wlp5 build

[wlp5]

Thanks to people at insanelymac, tony's excellent guides, help and forum, I've called my system complete. Built from scratch, you can't hear if it's on even if you place your ear next to it. For comparison, a small fan inside one of my routers makes more noise than the whole computer. Used a 3rd-part cpu heatsink-fan, ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler , a power supply that turns off the fan 99% of the time and a fanless graphics card. Also used a OCZ Vertex SSD to hold OSX which makes opening up applications extremely fast.

Here's the main monitor, HP LP2475w , uses H-IPS panel and has beautiful colors, very similar to the new imacs.
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Secondary monitor is an old 19'' Dell which was pretty good quality in its time, good enough for secondary now.
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And everything was placed in an Antec mini p182 case which has various features to make the whole thing very silent.
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[thelostswede]

Just one question, why the crappy magic mouse?
Looks like a nice build otherwise.
Building a rig with an SSD for a mate right now, although I went with the Gen 2 Kingston V+ which is super fast and not stupidly expensive either.
Can't afford one for myself though

 

[wlp5]

I recommend to use a regular hard drive for user data and anything that needs frequent writing. If installing OSX, move the home directory to the regular hard drive as soon as possible because if you do it after installing applications some of them might get a little "confused"... A second hard drive is also great for time machine backups.

Myself, I bought a 1tb drive that holds the home directory and media as well as time machine backups and the win7 installation.

 

[auntyjamima]

very nice. i am thinking of eventually making the switch to a ssd once the prices go down. so you just have apps and system files on ssd and everything else in home directory on normal?


what 3rd party fan did you use? i have that same heatsink and it is the noisiest part of my setup right now.

 

[thelostswede]

Have you set the BIOS to automatically adjust the fan speed for you?
As the Freezer 7's are usually very quiet.

 

[auntyjamima]

you're right. i checked my bios and it's all looking good. i think it's my case fans i am hearing. it's not too bad but it could always be better.

 

[wlp5]

you're right. i checked my bios and it's all looking good. i think it's my case fans i am hearing. it's not too bad but it could always be better.

I've enabled cpu fan management in bios but it doesn't really give you a lot of options. It reports it at around 1700-1800rpm which looks a little high to me but I can't hear it at all so I'm fine with it. If it develops noise I might drop the voltage inputs using an external knob.

I've played around with the case fans, the MINI p180 (not p182 as I wrote initially) is a very quiet box. Check the review over at silentpc . http://www.silentpcreview.com/article810-page1.html All of the fans are set to low and I've played around a lot looking where to place the fans and hard drives to get cooling with minimal noise.

Your case should be very nice and can probably be made very quiet so maybe it's something else. The graphics cards are usually a source of noise. The stock fans are usually very small and noisy. In my last one, I've replaced it with an aftermarket one and that was a huge improvement. This time I've decided to go fanless since I'm not really a gamer, just like to play 2-3 games every year.

 

[auntyjamima]

ya my graphics card makes a high frequency pitched noise which it it claims not to fortunately as you said my case is very good with noise so it effectively blocks that with the case closed. there is just a constant whoosh sound from the way air flows through my case i think. i checked out my cpu fan and it makes pretty much no noise.

i think i need to experiment with the placement of my fans perhaps. right now my hard drives aren't getting any air, but they maintain safe temperatures around 93-100ËšF

not sure if i could change fans in my graphics card as it has a unique design with two small fans instead of one. i'm not sure though. maybe i will look into it.

i picked out my specs for low noise as i tend to do recording on it but i wanted to be able to play some games as well which is why i didn't go fanless.

 

[thelostswede]

You just replace the whole graphics card cooler, with something like this http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/p ... 2_&mID=105 although for your card they say to use the optional fans or it runs too hot, so not much option there.
The high pitch noise is either from the graphics card or the PSU, some of the components make that, not sure why, but I had that from both my previous PSU and graphics card...