@@ExplainingComputers I found it interesting, even if I cannot really use any of what you did. I have a Raspberry Pi, and an Optiplex 7050 Thinclient, so there would be limits to what I could possibly do in terms of noise reduction. But this is a great topic for a lot of people, and fully applaud you doing it. And thanks for the video.
Nice insights into CPU vs. PSU for sources of noise. Silence is one of those things it's hard to appreciate until you lose it. I moved my media NAS from an all-solid-state, passively-cooled Pi to a Synology with CMR mechanical drives and the spin-up of disks and, to a lesser extent, the fan is very noticeable. If only flash storage was as cheap per GB as spinning rust!
A quiet PC is always my first consideration when buying or building a new computer. I have used passive heatsinks and liquid cooled solutions in the past, but the power supply fan has always been an issue. Very informative, thank you. Look forward to your next video.
Tout est tellement simplifié avec ses vidéos, depuis le temps que je suis, j’adore franchement 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾. J’ai réussi à changé beaucoup de composant de mon ancien ordinateur grâce à ses vidéos. Milles merci 🙏🏾
I just installed a Noctua NHS-U9S in one of my rigs after upgrading the CPU. It's a good idea to spread out and separate all the parts like you did as there is so many different configurations for all the different CPUs. So many parts! It's quieter and cooler than the stock Intel cooler and I'm very happy to see it well reviewed here. Thank you!
@@Thaumazo Depends where you look. Apple has started the process off with ARM, and I reckon most tech companies will follow in the energy efficiency route soon enough. NVidia are just a little behind the times, i think.
Great video :) As someone who has been building quiet PC's for my clients for many years, I have had excellent results from the Noctua NH-U12S, which is the same as the one used in this video, except it uses a standard 120mm size fan. The larger fan also allows it to run at a lower RPM.
Before there were "silent" fans or at least Before I knew about them, I had an Apple G4 tower that got some "sound/noise treatment". This "treatment" included application of adhesive foam pads to internal metal panels to eliminate panel resonance. In addition, the power supply had a fan grill with a hole pattern that was causing noise from the airflow over the grill guard. Removed that with a Dremel tool. The overall noise reduction was dramatic!!! 😁👍🏻
That would have been around the same era as the ridiculous "lampshade" iMac... They didn't care what was practical, maintainable or well designed, so long as it looked cool and got people's attention. If it pissed the user off, who cares? As long as someone walking into the office saw the "cool" look and the big Apple logo, they potentially gained a new user.
I'm Glad You Took A Closer Look At 7:14! Even Though I've Changed Many Fans On Many Computers For Many Years It Was Cool Watching You Do It, You're A Master Instructor!!
On solution I've used at times for the audio problem - stick the computer in another room and run cables. Some things are easy to get right with this like keyboards and mice. But anything that's sensitive to long cables (Hi-speed USB 3.x, 4k video, analog audio) needs a little more planning.
Minimum sound level (2:10): I was wondering how low the NIOSH sound level meter on the iPhone goes, and discover it also only goes down to 30dB. I discover there is a reason, which is that this is about the sound level of a quiet room, so unless you're going to compute in an anechoic chamber there's not much point in measuring lower. Always glad to see content on keeping computers quiet.
I had just added a new power supply to my computer and was wondering if I had made the right choice. Getting to the end of your video confirmed I had. Exactly the same make and model. Other than initial start up, I have had no fan noise yet. Thank you for your straightforward, well explained and informative videos.
It is refreshing to see at least one company making a quality product, Noctua. On my last pc build a few years ago I used a Noctua CPU fan and it continues to run as well as new. OTOH, all the fans on the Raidmax case I used have gone bad. I did read the bad reviews but like the case design and anticipated having to replace them. Which I did.
Hey, CB! I want to compliment your excellent filming angles! Your production is on par with people who have professional film crews. Keep up the good job!
Usually, that is true for normal power signals. But here, we're talking about dB(A) which uses a kind of filter (type A) that matches the way humans perceive loudness. Adding 10dB(A) (not 3dB) is perceived as a doubling of noise. Edit: Not so sure now, I read the "A" in the display as the filter type but it might also stand for "absolute". Couldn't find a manual.
Ah yes I'm very happy with my own quiet PC. Now I can sit at my desk and work with only the sound of my neighbours arguing, several dogs trying to out-bark each other, a flock of gulls squabbling over old bread, the other neighbours hammering and drilling into the dividing wall, kids thundering up and down the road on scooters, squawking and squealing all the while. Ahhhh.. it was certainly worth the couple hundred quid I wasted on my PC's minuscule noise output! Thank god that irritating, consistent low pitch fan hum is gone.
Another great one Chris! It is so well researched and presented. A help to us every day PC users who don't have water cooled LED monstrosities! Hope the algorithm picks up on your stuff again. Sorry I did not do my part by watching it sooner. Cheers!
Another interesting video from Chris @ EC, I've recently added an Noctua case fan to my 11 year old PC and it's certainly made a difference to the noise, Noctua fans are well made & packed. I'm looking forward to your next video in this series. :)
A couple of things you could try if your going to keep the chassis fan, replace the screws with rubber fan mounts they can make a big difference for little cost. Using a Dremel to remove the chassis honeycomb holes will make the airflow so much better
I guess we shall see a case replacement. That is a cheap case with thin sheet metal, and something more solid would help absorb vibrations and would result in lower resonance.
The noise level meter is showing a pretty impressive result with a 7 dB noise reduction. A 30 dB ambient noise is not enough to disturb the sleep and you're almost there at less than 1 meter of the computer. When I built my main computer, I was a bit short on budget. Stock cooler for the processor and Be!Quiet fans for the case were a bit more affordable choice than Noctua solutions. It's a quiet setup but not a silent one. I may consider to upgrade my rig now. Can't wait for the last upgrades video. Cheers.
A good quiet fan/cooler setup Chris and it has its advantages. When I build my PC a few years ago I was convinced to install a water cooler. It’s very quiet and keep the CPU cool even when I’m over clocking my Ryzen 7 2700. The downside, I was told that it’s not a good idea to keep your computer running all the time. But to turn it off after your finished for the day just in case you have a leak! I follow this advice but it’s annoying having to turn on the computer every time I need it.
I have a water cooler and have not heard about powering down at the end of the day because of this?! I tend to keep my PC running 24/7 these days. I have had to replace the water cooler once as the fan/pump stopped working. (I don’t think I’ll bother with a water cooler in my next PC though.)
A very justified video, Chris, double-thumbs up for covering such a contentious subject; no-one wants a jet engine near their ear canals. Granted, it is a mountain to climb to get even anywhere close to zero noise. Even the chassis design itself can be the achilles heel; mine can stay totally silent, but only for so long as heat builds up on the heatsink before the motherboard starts the CPU fan and keeps it on from that point onwards. There are a few other possible, yet more complicated, ways to get the CPU temperature down during idle periods whilst keeping the CPU at the ready for a sudden burst in workload. One option is to enable deeper C-States for Intel CPUs in the UEFI/BIOS. Some motherboards treat "auto" as disabled, so a setting of "No Limit", if it is offered, is the best in my opinion since it uses whatever the processor reports it is naturally capable of. One thing I could say if anyone is looking for "extra reading", is to look into the powercfg.exe utility that is included in Windows, because it exposes additional-yet-significant settings not typically displayed in any GUI; you can query this information with "powercfg.exe -qh". One trick I use is "Core Parking" within Windows, which makes the kernel spread app workloads across fewer cores under light and medium loads and deep-sleeps the rest, also the silicon in those sleeping cores can sink away some heat from the active ones. Though, this is a bit of a more controversial one as core-parking can interfere with some timing-sensitive apps like games with increased frame-stuttering; but, in office/corporate or home-server environments, it wouldn't be as noticeable and will certainly help with the electric bill. The way I look at things from a physics perspective is that fewer, busier cores, have less heat-dispersal requirements than more, less-laden ones. Though, it goes without saying that mileages will vary. I installed my cooler with the fins oriented vertically to aid natural convection since heat rises.
@@ExplainingComputers No worries; for the timing of this video coincides with circumstances when we all need to be energy-conscious so as to not leaving holes in our wallets; every watt matters now more than it ever has been.
I've been running an entirely fanless & quiet desktop for over two years now, using an undervolted Ryzen APU (3400G) with PBO disabled, an Alpine AM4 Passive CPU cooler, and a 120W PicoPSU, all in an mITX case made of plywood (with large, grated holes at the top, bottom, and one of the sides). It idles around 45°C, hovers around 55°C-60°C under low loads, and goes above 80°C (but stays under 90°C) when gaming or compiling. I'm altogether pleased with how it worked out, although there's room for improvement.
I saw that Alpine cooler and it looks very nice, though it now seems to have disappeared from the market. :( Sounds like you have had great success with it.
@@ExplainingComputers It was excellent value for the price, shame it's no longer available. On the subject of passive cooling I recommend the YT channel “Fully Silent PCs”, by the way. He deals with more ambitious setups than mine and has a number of videos where he extensively tests different configurations (e.g. fin orientation of passive heatsinks).
@@PPAChao One thing I've noticed is that nothing beats copper for passive cooling. I have some copper slugs with fins (probably from a Xeon server) that I use as quick-and-dirty heatsinks when I need to test but am not ready to mount a regular cooler, and they work better than the fan-and-cooler. Also replaced the aluminum cooler on one of my AMDs with one that's all copper, and... 20 degrees difference, with a much slower fan.
I use the original Ryzen 5 2400G cooler on the CPU. But the case I have came with an Aerocool cooler pre-mounted. And I also have a Chinese PSU. (the brand is Aigo.) (I have no dedicated GPU) I can assure you that I've never had a quieter computer in my life. I absolutely can't hear it working. It's fantastic.
£62? oof. That's what I paid for my Noctua U12a, which I choose over everything else including Noctua's own D15s; as nothing else had the low sound and performance that would fit in my case. I use a 16 core in a rather compact midtower to archive h265 content. Great video as always.
A very nice piece of kit indeed. I have 4 of them, and wouldn't want any other cpu cooler anymore... the only issue is the amount of space it requires.
years ago i built in a passive cpu cooler and am using it until today. additionally i built in a passive power supply and of course removed the old hdd in exchange with an ssd. result is an absolute zero noise pc.even gaming and video editing do not result in overheating. silent pc's are the best.
You have the gift of the gab sir. I just get abuse when I talk to my CPU. Interesting amount of thermal compound used. I use so much, the CPU looks like an icing topped Bakewell tart.
I love mine. I have it bolted to an i9-13900T (in a mini-ITX build), and I haven't seen the fan go over 1,000rpms yet. And when I ran Cinebench r23, the CPU package temp maxed out at 62.5°C 👍
Christopher, it's really useful that you've listed reminders of the previous upgrades in the section above. 👍🏻 Interesting that you rejected passive CPU cooling because of the additional case fans required. I've usually found that a large case fan (say, 120mm+) tends to be a lot quieter that the smaller ones simply because it doesn't need to spin as fast. That said though, you're not working on the fanciest case in the world, so your locations for case fans appear to be a bit limited. Never a criticism of what you do of course, and you did show us plenty of alternatives too!
I wish I had Mr.Bernatt as my teacher back in my school days. I would've learned a lot more stuff, really lol. I dont know, the way he speaks and explain stuff just makes me wanna learn more 😂
Noctua fans are excellent, even their budget redux ones. Bought an NF-P12 redux to replace the fan that came with my Thermaltake Contac 12 heatsink and it's pretty surreal to be able to overclock and stress test my Ryzen 1600AF with barely any noticeable noise coming from the case. Really like that old case as I prefer the 'sleeper' look. Ordinary, boring looking case hiding rather strong hardware is always cool :D.
Great to see hard numbers. Since dB is a log scale, that's quite a lot of noise reduction. And convenient of that case to have the back-of-CPU window; many don't! When the BIOS lacks fan control, I use an inline rheostat (with an external control knob) to set fan speed just below the threshold-of-notice, around half speed. My old Enermax PSUs have their own external fan control, which I set similarly. Which reminds me, I have a dead PSU that I need to cannibalize for its very quiet fans. :)
About 5 years ago my wife bought a CHILLBLAST I5 desktop computer. The case is made by Cooler Master and I think there are four fans inside, three at the front and one at the back. Air is drawn through a "silencer", a hard foam panel which forms an openable door on the front. It is incredibly quite in normal use though what it is like when she is shopping online I'm not so sure!
Thanks for this! I've got an i9-9820x that puts out a lot of heat when working hard and the Intel cooler is obnoxiously loud and high-pitched. Worse, even after fiddling with the motherboard settings it still tended to *constantly* rev up and down. I had thought about replacing it with something bigger and quieter but it sounded like too much effort, but after seeing this video I figured seems easy enough. I got an NH-D12L and the temps under full load dropped about 16C and it's nearly silent! The Intel fan was clearly audible from out in the hallway outside the room the computer is in even with the computer idle!
Larger slower speed fans are always quieter than small fast ones. I believe DIY Perks made a non-standard case with very large fans and managed to get a lot of air movement.
I've been using Noctua case fans and CPU coolers for over a decade now. I'm definitely of the opinion that there are no better air-coolers on the market. I've never had one fail. Yes, they're pricey. But you absolutely get what you pay for in this instance.
Fan unboxing series, I like it 😁 Sometimes it is not even the noise level itself but kind of frequency it makes. I put quiet 92mm fan into my 20yr old Dell 500SC but after looking into specs I think I'll look for something better. CFM on silent fan is 3 times lower that on factory fan.
The perception of noise is a combination of frequency and sound pressure. The 120mm fan creates sound at a lower frequency than the small, high rpm stock cooler. This reduces the noise perception even if the sound pressure is the same.
Great video. Even after spending that kind of money, the noise persists. My solution is to keep the CPU in the closet or in the next room and route cables and connectors of display and USB through the walls. The only problem is we cannot change the position of work table.
I received one of those screwdriver bars although not the same and printed a handle for it and glued it on with epoxy resin, it comes in handy for screws that need to be very tight, I am surprised how long it has lasted as I half expected it to be made of very cheap steel that would deform when tightening screws
i had a flashback to the days of my DEC PDP11/45 and Perkin-Elmer 3250 ... The days of Register Lights, Switches and airflow , with tape drives spinning, Multi-platter hard drives seeking. When you KNEW your computer was running. Now most PCs don't even have a CD drive that you can press a button to see if power is up. Just assume the system is running, I guess...
Noctua fans are very good. I have NH-D15 with one fan replaced with A12x25. Good sound-cooling ratio. They have fans for different tasks. CPU/gaming or universal/case fan.
I love my Noctua NH-D155 Chromax Black (Dual-Tower) CPU Cooler. I have it mounted on my AMD Ryzen 9 5900x CPU. It makes my PC very quiet. As I watch this video the CPU (Tdie) temp is a nice +39.6°C with an ambient room temperature of 72.3°F (22.4°C). It keeps my office very quiet, and you rarely hear any noise coming from my desktop PC. If I play a game, the CPU fan and temperature does ramp up a little, but it is always significantly quieter than the fans on my EVGA RTX 2070 GPU. It's a great silent CPU cooler. Be warned though: it's physical size is rather beastly. I would not attempt to mount a cooler such as this in a small case!
I built a quiet PC in December of last year. I wound up starting with a lower power i5 processor but also faced the choice of a quiet fan vs. passive cooling. I went with the former and while the machine inst silent, it's no louder than ambient noise in the room even when rendering video. It's certainly quieter than my laptop which is pretty quiet itself.
In the pursuit of having a silent pc i noticed how much noise a hard drive makes and it was a lot more than i anticipated. This is going to be expensive with cpu cooler, case fan, psu and full ssd
@@mikem9536 Actually, a lot of the high performance and server hard drives are louder than the consumer drives. I have some server drives here and boy you can sure tell whenever the OS spins one up. Conversely, the quietest drives I've seen were those crappy Maxtors that liked to die one day out of warranty. Remember when Seagates (very loud in the old days) suddenly got quiet? Those were rebadged Maxtors.
16:59 That is The Problem with silencing a PC - once you silence one component, you will begin to audible notice some other. Oh, how the fun just never stops...
A problem with this sort of aftermarket cooler is that instead of sucking cool air into the case via the inlet tube, the fan is re-circulating warm internal air unless the case itself has an exhaust fan. It would have been interesting to measure the internal air temperature before and after fitting the new fan. The old fan just spat out the air into the case as well, but at least it always had cooler external air available. Also, with an inlet tube directly leading to the old fan it was always going to be noisier near the inlet. The new fan's noise is less focused. For me, soundproofing 101 is fit sound absorbing material inside the case.
This case does have an exhaust fan -- nicely in line with the cooler. And the PC now also has a front intake fan, so there is nice flow of airflow moving between all three fans.
Quiet computers... interesting topic, and a surprise! Looking forward to watching all of it!
Thanks. This video gets us half way. I finshed making Part II yesterday, and am very pleased with the final results! :)
@@ExplainingComputers I found it interesting, even if I cannot really use any of what you did. I have a Raspberry Pi, and an Optiplex 7050 Thinclient, so there would be limits to what I could possibly do in terms of noise reduction.
But this is a great topic for a lot of people, and fully applaud you doing it. And thanks for the video.
Nice insights into CPU vs. PSU for sources of noise.
Silence is one of those things it's hard to appreciate until you lose it. I moved my media NAS from an all-solid-state, passively-cooled Pi to a Synology with CMR mechanical drives and the spin-up of disks and, to a lesser extent, the fan is very noticeable. If only flash storage was as cheap per GB as spinning rust!
A quiet PC is always my first consideration when buying or building a new computer. I have used passive heatsinks and liquid cooled solutions in the past, but the power supply fan has always been an issue. Very informative, thank you. Look forward to your next video.
Seasonic has some fanless power supplies up to 700w.
Tout est tellement simplifié avec ses vidéos, depuis le temps que je suis, j’adore franchement 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾.
J’ai réussi à changé beaucoup de composant de mon ancien ordinateur grâce à ses vidéos. Milles merci 🙏🏾
I’m in awe of how lovely and clean the inside of your PC is!
Electric PC dust blowers are amazing things . . .
I always enjoy hardware-related videos, and this one did not disappoint. Thanks Chris.
I just installed a Noctua NHS-U9S in one of my rigs after upgrading the CPU. It's a good idea to spread out and separate all the parts like you did as there is so many different configurations for all the different CPUs. So many parts! It's quieter and cooler than the stock Intel cooler and I'm very happy to see it well reviewed here. Thank you!
Ya know - it takes a special kind of person to make upgrading a fan interesting. Cheers Chris!
:)
Happiness is an air cooled, silent PC and I've got the same issue with a PSU which is louder than my PC. Another great video.
Quiet and energy efficient seems to be the way the market is moving. I, for one, am pleased. Another great video, Chris! :)
Nvidia just introduced a 600w GPU.
@@sleepywatcher3528 At 600 watts, it seems like a dud.
The market is doing the complete opposite.
@@Thaumazo Depends where you look. Apple has started the process off with ARM, and I reckon most tech companies will follow in the energy efficiency route soon enough. NVidia are just a little behind the times, i think.
@@zebrasprite - The market is definitely taking it's time to transition but GPU's will always be high powered.
Thank you. This is one of my favourite subjects. I look forward to seeing the difference the new power supply makes.
Great video :) As someone who has been building quiet PC's for my clients for many years, I have had excellent results from the Noctua NH-U12S, which is the same as the one used in this video, except it uses a standard 120mm size fan. The larger fan also allows it to run at a lower RPM.
Cool & quiet, that's the ticket. Looking forward to the second video on this. Thanks for another great video Chris.
Thanks Steve. :)
also looking forward to the rest of this series! reducing noise is really important for me but i can always hear it whirring away.
Before there were "silent" fans or at least Before I knew about them, I had an Apple G4 tower that got some "sound/noise treatment". This "treatment" included application of adhesive foam pads to internal metal panels to eliminate panel resonance. In addition, the power supply had a fan grill with a hole pattern that was causing noise from the airflow over the grill guard. Removed that with a Dremel tool. The overall noise reduction was dramatic!!! 😁👍🏻
That would have been around the same era as the ridiculous "lampshade" iMac... They didn't care what was practical, maintainable or well designed, so long as it looked cool and got people's attention. If it pissed the user off, who cares? As long as someone walking into the office saw the "cool" look and the big Apple logo, they potentially gained a new user.
@@tin2001 Yeah, Apple still doesn't care m8. Just look at the Apple Studio Display or the Mac Studio.
I had a G5 Tower with a dodgy PSU. It sounded like a Vulcan bomber with full afterburners …
I'm Glad You Took A Closer Look At 7:14! Even Though I've Changed Many Fans On Many Computers For Many Years It Was Cool Watching You Do It, You're A Master Instructor!!
On solution I've used at times for the audio problem - stick the computer in another room and run cables. Some things are easy to get right with this like keyboards and mice. But anything that's sensitive to long cables (Hi-speed USB 3.x, 4k video, analog audio) needs a little more planning.
Yes, I've played the long cables game! :)
@@ExplainingComputers "Game" is the right term.
Sunday, Sunday my favorite day, because of your videos. As Always, Be Smart and Stay Safe.
Minimum sound level (2:10): I was wondering how low the NIOSH sound level meter on the iPhone goes, and discover it also only goes down to 30dB. I discover there is a reason, which is that this is about the sound level of a quiet room, so unless you're going to compute in an anechoic chamber there's not much point in measuring lower. Always glad to see content on keeping computers quiet.
I had just added a new power supply to my computer and was wondering if I had made the right choice. Getting to the end of your video confirmed I had. Exactly the same make and model. Other than initial start up, I have had no fan noise yet. Thank you for your straightforward, well explained and informative videos.
This is great to hear. I too have no fan noise, other than on startup -- it does not kick in until 220W draw. :)
Very useful information that I will pass on to someone who is looking to decrease noise level from their PC. Have a good day.
It is refreshing to see at least one company making a quality product, Noctua. On my last pc build a few years ago I used a Noctua CPU fan and it continues to run as well as new. OTOH, all the fans on the Raidmax case I used have gone bad. I did read the bad reviews but like the case design and anticipated having to replace them. Which I did.
Happy to see a new PC build video! Some of my favorite content that you do!
Hey, CB! I want to compliment your excellent filming angles! Your production is on par with people who have professional film crews. Keep up the good job!
Many thanks. :)
Thank you very much, Chris - this is precisely the type of video I like to watch!
Interesting topic, I'm very interested in quiet PCs. These are awesome videos, Chris. I hit the like button before I even watch them.
Much appreciated!
Thank you so much for another great video! Whenever you upload, I always like to see what you are up to.
Thanks for watching. :)
good timing! I'm about to do likewise. Good luck with the power supply and case fans
Might already have been said, but a3db increase is actually a doubling of noise output 👍
Yes, and has not been said! Very important.
Usually, that is true for normal power signals. But here, we're talking about dB(A) which uses a kind of filter (type A) that matches the way humans perceive loudness.
Adding 10dB(A) (not 3dB) is perceived as a doubling of noise.
Edit: Not so sure now, I read the "A" in the display as the filter type but it might also stand for "absolute". Couldn't find a manual.
The use of 3 or 6 db for .5/2 X has always confused me, the explanations confuse me more. ‘It is obviously _N_ X for (jargon scenario), easy’.
Ah yes I'm very happy with my own quiet PC. Now I can sit at my desk and work with only the sound of my neighbours arguing, several dogs trying to out-bark each other, a flock of gulls squabbling over old bread, the other neighbours hammering and drilling into the dividing wall, kids thundering up and down the road on scooters, squawking and squealing all the while.
Ahhhh.. it was certainly worth the couple hundred quid I wasted on my PC's minuscule noise output! Thank god that irritating, consistent low pitch fan hum is gone.
I spent similar time and money just to realise the noise was actually a clock ticking
🤣🤣🤣
White Noise is quite beneficial when you're trying to get to sleep!!!🤭🤫
Hardware, love hardware. Very informative. Thanks. “Here some parts should be left over.” 😊 they’ll be filling SLS this afternoon local KSC time. 👍
A drop of 6db at idle, that represents a sound level reduction of about 75%, so not bad at all.
Yet another outstanding video, thanks Chris.
Thanks Spike.
Another great one Chris! It is so well researched and presented. A help to us every day PC users who don't have water cooled LED monstrosities! Hope the algorithm picks up on your stuff again. Sorry I did not do my part by watching it sooner. Cheers!
Thanks for this. Sadly the algorithm seems to be passing me by at the moment. :(
Another interesting video from Chris @ EC, I've recently added an Noctua case fan to my 11 year old PC and it's certainly made a difference to the noise, Noctua fans are well made & packed. I'm looking forward to your next video in this series. :)
I love that you’re using this old case. :D
Thanks. :)
That case look almost the same as a case I brought many years ago from Newegg. Not sure when it started but newer cases have bottom mounted PSU.
Yet another flawless video, Sir Chris. 👍
I could watch you unbox and install new hardware all day 😄
:)
A couple of things you could try if your going to keep the chassis fan, replace the screws with rubber fan mounts they can make a big difference for little cost. Using a Dremel to remove the chassis honeycomb holes will make the airflow so much better
Good tips, but the back fan has now been replaced with a larger Noctua, and there's also now a 120mm one at the front! :)
Great video! Looking forward to the next noise improvement solution!
Thanks. The results in the second part are more impressive! :)
I guess we shall see a case replacement. That is a cheap case with thin sheet metal, and something more solid would help absorb vibrations and would result in lower resonance.
Your videos feels like retro and a modern at the same time
:)
Great walkthrough of the process 👍
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
No problem 👍
Nice relaxing video, can't help thinking the days of PC's in metal boxes are numbered.
Yes, I'm sure you are right -- big-box PCs are going to become more and more of a niche product. Sadly. :(
12:14 “Come on clip”
Clippy: “It looks like your trying to remove a fan. Do you need help with that?”
The noise level meter is showing a pretty impressive result with a 7 dB noise reduction. A 30 dB ambient noise is not enough to disturb the sleep and you're almost there at less than 1 meter of the computer.
When I built my main computer, I was a bit short on budget. Stock cooler for the processor and Be!Quiet fans for the case were a bit more affordable choice than Noctua solutions. It's a quiet setup but not a silent one.
I may consider to upgrade my rig now. Can't wait for the last upgrades video.
Cheers.
After you mentioned about noise from the power supply, I might look into replacing the fan on mine.
A good quiet fan/cooler setup Chris and it has its advantages.
When I build my PC a few years ago I was convinced to install a water cooler. It’s very quiet and keep the CPU cool even when I’m over clocking my Ryzen 7 2700.
The downside, I was told that it’s not a good idea to keep your computer running all the time. But to turn it off after your finished for the day just in case you have a leak!
I follow this advice but it’s annoying having to turn on the computer every time I need it.
I have a water cooler and have not heard about powering down at the end of the day because of this?! I tend to keep my PC running 24/7 these days. I have had to replace the water cooler once as the fan/pump stopped working. (I don’t think I’ll bother with a water cooler in my next PC though.)
A very justified video, Chris, double-thumbs up for covering such a contentious subject; no-one wants a jet engine near their ear canals. Granted, it is a mountain to climb to get even anywhere close to zero noise. Even the chassis design itself can be the achilles heel; mine can stay totally silent, but only for so long as heat builds up on the heatsink before the motherboard starts the CPU fan and keeps it on from that point onwards.
There are a few other possible, yet more complicated, ways to get the CPU temperature down during idle periods whilst keeping the CPU at the ready for a sudden burst in workload. One option is to enable deeper C-States for Intel CPUs in the UEFI/BIOS. Some motherboards treat "auto" as disabled, so a setting of "No Limit", if it is offered, is the best in my opinion since it uses whatever the processor reports it is naturally capable of.
One thing I could say if anyone is looking for "extra reading", is to look into the powercfg.exe utility that is included in Windows, because it exposes additional-yet-significant settings not typically displayed in any GUI; you can query this information with "powercfg.exe -qh".
One trick I use is "Core Parking" within Windows, which makes the kernel spread app workloads across fewer cores under light and medium loads and deep-sleeps the rest, also the silicon in those sleeping cores can sink away some heat from the active ones. Though, this is a bit of a more controversial one as core-parking can interfere with some timing-sensitive apps like games with increased frame-stuttering; but, in office/corporate or home-server environments, it wouldn't be as noticeable and will certainly help with the electric bill.
The way I look at things from a physics perspective is that fewer, busier cores, have less heat-dispersal requirements than more, less-laden ones. Though, it goes without saying that mileages will vary. I installed my cooler with the fins oriented vertically to aid natural convection since heat rises.
Great post, thanks for sharing.
@@ExplainingComputers No worries; for the timing of this video coincides with circumstances when we all need to be energy-conscious so as to not leaving holes in our wallets; every watt matters now more than it ever has been.
I've been running an entirely fanless & quiet desktop for over two years now, using an undervolted Ryzen APU (3400G) with PBO disabled, an Alpine AM4 Passive CPU cooler, and a 120W PicoPSU, all in an mITX case made of plywood (with large, grated holes at the top, bottom, and one of the sides).
It idles around 45°C, hovers around 55°C-60°C under low loads, and goes above 80°C (but stays under 90°C) when gaming or compiling. I'm altogether pleased with how it worked out, although there's room for improvement.
I saw that Alpine cooler and it looks very nice, though it now seems to have disappeared from the market. :( Sounds like you have had great success with it.
@@ExplainingComputers It was excellent value for the price, shame it's no longer available.
On the subject of passive cooling I recommend the YT channel “Fully Silent PCs”, by the way. He deals with more ambitious setups than mine and has a number of videos where he extensively tests different configurations (e.g. fin orientation of passive heatsinks).
@@PPAChao One thing I've noticed is that nothing beats copper for passive cooling. I have some copper slugs with fins (probably from a Xeon server) that I use as quick-and-dirty heatsinks when I need to test but am not ready to mount a regular cooler, and they work better than the fan-and-cooler.
Also replaced the aluminum cooler on one of my AMDs with one that's all copper, and... 20 degrees difference, with a much slower fan.
I use the original Ryzen 5 2400G cooler on the CPU.
But the case I have came with an Aerocool cooler pre-mounted.
And I also have a Chinese PSU. (the brand is Aigo.)
(I have no dedicated GPU)
I can assure you that I've never had a quieter computer in my life.
I absolutely can't hear it working.
It's fantastic.
£62? oof.
That's what I paid for my Noctua U12a, which I choose over everything else including Noctua's own D15s;
as nothing else had the low sound and performance that would fit in my case.
I use a 16 core in a rather compact midtower to archive h265 content. Great video as always.
A very nice piece of kit indeed. I have 4 of them, and wouldn't want any other cpu cooler anymore... the only issue is the amount of space it requires.
I’m a fan of the channel, but I’m not very quiet. Looking forward to your next video!
Greeting Perry! :)
Bummer, Mr. Scissors and Stanley did not get to participate in this PC Upgrade. They were just Spectators.
Looking forward to the next video
While you're making quiet, good for night time computers. My PC sounds like a jet engine about to burn my house down. WITH A LEMON!
Your PC looks cleaner than FAB PC . Unbelievable! Oh my dog.
:)
great video. look forward to next episode
The Noctua coolers are great! I replaced my AIO liquid cooler with the NH-U12S redux, and I am quite happy with it.
Fans (especially Noctua ones) are much more reliable than water pumps too.
@@johnm2012 True... I have all Noctua in my computers....
A nice PC without any RGB. I thought I was the only one! Lol! A nice sight!
:)
years ago i built in a passive cpu cooler and am using it until today. additionally i built in a passive power supply and of course removed the old hdd in exchange with an ssd. result is an absolute zero noise pc.even gaming and video editing do not result in overheating. silent pc's are the best.
That's one thing I'm enjoying about my M1 Macs. They're all dead quiet despite performing on par with Intel's and AMD's latest CPUs.
You have the gift of the gab sir. I just get abuse when I talk to my CPU. Interesting amount of thermal compound used. I use so much, the CPU looks like an icing topped Bakewell tart.
Thanks for this. I was concerned that I squeezed out too much thermal compound! :) Noctua say a "3-4mm pea".
@@ExplainingComputers Yes, Colgate recommends the same volume :)
I love mine. I have it bolted to an i9-13900T (in a mini-ITX build), and I haven't seen the fan go over 1,000rpms yet.
And when I ran Cinebench r23, the CPU package temp maxed out at 62.5°C 👍
Hello. It's EC Sunday.
Just got the notification, saw noctua and clicked it.
Excellent! Greetings on a Sunday. :)
Christopher, it's really useful that you've listed reminders of the previous upgrades in the section above. 👍🏻
Interesting that you rejected passive CPU cooling because of the additional case fans required. I've usually found that a large case fan (say, 120mm+) tends to be a lot quieter that the smaller ones simply because it doesn't need to spin as fast. That said though, you're not working on the fanciest case in the world, so your locations for case fans appear to be a bit limited.
Never a criticism of what you do of course, and you did show us plenty of alternatives too!
I wish I had Mr.Bernatt as my teacher back in my school days. I would've learned a lot more stuff, really lol. I dont know, the way he speaks and explain stuff just makes me wanna learn more 😂
Noctua fans are excellent, even their budget redux ones. Bought an NF-P12 redux to replace the fan that came with my Thermaltake Contac 12 heatsink and it's pretty surreal to be able to overclock and stress test my Ryzen 1600AF with barely any noticeable noise coming from the case. Really like that old case as I prefer the 'sleeper' look. Ordinary, boring looking case hiding rather strong hardware is always cool :D.
I run Nocturas throughout my builds
Great to see hard numbers. Since dB is a log scale, that's quite a lot of noise reduction.
And convenient of that case to have the back-of-CPU window; many don't!
When the BIOS lacks fan control, I use an inline rheostat (with an external control knob) to set fan speed just below the threshold-of-notice, around half speed. My old Enermax PSUs have their own external fan control, which I set similarly.
Which reminds me, I have a dead PSU that I need to cannibalize for its very quiet fans. :)
About 5 years ago my wife bought a CHILLBLAST I5 desktop computer. The case is made by Cooler Master and I think there are four fans inside, three at the front and one at the back. Air is drawn through a "silencer", a hard foam panel which forms an openable door on the front. It is incredibly quite in normal use though what it is like when she is shopping online I'm not so sure!
As always v practical and helpful. Thank you
Bro what!!?!? This guy is the best!
Thanks for this! I've got an i9-9820x that puts out a lot of heat when working hard and the Intel cooler is obnoxiously loud and high-pitched. Worse, even after fiddling with the motherboard settings it still tended to *constantly* rev up and down. I had thought about replacing it with something bigger and quieter but it sounded like too much effort, but after seeing this video I figured seems easy enough. I got an NH-D12L and the temps under full load dropped about 16C and it's nearly silent! The Intel fan was clearly audible from out in the hallway outside the room the computer is in even with the computer idle!
Great to hear about your success with an NH-D12L. :)
Larger slower speed fans are always quieter than small fast ones. I believe DIY Perks made a non-standard case with very large fans and managed to get a lot of air movement.
I've been using Noctua case fans and CPU coolers for over a decade now. I'm definitely of the opinion that there are no better air-coolers on the market. I've never had one fail. Yes, they're pricey. But you absolutely get what you pay for in this instance.
Agreed.
Hi, i didn't expect this video to be out right now
Clocks keep changing around the world -- they are messing with time! :)
Fan unboxing series, I like it 😁
Sometimes it is not even the noise level itself but kind of frequency it makes. I put quiet 92mm fan into my 20yr old Dell 500SC but after looking into specs I think I'll look for something better. CFM on silent fan is 3 times lower that on factory fan.
You are so right -- the frequency is just as important.
Great video here, no surprises!
That's some serious packaging design - cardboard engineering at its finest!
Love your phrase "cardboard engineering". :)
Regular maintenance on the fans can make a huge difference. Just leave one for a few months then look at the mess!
Yes, it is amazing how they gather dust and muck.
The perception of noise is a combination of frequency and sound pressure. The 120mm fan creates sound at a lower frequency than the small, high rpm stock cooler. This reduces the noise perception even if the sound pressure is the same.
I believe this cooler uses a 92mm fan, which I don't see all too often nowadays.
Great video. Even after spending that kind of money, the noise persists. My solution is to keep the CPU in the closet or in the next room and route cables and connectors of display and USB through the walls. The only problem is we cannot change the position of work table.
I received one of those screwdriver bars although not the same and printed a handle for it and glued it on with epoxy resin, it comes in handy for screws that need to be very tight, I am surprised how long it has lasted as I half expected it to be made of very cheap steel that would deform when tightening screws
i had a flashback to the days of my DEC PDP11/45 and Perkin-Elmer 3250 ... The days of Register Lights, Switches and airflow , with tape drives spinning, Multi-platter hard drives seeking. When you KNEW your computer was running. Now most PCs don't even have a CD drive that you can press a button to see if power is up. Just assume the system is running, I guess...
Greetings Leslie! :) Those were the days. I hope that all is well with you.
Beautiful Channel. Thank you.
Thanks for your kind feedback, appreciated. :)
Noctua fans are very good. I have NH-D15 with one fan replaced with A12x25. Good sound-cooling ratio. They have fans for different tasks. CPU/gaming or universal/case fan.
At Noctua, they seem to be big fans of rather cool CPUs, but they didn't tell anyone as staying quite is their main goal.
I love my Noctua NH-D155 Chromax Black (Dual-Tower) CPU Cooler. I have it mounted on my AMD Ryzen 9 5900x CPU. It makes my PC very quiet. As I watch this video the CPU (Tdie) temp is a nice +39.6°C with an ambient room temperature of 72.3°F (22.4°C). It keeps my office very quiet, and you rarely hear any noise coming from my desktop PC. If I play a game, the CPU fan and temperature does ramp up a little, but it is always significantly quieter than the fans on my EVGA RTX 2070 GPU. It's a great silent CPU cooler. Be warned though: it's physical size is rather beastly. I would not attempt to mount a cooler such as this in a small case!
I built a quiet PC in December of last year. I wound up starting with a lower power i5 processor but also faced the choice of a quiet fan vs. passive cooling. I went with the former and while the machine inst silent, it's no louder than ambient noise in the room even when rendering video. It's certainly quieter than my laptop which is pretty quiet itself.
Let's go and take...
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a closer look
:)
And here we meet again
Greetings!
Greetings! :)
I hope to set up a recording studio in the near future. This video will help. Thanks.
You have an interesting way of turning something mundane into a magnum opus.
Thanks! :)
In the pursuit of having a silent pc i noticed how much noise a hard drive makes and it was a lot more than i anticipated. This is going to be expensive with cpu cooler, case fan, psu and full ssd
Cheap hard drives are loud, I never hear mine.
The solution to hard drive noise is to use an SSD. 100% silent.
@@mikem9536 Actually, a lot of the high performance and server hard drives are louder than the consumer drives. I have some server drives here and boy you can sure tell whenever the OS spins one up.
Conversely, the quietest drives I've seen were those crappy Maxtors that liked to die one day out of warranty. Remember when Seagates (very loud in the old days) suddenly got quiet? Those were rebadged Maxtors.
@@mikem9536 My enterprise grade HGST hard drive is quite loud
Nice as always new video from my good old friend Christopher have a nice week
Thanks, you too!
16:59 That is The Problem with silencing a PC - once you silence one component, you will begin to audible notice some other. Oh, how the fun just never stops...
True! :)
This is great for anyone working in audio (or just has a hard time mentally filtering out noise).
So; anyone else just automatically click like on all computer videos to feed the TH-cam algorithm and cause it to recommend more computer videos?
I know Seasonic makes great silent psu's that either have their own fan control or are fully passive, that's the route I would go.
I am lucky to have got hold of a Corsair RM500x -- the fan stays off below 220W output. Blissfully silent!
A problem with this sort of aftermarket cooler is that instead of sucking cool air into the case via the inlet tube, the fan is re-circulating warm internal air unless the case itself has an exhaust fan. It would have been interesting to measure the internal air temperature before and after fitting the new fan. The old fan just spat out the air into the case as well, but at least it always had cooler external air available. Also, with an inlet tube directly leading to the old fan it was always going to be noisier near the inlet. The new fan's noise is less focused. For me, soundproofing 101 is fit sound absorbing material inside the case.
This case does have an exhaust fan -- nicely in line with the cooler. And the PC now also has a front intake fan, so there is nice flow of airflow moving between all three fans.