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Are you sick of the constant whirring noise your PC makes? Get rid of the racket by building a silent PC – by Peter Humphreys. B ACK IN October 2002, I wrote a letter to Mailbag about building a silent PC. What? A silent PC? Are you crazy? Look in any computer magazine and you will see “more power”, “more GHz”, “more fans”, more noise! Our computer lives in the living room where we can all share it without being unsociable. That’s great but try watching a movie while a conventional PC is on and you’ll soon tire of the constant whir from the cooling fans. Want proof as to just how much noise your PC makes? Just sit quietly with your PC for five minutes and then turn it off – the silence is deafening! Yeah, maybe we should turn the PC off before watching a movie. But what if someone wants to use the Internet while the movie is on or use the computer for homework or to play games? Alternatively, perhaps you have built an MP3 box. Doesn’t the noise from the PC spoil the sound from your latest album? Or perhaps you want to add the PC to your home entertainment system so that you can watch DVD movies and listen to music. Clearly, it’s preferable to quieten down the PC so we can live with it instead of banishing it to the study. Getting rid of noisy fans The “Silent PC” is not only very quiet but is compact and unobtrusive as well. The silver LCD monitor matches the keyboard and the brushed aluminium case. www.siliconchip.com.au Getting rid of noisy fans is a major step towards quieten­ing any PC. However, that’s not really practical in existing machines as disconnecting the power supply fan and/or the proces­ sor fan will quickly lead to frazzled components and catastrophic failure. The best approach is to start from scratch and build a quiet PC from special components. This article describes a PC that is almost silent and, as a bonus, is extra small. The accom­ panying panel shows the parts used. The total cost was around $2000, including the LCD monitor. The real magic is in the $220 motherboard. This price includes an Eden 533MHz CPU April 2003  15 It’s a tight fit inside the case but everything goes in neatly. The 90° PCI riser card is supplied with the case. and unlike other CPUs, this one runs quite happily without a fan. Instead, a large heatsink provides all the cooling that’s necessary (and it does this without making a sound). As an aside, I’m already thinking of swapping the bedroom TV for a computer monitor, plugging a TV tuner card into the motherboard and hiding the assembly in a drawer. With a cordless keyboard and mouse, it doesn’t matter where the PC is! Special case The special aluminium case used measures just 260 x 190 x 166mm and is very well designed. Air enters the holes in the lower front, passes over the power supply and motherboard, and then flows over the hard drive and out the rear exhaust. The fact that the case is all aluminium helps with the cooling. The fan in the power supply was a noisy, small, high-speed type. Since the power supply is situated at the front The Parts Used In The Silent PC •  ClipperPro I-box Mini-ITX aluminium case with 180W power supply. •  VIA EPIA-5000 Motherboard with Eden 533MHz “ fan-less” CPU •  256MB PC-133 SDRAM •  Seagate ST360021A 60GB ATA100 hard disk drive •  Pioneer DVD-106S slot-load DVD-ROM drive •  Samsung 151BM 15-inch LCD monitor with built-in speakers •  Logitech cordless Navigator Duo (white/silver) keyboard and mouse. of the case and the airflow passes right over it, I removed the power supply fan and cover which made a big difference. (Editor’s note: we strongly recommend that the original power supply cover be replaced with a new cover with improved ventilation; eg, with expanded mesh aluminium panels. Much of the circuitry inside PC power sup­plies operates at dangerously high voltages – ie, at 240V AC. They should always be fitted with a suitable cover, to guard against accidental contact. Similarly, a suitable cover should be fitted over the fan slots in the supply case, if the fan is removed). The case fan is at the top rear of the case and is lost in the ambient noise in the house. This lone fan does a good job and nothing gets too hot. The BIOS reports that the fan is running at just over 2000 RPM and the PC has been running 14 hours a day, seven days a week for four months now without a hiccup. It’s possible that if a power The lone fan at the back of the case operates quietly and does a good job keeping everything cool. Note the antenna – this is attached to the wireless LAN card which occupies the sole PCI slot on the motherboard (via a 90° PCI riser card). 16  Silicon Chip www.siliconchip.com.au comparable Celeron CPUs. Disk drives The Seagate Barracuda ATA IV drive is one of the quietest around, due to the use of fluid bearings. It can only be heard if I place my ear near the case and watch for the HDD LED! The DVD drive makes the most noise, especially at high speed. That’s par for the course – all DVD and CD drives make a lot of noise. If the PC is to be used standalone, a CD-RW or combination drive (CD, DVD and CD-RW) is recommended. My motherboard doesn’t have a floppy drive interface but the latest mother– boards now feature this instead of a second IDE inter­face. Wireless LAN The VIA EPIA-5000 motherboard comes complete with an embedded Eden 533MHz “fan-less” CPU (shown here without the heatsink). It also features integrated graphics, 10/100 ethernet and Sound Blaster Pro compatible sound. supply from a notebook computer was used, the PC could run completely “fan-less”. Via motherboard The EPIA-500 motherboard from VIA comes in the ultra-compact Mini-ITX form factor and is claimed to be the world’s smallest. It measures just 170 x 170mm. Just about everything is integrated onto this board: VGA video, VIA 10/100 Ethernet LAN, Sound Blaster Pro compatible sound with S/PDIF output, two IDE Ultra DMA 33/66/100 connec­tors and all the other standard motherboard connectors. Basically, the Mini-ITX motherboard is intended for “entry level” PCs, thin-clients, wireless network devices, digital media systems, set-top boxes and more. It is also becoming increasing­ly popular with enthusiasts due to its small size, quiet opera­tion and low profile (the I/O ports are the tallest components on the board). Want to know more? Have a look at http://www.mini-itx.com for information on how people have built PCs out of things like model cars, cigar humidors, motorcycle helmets, picture www.siliconchip.com.au frames and more! In my case, the key advantage of this VIA Mini-ITX mother­board was the “fan-less” VIA Eden processor. This CPU is embedded on the motherboard to reduce costs and streamline production but it does have one drawback – the CPU is not upgradable. VIA processors have built a reputation for reliable, low-temperature operation. This is due to careful design and low power consumption – the Eden 533MHz CPU consumes just 2.8W. By comparison, recent Athlon CPU’s consume about 70W of power! By the way, a 667MHz Eden “fanless” processor in now also available, along with a range of more powerful C3 processors which run up to 1GHz. The latter are fan-cooled, however. Despite this, the C3 range still run a lot cooler and have quiet­er fans than A wireless LAN card fills the single PCI slot via a 90° PCI riser card (supplied with the case). One good thing about the VIA motherboard is the use of standard components. Many other “small PC” solutions use laptop components and these can be expensive. LCD monitor A Samsung 15-inch LCD monitor (silver) was chosen to complement the brushed aluminium case used for the PC. This has built-in speakers, in keeping with the tidy appearance. Fast enough With CPUs now running at 2GHz or more, a 533MHz PC might sound rather slow by modern standards. However, for everyday home (and probably business) use, it’s fine – at least my appli­cations. I use it everyday for email and web browsing – and for playing Solitaire of course! No more beige boxes for me! Footnote: although we haven't tested it, Microgram Computers sell a 300W low-noise power supply with a thermostatically-controlled fan (Cat. 8957). It’s well worth checking out if you want to build a silent PC. Enquiries to (02) 4389 8444 (see ad on page 3). SC Useful Links http://www.viavpsd.com/product/epia_mini_itx_spec.jsp?motherboardId=21 http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/marketing/detail/0,1081,383,00 http://www.pioneeraus.com.au/multimedia/products/dvd-rom/dvda06s/dvd-106s_116.htm http://www.samsung.com.au/samsung.asp?cat=52&obj=650 http://www.mini-itx.com April 2003  17