My currnet pc is a few yrs old and was bought from a local computer shop. I asked the owner if he could make me a 'silent PC' to which of course said yes

Heat is the enemy he siad, and we can always put more and better fans in to deal with it... blah blah

Well, you can see how this went - I ended up with a noisy pc - which sounds as loud as my old one which didn't have quietness as a criteria

I've seen Macs which have no fans and can only be barley heard sometimes when the processor (?) is crunching, but is it possible to have a pc as silent as a Mac?

This has turned out a long winded question, apologies

 

you can passive cool them so no fans, but you wont be running anything high performance.

 

Lightroom is the biggest system suck, no gaming

Currently 8GB RAM. AMD Phenom 2 X4 965 3.4GHz

I guess a silent PC wouldn't come cheap?

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/nofa...l-and-amd-cpus

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w...lus12v-atx-psu

and then need to make sure the case has alot of mesh in it to allow the heat out. tbh its not an ideal solution

 

Hmmm... so basically my pc would lose its 2 fans (the ones which run constantly)

Processor noise only?

 

Check if you have case fans as well. Is your hard drive an SSD? I have not built my PC to be particularly quiet, but it has a second hard drive that I can obviously hear spinning up.

 

With my MSI M/B I have the ability (via software) to run the various fans in "smart mode" which varies their speed depending upon temps and load.

 

No case fans, and no SSD

So, I could go SSD and use Tidgy's cooling?

 

I work from home, and I have a lot of stuff that runs night and day, some for work and some for my own use. I have replaced the fans in most kit even when brand new with ebm-papst fans, as I sit in my office for 10 - 12 hours most days beside this stuff, it needs to be quiet.

Bear in mind that large fans move more air at lower RPM which keeps noise down, so fit a larger fan and throttle its rpm.

 

Thanks for your reply Don, but it's gone over my head

 

Depending upon the brand of motherboard fitted it may have available software to control the speed/load of the cooling fans fitted and thus reduce noise.

MSI supply software called "Command center" which among other things can setup the fans to do more than just run at full speed.

 

Ssd or m2
Watercooling on proc and graphic card ,job done

 

I'm presuming if I go SSD I'll need to re-arrange how I store stuff?

Presently I have ~500 GB on my 1TB HD (and the same on a back up external drive)

 

If space/size/high-end looks aren't a huge concern, it will be far more cost-effective to build a sound-proof cabinet for your existing PC than replace individual components or the entire PC with quieter equivalents. The materials will cost you almost nothing (one large sheet of 1/2" MDF, a roll of automotive sound-proofing felt, one or two 140mm 12v DC fans and suitable DC power-supply, screws, brackets, glue, castors, etc) and if you're half-way competent with basic carpentry tools and very basic electricals, you should have it built in an afternoon. The basic gist of the design is a PC-shaped felt-lined MDF box which will just fit your PC with a few cm to spare in each dimension, cut-outs and/or hinged flaps at the ends for cables, inserting CDs and what have you, and large diameter but low-rpm fan(s) at the end(s) for air-flow, if you decide to keep one or both ends fully/partially closed. Castors on the base for ease of movement, and a couple of coats of paint for finish once you've tested the whole thing out and you're sure it's not slowly cooking your PC to death

 

My pc is near silent, you can hear it very quietly whirring away but it's hardly bothersome, and I can quite happily sleep with it on.
It's more a question of money, silent components invariably cost more.

My rig is, well I wouldn't say a beast but it's pretty powerful and quiet, I didn't want to compromise on performance because of photoshop/lightroom and gaming.

So both my cpu and gpu are liquid cooled, come pre assembled with fan and radiator.
i7 5820k haswell e 4.5ghz
Corsair h110i gtx for the processor
Inno3d 980ti hybrid black.
512gb 950 pro m2 ssd

As for the other, some silent fan usually thermaltake as I like their fans with fluid bearings.

Only time I notice anything is a tiny bit of coil whine from the graphics card when gaming.

 

Yes you can, but it takes a lot of experimenting to build one.

Off the shelfs ones exist, but are pricey and can be based on laptop/low power CPUs, which doesn't compare to proper desktop CPUs. IIRC a mobile or low power i7 CPU is about half as fast as a i7 desktop CPU, but are more geared to fanless or semi-fanless operation.

If modding a existing PC, it's worth disabling it from booting, unplugging components (turn off first) one at a time to assess what's making the noise and which is worst, so you can put more focus on the curlprits, and make sure a noisy fan isn't masking a noisy hard drive motor or screeching Ethernet/LAN controller (which being based on the motherboard may mean a new motherboard).

I've spent a lot of time and money getting a real quiet PC; that was 8 years ago, and I'm still using it in the same configuration bar a SSD and new GPU that can support 4K. It is near silent.

Fans are the major noise, but after you sort that you are left with the whine of hard drive motors (as well as access noise), rubber isolation mounts make the world of difference...even SSDs can make screeching noises when accessing.

PSUs can be a pain of both fan noise and high pitch screeching. BeQuiet PSUs are the best IMO. They are powerful, efficient (low power factor) and quiet. Mine makes no noise despite sucking most of its air straight off my CPU cooler!

CPU cooling is quite easy to manage - Scyth Ninja coolers heatsink a are good for the money, but will need to swap fans for a quieter brand if using with a high power CPU.

GPUs are always a pain in the ****: Very few quiet ones exist unless fanless. And difficult to mod if they are noisy; I prefer GPUs that exhaust heat out of the case, as otherwise they can increase system and PSU temps causing other system fans to run faster.

I control all of my system fans with a TBalancer fan controller, which monitors temperatures via temperature probes and can independently control various fans based on temperature response it keeps all the fans at silent speed levels but can respond if something overheats.....it works very well, unfortunately it is obsolete (no software support beyond Vista), but maybe there is a modern automatic equivalent.

Worth Looking at these forums for independent opinion, as the Chinese idea of "silent" is often on par with a hairdryer

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums...6623430dc2ff1c

Good PSUs, not tried their other stuff but they often rate highly: https://www.bequiet.com

 

Ironically I think my silent PC just this minute died. Raid 0 array showing as failed on the BIOS and it's not booting off the SSD, Cripes!

Looks like I maybe building a new one sooner than I thought as I'm loathed to spend money on a 9 year old quad core, even if was faster than my i7 ultra book (just).

 

Thanks for the replies everyone - I'll look into all the suggestions

So, those who have 'silent' or quiet ones, would you day they are as quiet as a Mac Mini (the only one I can compare to)?

 

I use a Dell XPS 8700 and it's about as silent as I could expect it to be just like Hux has said quietly whirring away in the background. I work from home and just don't hear it. No flash cooling systems or fan replacements. Having an SSD/M2 as your system drive is key and using mechanical HDDs as little as possible.

 

I use a mac mini - and none of my gear is as quiet in operation as it is.

 

How capable is a mac mini?

Can it cope with Lightroom?

 

I don't use light room so don't know for sure - compare minimum reqs against the following;

Internals are Quad Core i7 @ 2.6GHz
16Gb Ram 1600Mhz DDR3
2 x 256Gb SSD in Raid 1
Sierra 10.12.6
Intel HD Graphics 4000

Machine itself is from around 2012

 

New year, new resolve

Here's what a silent PC company has offered to build £1,081). Reckons it will be silent (not quiet)

 

Over a grand and no dedicated graphics card?! That's a lot of money just to be silent with nothing special on the spec other than being silent.

 

No graphics card seems strange. I said my main use was going to be Lightroom...?

 

Probably because most GFX cards make a right racket unless modded with alternate cooling or fans overridden to minimum (and even the they can buzz).

Personally I wouldn't want to spend over £1k on last years tech...I'd be looking at 8th gen (coffee lake) stuff IMO.

FWIW I'm pricing up a Coffee-Lake i7-8700K in a ITX case ands it's working out around £1200 including 32GB and a 1TB SSD. No idea about how quiet it'll be, but I'm looking at water cooling or external heat pipes to the case which is complicating things.

Dell XPS i7 8th gen is working out about £150 more with similar spec. Tempting.

 

Buy an iMac and run windows? For that money you get a 5k screen thrown in for free which should be great for lightroom.

 

is it silent though? plus will be what, 3 to 4 x the price? lol

 

I have a totally silent PC. I hate noise, I need a silent office.
It also happens to be right up there with the best of them performance wise... but if you want silence AND performance, then water is the only answer.

Depends how far you want to go financial and space wise.

 

I've got a Dell XPS and the spec for the price was unbeatable as I got it off the outlet store. Mines a couple of years old now though and limited to 32gb ram so tempted to upgrade to the latest one for 64gb ram or go to a precision workstation for 128gb ram.