My machine is too noisy.

[Rob Oplawar]

I have two 120 mm fans on my case and while the intake on the front is virtually silent, the exhaust fan is pretty noisy. It's plugged into the fan controller on my mobo, but I can't seem to affect the fan speed no matter which software I use- it just runs at 100% all the time.

In addition to that is my CPU, which is alas still cooled by the stock heatsink and fan that came with it. I just haven't bothered with it, but now it's time to bother. My CPU is hot and the CPU fan is noisy.

I plan to get another 8800 to put in SLI with my current one, and to get this side fan (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999811) to help keep the two of them cool, so I need a CPU heatsink that will complement a side fan, or at least won't be working against it.
(I'm assuming a side fan would be an exhaust fan; correct me if I'm wrong).

So, I need either a new, quieter 120 mm exhaust fan or I need to figure out how to get it to run slower, and I need a new CPU heatsink that is quiet and provides good cooling. I've got a Q6600 that I intend to overclock once I've got a good heatsink on it.

I want this system reasonably cool and reasonably powerful, but right now my biggest concern is that it be quiet.

*thinks about it for a moment* I'm willing to consider switching to water cooling- any suggestions on that? A friend of mine has a water-cooled pc- at first I thought "oh cool, silent", but then I saw the thing, and the water cooling system is cooled by the two noisiest fans you've ever seen.

So, what say you, Modacity?

[Abdurahman]

Maybe you should just get better, quieter fans from newegg.


That side fan would help, but don't put too many fans in there because that would hurt the airflow and cooling.

[Rob Oplawar]

yah, what I was asking is what kind of fans and what kind of heatsink would you recommend getting? I looked at fans and heatsinks on newegg and compared specs and reviews, and neither seem to be very accurate. I've seen fans that are supposed to be quiet that really aren't, and fans that don't move nearly as much air as they say. And the reviews on all fans are about the same- half the reviewers say "Omg noisy" while the other half say "it's completely silent".

[Abdurahman]

Well just look at the decibels on the fans. If its pretty low, like under 25, then it's pretty good. It all depends on the ambient noise. Is there a lot of noise coming from the house and the street, or is it completely silent?

[Patrickssj6]

Go with the Cool 'n Quite option in AMD..oh wait. :P

There has to be something similar for Intel...clocks down the processor and reduces fan speed when idle.

[ima_from_America]

Like Abdurahman said, look on newegg or something.
I never really cared how loud my computer was. I just turned the volume up louder to drown out all of the ungodly sounds coming from whatever was living inside of the case.

[Rob Oplawar]

I do a lot of web browsing with no background music or anything, and my neighborhood is pretty quiet. I just don't like the fact that my computer is making all that whirring noise- especially since back when it was a stock XPS is was virtually silent.

Another thought on the CPU heatsink- I have a nVidia 680i, and those idiots at EVGA put a bunch of microscopic chips on the bottom of the mobo right underneath the CPU socket.
Naw, they're not idiots, and I'm brand-loyal to EVGA, but nonetheless, I can't use any heatsink that requires a bracket on the back because those damn chips are in the way. So the heatsink has to rest completely on the front.

[ExAm]

I have to stand my side intake fan off with cardboard or else it buzzes :downs:

[Rob Oplawar]

A friend of mine is a music recorder and editor. He has a recording studio and everything.
Anyway, it's absolutely vital that his computer be completely silent.

So his computer is solid state.

I mean seriously, the case is just a giant block of aluminum with fins cut into it- it's just one massive heatsink. No fans or moving parts of any kind. No optical drives or anything like that. The hard drives are solid state- flash based, I believe.

Goddamn that thing is cool.