the motherboard is mounted on the left side of the case and upside down - the total opposite of most machines.

The clue should have been when i posted that it was a workstation..It's obviously going to be a bit different to a normal PC otherwise companies would just use normal PCs for their heavy duty stuff..

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twocvbloke
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

Even most other brand workstations have a relatively standard layout motherboard, it's just HP chose to swap the CPUs and RAM around to be different, kind of like how dell use BTX boards so everything was basically mirrored and prevented the end user fitting an ATX board to upgrade it to something a bit better...

VileReynard
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.

An extreme fix would be to run it as a headless PC.

Place the ethernet and PC at least 20 feet away and the keyboard, screen, mouse (with long cables) close by.

There should be hardly any noise. Smiley

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7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@twocvbloke wrote:

kind of like how dell use BTX boards


well i just learned something new!

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7up
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Re: Seriously noisy system, need advice on making it quiet.


@VileReynard wrote:

An extreme fix would be to run it as a headless PC.

Place the ethernet and PC at least 20 feet away and the keyboard, screen, mouse (with long cables) close by.

There should be hardly any noise. Smiley


I have been mulling that over actually.. only snag is the only really suitable places for it are not going to get positive attention from SWMBO as she hates ethernet cables and to put it there will mean cables all over the hallway lol.

I need a new signature... i'm bored of the old one!