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I can't tolerate any noise in my room at all. I want to remove all 4 fans I have in my system:

Processor Fan, Cabinet Fan, SMPS Fan, Graphics Card Fan

Can removing all these fans produce any fire due to heat in a desktop? And if the system can survive even for 6 months, I am ready to have the loss, but can't tolerate noise.

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8
  • Related: Making an old computer quieter, and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earplug
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Mar 2, 2013 at 20:55
  • Related: Do computer system units actually go up in flames?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Mar 2, 2013 at 21:00
  • 2
    If you've got the money, investigating something like this might help: tomshardware.com/reviews/5-ghz-project,731.html. But seriously, if you don't want noise in your room, put the 'puter outside and use extension leads for monitor/keyboard/mouse.
    – mcalex
    Mar 3, 2013 at 0:04
  • 1
    You gotta pay to play, sir. Good, silent fans that can still move a lot of air are expensive (usually around $10-30 each), but they're worth it if you are really concerned about noise. Just look at the fan dBa and CFM specifications (noise & air volume metrics, respectively), and make your choices based on those values versus cost. Any sub-30 dBa fans should be silent to most people (aside from the actual noise of the air itself!).
    – Breakthrough
    Mar 3, 2013 at 15:26
  • @mcalex: There's no alternative to your solution to put the computer outside the room. Even with passively cooled PSU and Graphic Card (I don't know, if it's possible nowadays to have a passively cooled CPU) you'll have some high-frequency noise from various components...
    – mpy
    Mar 3, 2013 at 15:32

8 Answers 8

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16

Way 1: Absorbing sound chassis

~ 70 ... 200$

Handmade alternative:

Wooden cabinet made ​​of particleboard and sound absorbing materials.

sample: COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000

COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000

Way 2: Absorbing sound box

Absorbing sound panel

Way 3: use best silent fans

Scythe Slipstream 120mm

Scythe Slipstream 120mm:

Airflow (in CFM) 40.17

RPM 800 Rated

dBA 10.7

120mm Radiator Fan Roundup Part 2: Fan Harder

Scythe Release Slip Stream 120mm Case Fans

Fans for Very- and Ultra-Quiet Operation

The Best CPU Coolers For Your Money: Summer 2011

Quiet slow RPM CPU fan

slow RPM fan

Way 4: Fan Speed Controller

~ 15-100$

Zalman ZM-MFC2 Multi-Fan & PWM Fan Speed Controller Review

Zalman ZM-MFC2 Multi-Fan

enter image description here

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Way 5: Chassi-radiator, passive cooling

passive cooling Thermalright HR 02

Building a Silent Media PC

The case – mCubed hFX

Way 6: water-cooled PC

COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 modding water-cooled PC

water-cooled PC

Zalman water-cooled CPU

Zalman water-cooled CPU

Way 7: eliminate vibration and sound transmission

Audio Technica Hybrid Structure Insulators, Anti Vibration Pad, Audio Technica Anti Vibration Rubber Isolators

enter image description here enter image description here

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Way 8: KVM over IP - installation of the computer chassis away from you (40-2000 meters)

~ 250 ... 2 000$

DVI USB extender

KVM over IP

Way 9: Cryogenics, Phase-change

Origin PCs Now with Liquid Cooling Systems Frostbyte and Cryogenic

The design of the new Cryo-TEC cooling system is elegantly simple allowing for installation on almost all customized Digital Storm gaming computers. The system requires only a chassis large enough to fit a 360mm liquid cooling radiator to cool the thermo-electric modules.

Cryo-TEC cooling system

Nvidia GeForce GTX TITAN CRYOGENIC Liquid Cooling

Nvidia GeForce GTX TITAN CRYOGENIC Liquid Cooling

Asetek - VapoChill phase change cooler

Asetek - VapoChill phase change cooler

Way 10: Removed from chassi the design, all the moving parts and devices

HDD -> SSD local system + NAS

~ 500$ - 1500$ minimum

enter image description here

SAN ~ 10K$ - 100K$ and more enter image description here

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Way 11: throttling frequency, lowering CPU

change firmware hdd, gpu ...

AMD Overdrive 3.2.3.0457

RMClock

RMClock download page

Best overclocking software: 15 top apps Apps to overclock your CPU, graphics card and RAM

Dynamically increasing performance Intel® Turbo Boost Technology — On-Demand Processor Performance

Intel Turbo Boost Technology — On-Demand Processor Performance

RedHat: Tuning CPUfreq Policy and Speed

eHow.com: How to Change the Processor Speed in Vista

Way 12: Optimal heat transfer and accurate installation.

The wires are well laid out and cleaned the body lower the volume by about 3db.

wires at chassi

The zone will not heat blows air through the chassis, which will reduce the power and means of fan speed.

zone chassi

Cool! Sea of Sensors

Sea of Sensors

Heat pipes:

If the thermo-carrying elements of heat pipes used, their work begins with 22°C, and the temperature of the CPU at the moment 22°C+0,041*(CPU power watts), which at 125 Watt will start cooling the CPU 27°C.

Heat pipes inside

You can remove the thermal resistance using Wood's alloy with a melting point of 60-100°C, in fact become welded processor to the cooler, but thus raising the efficiency of heat transfer.

cpu welded

Google-search studies on the effect of temperature on memory and HDD gave the following result - the best temperature range of 36-45 C, and the memory is better behaved at temperatures of 24-26, 32-36 C. It should be noted that some manufacturers at temperatures above 45C in certain types of loads are catastrophically degraded performance, it is necessary to bear in mind.

Google-search HDD failure - temperature:

Google-search HDD failure - temperature

Google-search RAM failure - temperature:

Google-search RAM failure - temperature

Google-search HDD performance - temperature:

Google-search HDD performance - temperature

Geometry and materials:

IBM doubles CPU cooling capabilities with simple manufacturing change

IBM doubles CPU cooling

incision on the lid of the processor

The successful arrangement of elements heat exchanger, SCYTHE GRAND KAMA CROSS

SCYTHE GRAND KAMA CROSS

Zalman 9500 AT - copper instead of aluminum. This heat exchanger can be cooled with water, it does not give a galvanic pair, as in the case of aluminum-copper. Also, the properties of copper for aluminum heat much better.

Zalman 9500 AT

Change water at water-cooler:

90% Ethylene glycol + 10% Water

Boiling Point :285°F; 140°C

Freezing Point: -20°F; -29°C

60% Ethylene glycol + 40% Water

Boiling Point : 230°F; 110°C

Freezing Point: -55°F; -48°C

What you should know in addition to these figures? You should not drink it - it is poison))). And the smell as if leaks from skunks. It is easy to get, look for freezing liquids in auto parts stores.

Links:

570LX Extreme Liquid CPU Cooler

COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP Black

Methods for cooling computer components

Way 13: Silicone oil, mineral oil, transformer oil, engine oil:

Important! Look at the degree of toxicity of the liquid.

Calculate the maximum permissible concentration of harmful substances by evaporation.

It is possible to use various synthetic oils with high flashpoint. Pay attention to the dielectric properties of fluids and their physical properties. Seal multilayer chips (video card) and the processor in the socket installed. Dielectric fluid disrupt contact between the processor and socket.

Not use Novec©®™ 1230©®™

enter image description here

Advertising toxic Housing!:

Advertising toxic Housing

NOT USE AT HOME! Freon! Novec©®™ 1230©®™

Novec©®™ 1230©®™ + PC Novec©®™ 1230©®™ + PC

Mineral oil, "Crystal Plus 70T":

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

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3
  • Whilst this is an interesting answer - it will NOT be silent - so this does not answer the question. If you sleep in the same room as the computer for example, you will certainly hear ANY fan and HDD noise if you have sensitive hearing. I know! I've tried!!
    – Julian Knight
    Mar 3, 2013 at 20:58
  • @JulianKnight However, noise is much better than inaction. In addition, there are options that can accommodate noisy components far enough and additional soundproofing them. For example refrigerant can be delivered at a considerable distance. Here are the main ideas, specific embodiment, a combination and modification depends on the person.
    – STTR
    Mar 4, 2013 at 0:17
  • Side-note : Unless you have a very high-end pump, watercooling is FAR from being silent. My single pump was almost 3 times louder than the fans I had before moving to water-cooling.
    – mveroone
    Dec 2, 2013 at 9:16
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It is very unlikely that removal of the fans will cause a fire. However, it is very likely that it will cause your system to rapidly overheat, crash regularly and eventually give up all together.

The fans are there for a reason.

You will need to replace your system with a silent one such as a media centre PC. However, I warn you that, unless you also replace your hard drive with an SSD, it most certainly will not be silent.

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3

No it won't cause a fire. It will, however, cause your computer to stop working within about a minute. If you want a silent system, get new, silent fans. There are many quite good fans around.

In fact, multiple slow moving fans are quieter than one or two overworked ones.

I have found these sites to be a great help in building a silent PC:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

http://www.quietpc.com//

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3
  • I have removed two fans till now - the graphics card and smps fans - they were the most noisy. I am running my system for 2-3 hours since then with no heating and shut down.
    – teenup
    Mar 2, 2013 at 21:01
  • Removing the GPU fan will not be a problem until you do something that is graphics intensive. My answer was about removing all 4 fans, including the CPU one. You do realise you can destroy your hardware with what you are doing right?
    – terdon
    Mar 2, 2013 at 23:39
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    @teenup: If your SMPS has an overtemperature protection circuit, it will shut down very quickly without a fan. If it doesn't, it is a fire hazard without a fan.
    – David Schwartz
    Mar 3, 2013 at 10:32
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All those fans are there for a reason, to help dissipate heat and improve air circulation.

Although it is very highly unlikely that it wouldn cause any fire, chances are high that you would fry these electronic components really fast when these fans are not running.

BIOS has checks to make sure the CPU fan is running or it would power off the system automatically after few seconds for the safety of the CPU. Motherboard fans if there are any in your PC, it might be monitored by the BIOS as well.

If the SMPS fans are not working, your power supply would be toast really quickly.

Same goes to graphics card too.

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1

No, you can't remove the fans. Without the heat being removed somehow, the most likely result is that you'll trigger a thermal shutdown within a few minutes. (Modern CPUs do that to prevent damage.) What you might do is look for some better, quieter fans. Another alternative if you don't mind the cost would be to look into a liquid cooling system which might be a little bit quieter even though they still have at least one fan.

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3
  • As mentioned elsewhere, this would not be silent which is what the question asked. Just the HDD noise alone in enough to keep you awake if you try to sleep in the same room. We it does to me anyway.
    – Julian Knight
    Mar 3, 2013 at 21:00
  • 1
    @JulianKnight Try a different brand of disk drive. Some are quieter than others. For example, I can't hear my Seagate 3TB external or the drive inside my MacBook unless I hold it up to my ear. Otoh, I'm a 62-yo lady, so my hearing not be quite what you young whippersnappers enjoy. :)
    – Nicole Hamilton
    Mar 3, 2013 at 21:26
  • Hi Nicole. Thanks for the clarification and you are, of course, correct, some drives are a lot quieter than others. You can also get sound deadening enclosures. Unfortunately, my own hearing, even at 53, is sensitive enough to hear such things in the quiet of the night. I don't want the OP spending lots of money only to be disappointed.
    – Julian Knight
    Mar 3, 2013 at 21:34
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You can't remove the PSU fan, but you may be able to remove the other fans.

I also hate fan noise, so for a couple of years I ran without CPU or case fans. At one point I had a 9600 GT who's fan I disconnected, but this is a special case because that was a low-powered card with a large heatsink.

I was able to disable the CPU fan because I have a giant heatsink. Scythe SCINF-1000
The Scythe SCINF-1000, next to its 120mm fan. Image by verdammtescheissenochmal

Of course, the temperatures will rise across the board, but in real-world usage, they always remained well within their limits. You can monitor this with programs like CoreTemp and GPU-Z.

If it makes a difference in noise, I suggest trying to remove the case fan first and monitoring temperatures. If you have a good enough heatsink on your CPU remove that fan too, and continue to monitor. You might be concerned about the rising temperatures on your HDDs, but there was a popular Google study which found that high temperatures didn't play a role in drive failures.

I'm still using the same system (overclocked quad-core Nehalem based), but with a different GPU now, so there was no damage done to my system.

As a caveat, removing these fans and making your overall temperatures rise might cause your PSU fan to throttle-up, and become even louder.

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1

Here's the cheapest, easiest thing thing you can do: a fan-speed reduction cable. Currently $4.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812311003

Fans that plug into your motherboard are designed to take 12V. Speed reduction cables like these make the fans run on 5V or 7V instead. As a result they'll spin at lower RPM.

Roughly speaking, two fans running @ 7V will move a bit more air than a single fan running at 12V and will produce far less noise... particularly high-frequency noise, which is what tends to be annoying to our ears. As a bonus, if one fan should fail, you'll still have another fan running.

Of course, being the cheapest and easiest thing you can do doesn't necessarily make it the best. You need to make sure you're still getting enough cooling and you need to take particular care if you're reducing the voltage of the CPU fan.

(To be specific, I wouldn't mess around with reducing the CPU fan voltage unless you have another fan directing cool air at the CPU. In my setup, I have a 7V side fan blowing external air at the CPU heat sink, a 7V fan on the heatsink, and a 7V exhaust fan pulling air away from the CPU and blowing it out of the top of the case. Works well, runs quiet.)

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0

I'd like to share my own experience:

I was pretty upset about noise in my regular computer: BOX CPU cooler, chip Chieftec, small fan on the video, and noise HDD...

So, What I did?..

I bought silent Zalman onto my CPU. Like this http://www.zalman.com/global/product/Product_Img_Pop.php?Idx=311

I bought new video card with passive cooling (Power Color HD 5850 256 bit)(I couldn't find similar for now in Ukraine a month ago)

I bought PSU Enermax Pro 82+ (from $200! Oh, make stable power for your liked PC ;)). Like this http://www.ixbt.com/power/psu/enermax_emd525.shtml (sorry, in russian)

I bought SSD to replace requesting to HDD. I'd thought over some box for HDD to make it silent but never get around to do this.

I bought not expensive PackardBell (Ho-ho 13 kg! :)) PC box with good cooling indicates like in non-chip boxes.

But to keep it safe from time to time I kept opened site door of my PC box. Just to make some extra natural cooling.

I sold my nice PC :) and moved to the laptop usage. (I don't have enough place in my new app :))

But I'm thinking about some advanced HTPC or nettop with full passive cooling (no fans!) or good noise indicates. Just some all-in-1. :) Often, it suit for you if you don't need to play in powerful games. But there are exists later-day solutions with small and rather powerful graphic video cards.

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