I’m sick of this noisy PC, so I’ve decided to splurge on some silent cooling components. I built this system a few months ago, and spent big money on the case (Antec P180) thinking it’d eliminate noise… But I’m sitting next to it right now, and it’s noisier than my old PC. Firstly, I’m trying to eliminate the smaller, noisier fans on the Chipset and Video Card.
The nForce4 chipset currently has a pretty small fan on it, which I’ll be replacing with this:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=71&code=014
Do you think this little passive heatsink will do the job? No overclocking or fancy schtuff… just a regular nForce4 chipset on an ABit AN8-V.
Secondly, I’ve found this pretty cheap heatpipe cooler for my video card:
http://www.i-tech.com.au/products/6410_COOLERMASTER_COOLVIVA_VHC_L61_VGA_COOLER.asp
It comes with a fan, but it says it’s an ‘optional’ installation if you’re overclocking (which I’m not). My main concern is silence. My card is American Express… err… I mean… GeForce 6600GT 256mb PCI-E (a generic OEM no-brand model). Do you think this heatpipe thing will be enough to cool it?
I’m also thinking to grab one of those massive silent heatpipe coolers for my CPU (A64 3500+), but the current fan really doesn’t make that much noise. I might replace it later… If I do replace it, that would only leave ONE 120cm, slow-spinning fan (in the PSU) for the ENTIRE SYSTEM. This case is pretty fancy and it has all the specialised cooling airflow design thingos… and it’s absolutely ginormous, so there’s plenty of breathing room…
What say you?
