MAXIMUMPC APRIL 2004
A modern PC is a noisy beast, what
with the constant whirring, clicking, and
whooshing it typically emits. But fans
are vital for cooling hot components, and
there’s not much you can do to silence
loud hard drives. Lucky for you, we’re
dusting off a few of our favorite tricks.
Let’s bring your computer’s noise level
down a notch or three, OK?Maximum Cooling, Minimum Fans
Fans are the noisiest components in most
desktop systems, so it makes sense to do
everything you can to minimize the sound
they make. Whether you replace your
loud fans with quieter models or opt for
an entirely different cooling solution, it’s
important to ensure that the heat generat-
ed by your hardware is effectively moved
to outside the case.
The first thing you can do to com-
bat fan noise is pare down your airflow
scheme to the bare minimum. Disconnect
all the fans in your system except for
the CPU and videocard fans. Close
the case and restart the PC. Now you
need to check the temperature in differ-
ent areas of your case. You can use an
application like Motherboard Monitor
(mbm.livewiredev.com) to keep an eye on
your CPU temperature.
After you’ve run the machine for 15
or 20 minutes, power it down, open
the case, and check the temperature on
the videocard, CPU, and hard drives by
touching them. It’s OK for components
to be warm, but they shouldn’t be hot.Re-enable the fans you previously discon-
nected, one at a time, until you find a sat-
isfactory balance of noise and cooling.
Remember that larger fans turn
slower—thus making less noise—while
moving the same amount of air. If your
PC has mounts for 120mm fans, use them
instead of louder, faster 80mm fans.Don’t Be a Fan Boy
If you really want to maximize the cool-
ing you get per fan, you can replace the
fans built into some of your components.
Today’s videocards, for example, are
equipped with fans that are frequently
louder and more powerful than they need
to be, especially if you’re willing to sacri-
fice a few frames per second.
The Zalman ZM801-HP uses a pair of
massive heatsinks and a heat pipe to
passively cool your videocard’s GPU.
Although you can use the Zalman heat
pipe without a fan, it’s a good idea to pair
it with a quiet, low-speed fan to get air
moving over it. If you’d rather stay com-
pletely fanless, you can use Powerstrip
to underclock your videocard, which will
keep the temperatures down.
Several companies are also developing
quiet and fan-free power supplies. After
testing many different versions of PC
Power and Cooling’s Silencer (www
.pcpowerandcooling.com), we’re convinced it’s
the quietest standard power supply, but
it still generates some fan noise. Enter
Antec’s Phantom: a totally fanless and
therefore silent power supply. Instead
of relying on a fan to exhaust warm air,
the Phantom uses a large heatsink that
protrudes from the back of your PC. The
Phantom isn’t available for sale yet—
Antec is hoping to have it on the marketby April. Rest assured, we’ll review it as
soon we can get one in.Slow Down Your Drives
Once you have a handle on your fan
noise problem, you can turn your atten-
tion to the next noisiest parts in your
PC—hard drives
and optical drives.
In exchange for
a small per-a small per-
formance hit, formance hit,
you can use you can use
utilities and utilities and
firmware
updates
to silence
your drives.
Hard drives
are first. If your
drive is made by
Hitachi, IBM, or
Maxtor, your manu-
facturer provides
easy-to-use tools
that let you slow
seek times and
stop your loud
drive from click-
ing. Look for amset
at http://www.maxtor.com,
or Feature Tool at http://www.hgst.com.
Unfortunately, we don’t know how to
enable quiet operation modes on drives
from other manufacturers.
If you have more than one hard drive,
it might be worth upgrading to a single
larger drive. As a general rule, two
drives are louder than a single drive. The
250GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 is fast
enough for most desktop work.
Optical drives are significantly easier
to quiet, but you need the right soft-
ware. Using the Nero DriveSpeed utility,
you can ratchet your noisy 52x CD-
RW drive down to a silent 32x speed.
DriveSpeed is installed with Nero by
default. Once the app is configured
for your drive, you can adjust both the
maximum speed and the length of time
the drive waits before it spins down
after a data access. Don’t worry, when
you feel a need for speed, you can use
DriveSpeed to crank the drive back up
to full throttle.DO-IT-YOURSELF GUIDE
1)Quiet Your PC
Constant fan hum can slowly drive you insane.
But silencing your noisy PC is easy—if you follow our simple guide
This GeForce
board sports the silent cooling of
a super-sized Zalman heatsink/heat
pipe combo.Slow Down Your Drives
Once you have a handle on your fan
noise problem, you can turn your atten-
tion to the next noisiest parts in your tion to the next noisiest parts in your
PC—hard drives
and optical drives. and optical drives.
In exchange for In exchange for
a small per-a small per-
formance hit,
you can use
utilities andyour drives.your drives.
Hard drives Hard drives
are first. If your are first. If your
drive is made by
Hitachi, IBM, or
Maxtor, your manu-The Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus
9 line of hard
drives combines
7200rpm
performance with
whisper-quiet
emissions. If you’re
serious about
silence, this is the
hard drive to buy.The Nero DriveSpeed utility lets you
slow down your speedy optical drives,
keeping them quieter and cooler.