songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 07:59:

Whenever I can't hear my HDD over the fan noise, that's unacceptable, I think.

I think it may also depend on what type of noise your ears are more sensitive to, and that can be subjective. To me, the noise of ancient IDE hard drive platters spinning at 7200 RPM is far more annoying than any noise that a modern Noctua fan produces, even while running at full speed. Nowadays, I always go for either SSDs, or CF cards depending on the rig's use case. As for the fans, I also prefer the ones from Noctua and usually pair them with either the ULNA or LNA adapters, depending on their purpose.

Lastly, having a modern, quiet PSU helps a lot as well. However, I find that sometimes, using an old case can be counter productive, because the PSU is mounted on the top in those. Modern PSUs generally expect to be mounted at the bottom, so that they can take in fresh, cool air from the outside. For that reason, even a modern PSU can sometimes be noisy when mounted to the top of an old case with limited airflow.

Another thing people overlook is cable management. The better the cable management, the better the airflow, the better the airflow the less volume of air you need so you can run lower RPM fans to achieve the same temperature.

FWIW, back when noisy PC:s were the norm, all the PC:s at my workplace got put in very efficiently silenced padded boxes (with internal fans & long folding air-vents); expensive but that was a cost neccessary to be able to think. And it was not only the fans back then, but also hard-drives that sounded like jets. And printers.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:17:

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 07:59:

Whenever I can't hear my HDD over the fan noise, that's unacceptable, I think.

I think it may also depend on what type of house your ears are more sensitive to, and that can be subjective. To me, the noise of ancient IDE hard drive platters spinning at 7200 RPM is far more annoying than any noise that a modern Noctua fan produces, even while running at full speed. Nowadays, I always go for either SSDs, or CF cards depending on the rig's use case. As for the fans, I also prefer the ones from Noctua and usually pair them with either the ULNA or LNA adapters, depending on their purpose.

Lastly, having a modern, quiet PSU helps a lot as well. However, I find that sometimes, using an old case can be counter productive, because the PSU is mounted on the top in those. While modern PSUs generally expect to be mounted at the bottom, so that they can take in fresh, cool air from the outside. For that reason, even a modern PSU can sometimes be noises when mounted to the top of an old case with limited airflow.

My bad, I didn't make myself clear enough. Replacing the old fans with Noctuas actually allowed me to hear my HDDs. At this point, with Noctuas I mostly hear the airflow being blasted through restrictive grates, not the fans themselves. Old fans, those sounded like a rocket ship and would wake up people if I turned the PC on at night. Especially the CPU fan, a 65mm running at 10,000 RPM.

As for the HDDs. They are mostly relatively modern Seagate ATA drives and at 7200RPM you mostly hear the heads moving, not the drives spinning. I also have an old Seagate SCSI 4.2Gb and it sounds like... a thousand angry cicadas? A pig being slaughtered? It's more of a meme, I can't imagine tolerating the sound for more than a few minutes. I also have a truly ancient 270Mb Conner. It's loud, but the sound is kind of pleasant.

paradigital wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:20:

Another thing people overlook is cable management. The better the cable management, the better the airflow, the better the airflow the less volume of air you need so you can run lower RPM fans to achieve the same temperature.

At this point, I think my cable management is as good as it gets with a configuration like this. But then, I'll let you be the judge:

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:28:

At this point, I think my cable management is as good as it gets with a configuration like this. But then, I'll let you be the judge:

Cable management looks good, but you may want to replace those ancient PSUs. I have a similar one from Mercury (not actively used) and it's a noise/dust blaster, not to mention its questionable build quality.

Also, is that PSU mounted upside down? The air intake is supposed to be pointed downward, unless the case allows for pulling in air from the top.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:35:

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:28:

At this point, I think my cable management is as good as it gets with a configuration like this. But then, I'll let you be the judge:

Cable management looks good, but you may want to replace those ancient PSUs. I have a similar one from Mercury (not actively used) and it's a noise/dust blaster, not to mention its questionable build quality.

Also, is that PSU mounted upside down? The air intake is supposed to be pointed downward, unless the case allows for pulling in air from the top.

I don't think that particular PSU has a secondary fan (or internal intake/exhaust) like modern parts - it's a simple design with vents on the opposite side to the single exhaust fan. Lots of old ATX power supplies are like that.

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:25:

hear my HDD

As for the HDDs. They are mostly relatively modern Seagate ATA drives and at 7200RPM you mostly hear the heads moving, not the drives spinning.

I run exclusively Hitachi 7K2000/7K3000 as bulk storage for that reason. Silent spinning, silent heads.
Turning off APM helps with stupid "energy saving" constant head parking https://github.com/Seagate/ToolBin/blob/maste … owerControl.txt

I also remember >10 years ago switching on Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) for my Samsung/Seagate, that dramatically quieted down heads.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:35:

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 08:28:

At this point, I think my cable management is as good as it gets with a configuration like this. But then, I'll let you be the judge:

Cable management looks good, but you may want to replace those ancient PSUs. I have a similar one from Mercury (not actively used) and it's a noise/dust blaster, not to mention its questionable build quality.

Also, is that PSU mounted upside down? The air intake is supposed to be pointed downward, unless the case allows for pulling in air from the top.

The PSU is already replaced, the air intake was from behind and it was quite miserable. It's not one of those newer PSUs that have 120mm fans and pull air from below.

Even on the other PSU, the fan has been replaced with a Noctua and the grille has been removed and replaced with a wire-based option.

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 07:59:

I've also removed the grate of my old PSU, filed off the sharp edges and replaced it with a wire-based one, which didn't eliminate the noise, but significantly reduced it.

Nice. The effects of removing airflow obstructions as much as possible are greatly underestimated.

Here's some more random fan knowledge: There's (at least) two kinds of fans: Generic ones, and ones optimized for pressure. For example, compare Arctic's Fnn and Pnn series. Use the former when you want a light breeze in the general direction of something, the latter when you need to move air through something (heatsink fins, grill, filter, ...) - i.e. almost all use cases I can think of. In fact, I don't even bother with non-pressure ones any more, seeing how they're almost the same price.

Often, "silent" fans are only quieter because they move way less air. Worse yet, they are often fixed at the super low rpm they run at. This is especially the case with cheaper no name quiet fans. So many times I've had people replace all their fans with "silent" fans then come to me with overheating problems.

High quality quiet fans still move decent volume because they rely on advanced blade design and duct design to reduce air noise instead of just barely creating flow.

elszgensa wrote on 2024-03-15, 23:14:

songoffall wrote on 2024-03-15, 07:59:

I've also removed the grate of my old PSU, filed off the sharp edges and replaced it with a wire-based one, which didn't eliminate the noise, but significantly reduced it.

Nice. The effects of removing airflow obstructions as much as possible are greatly underestimated.

Here's some more random fan knowledge: There's (at least) two kinds of fans: Generic ones, and ones optimized for pressure. For example, compare Arctic's Fnn and Pnn series. Use the former when you want a light breeze in the general direction of something, the latter when you need to move air through something (heatsink fins, grill, filter, ...) - i.e. almost all use cases I can think of. In fact, I don't even bother with non-pressure ones any more, seeing how they're almost the same price.

These days, with radiators, high density tower cooler stacks, air filters, and super fine mesh/grills, you definitely almost always need a fan with decent static pressure.

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-16, 00:51:

Often, "silent" fans are only quieter because they move way less air. Worse yet, they are often fixed at the super low rpm they run at. This is especially the case with cheaper no name quiet fans. So many times I've had people replace all their fans with "silent" fans then come to me with overheating problems.

High quality quiet fans still move decent volume because they rely on advanced blade design and duct design to reduce air noise instead of just barely creating flow.

Silent is also just impossible to achieve. About 20 years ago by brother was trying to silence his PC, once you fix one noise you started hearing another. He finally got it down to a bunch of silent fans, but still heard noise, it was the noise of the air being exhausted from the case. You couldn't hear the fans themselves, but the noise floor was so you could hear the air moving.

SScorpio wrote on 2024-03-16, 00:57:

once you fix one noise you started hearing another

Coil whine has entered the chat

elszgensa wrote on 2024-03-16, 01:41:

SScorpio wrote on 2024-03-16, 00:57:

once you fix one noise you started hearing another

Coil whine has entered the chat

That one is simple get old enough where you remember using these machines and chances are your tinnitus are much louder than any coil whine that has ever existed.

Grem Five wrote on 2024-03-16, 02:44:

elszgensa wrote on 2024-03-16, 01:41:

SScorpio wrote on 2024-03-16, 00:57:

once you fix one noise you started hearing another

Coil whine has entered the chat

That one is simple get old enough where you remember using these machines and chances are your tinnitus are much louder than any coil whine that has ever existed.

Yep. I'm just over 40 now. I can't even hear CRT whine anymore.

I used to be able to follow the boot-up sequence of a (fanless) computer system developed at my workplace, just by listening to the power supply whine (about 18-20kHz) changing with load. Tinnitus from some too close noisy hard-drives fixed that eventually.

You can deal with coil while with silicone (but afaik not the bathroom kind) or maybe even a hotglue

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-03-16, 23:52:

You can deal with coil while with silicone (but afaik not the bathroom kind) or maybe even a hotglue

Thanks, I can't hear the whine anymore. Or anything else for that matter.

Joking aside I had some pretty bad impacted wax last year that really affected my hearing in one ear. But it caused my tinnitus to go away while it was plugged. The pure silence was very odd after having the tinnitus for several decades.