Another...

[st0mpy]

YYYYYeeesssssssss another case build thread, collected two key items today

http://imageshack.us/a/img684/8379/itemslk.png

motherboard coming monday-tuesday, case tuesday, with the rest of the bits from my current pc


My current PC is an i5 750 quad + Asus P7P55D-E-Pro, it runs bf3 well, its got usb3 and sata6 but its not native and runs off a PLX chip so I only see about 85% of my ssds potential (256GB M4), so its definitely upgrade time now Z77 has 2 native sata6s and some native usb3s. Also while the cpu will do 4ghz its incredibly hot there and with only a standing fin aftermarket cooler i wasnt happy with stability running that high, looking forward to 4ghz with ease soon :D

... will post more when i get it

[RPGforYOU]

Haha nice, stuff! :D Keep it coming! :)

[Vercetti]

Nice start :)

[janbo872]

I suppose you make a push/pull config om the corsair ?

http://www.oldguys.eu/file/janbo872/IMG-0632.jpg

[Caveman]

Nice stuff you got there m8,

Like Janbo suggested push pull config makes your processor a bit cooler.
Also try to minimize the cables in the case. It makes the airflow in your case way more sufficient.

8)

[st0mpy]

Hi thanks guys, the H60 is a bit of an experiment. It may work, it may not.

Ive been down the 'larger fan is a quieter fan' and also the 'slower fan is a quieter fan' paths and im now wanting to try the 'less fans is a quieter pc' approach and am hoping to use just one fan on the H60 with the radiator mounted in the case fan hole, that way its doing double duty as a cpu and case cooler. (it may or may not be the corsair fan, i have a selection of so called silent fans)

Sounds hot, yes, i dont intend to push the overclock, i just want 4ghz when its at work gaming/processing but idling silently as much as possible otherwise, for that I expect to see higher temps than forced cooling, but as long as fans kick in when they are needed then thats all i care about, its a balancing act.

The case has space for a 140-180mm fan at in the front, just ordered three of the most silent 140s recommended on xbit labs survey, they should arrive later in the week, am hoping positive pressure from a larger intake will take the strain off the H60 outlet as the primary case cooler.

Dont know, we'll see, at worst I can push/pull as suggested with the second one outside the case and just put the rpm so low, below the motor start voltage on the second fan so it only comes on when things are warm. Ultimately the aim is to make the most silent pc possible unless its gaming.

[zladuric]

Can you say what you mean by "but its not native and runs off a PLX chip so I only see about 85% of my ssds potential "?
I also have (AMD based) MoBo with SATA2, and I've bought the extra PCIx card that adds SATA3 to my computer. You want to say that untill I upgrade the MoBo to the one that supports SATA3 by itself, I am not using the full potential of my Corsair Force 3 SSD?

[st0mpy]

YAY! The case arrived! but no pictures today im not unpacking it yet, am trying to ignore it till i get more parts
BOO! Company I ordered the mobo from ran out of stock and cancelled/refunded me, just had to order another on express delivery, hope to get it before the weekend



Can you say what you mean by "but its not native and runs off a PLX chip so I only see about 85% of my ssds potential "?
I also have (AMD based) MoBo with SATA2, and I've bought the extra PCIx card that adds SATA3 to my computer. You want to say that untill I upgrade the MoBo to the one that supports SATA3 by itself, I am not using the full potential of my Corsair Force 3 SSD?

The P55 is an Intel board btw

I have no idea what your system should be doing, all I know is if I put an Intel X25MG2 SATA2 SSD in both SATA2 and then SATA3 ports and benchmark them, the marvel SATA3 port benches about 15% lower than the native intel SATA2, this is also seen with a newer M4 SATA3 SSD, im getting a chunk less than i should be compared to publicly available benchmarks.

This is purely down to the P55s age being just on the turnover into SATA3 and USB3 so the solutions arent native, they were bleeding edge third party add on controllers new to motherboards, not something tried tested and already in the main chipset of the motherboard, however Z77 boards have both USB3 and 2x SATA3 controllers native from the intel base chipset (finally).

[st0mpy]

just a small update, things are taking longer to arrive than I had planned

pile is getting larger tho :) :)

http://imageshack.us/a/img707/9763/pcbuild.png

last packet hopefully tomorrow and then its finding time for the build up (3 hours of hardware fun and 2 days at least installing o/s and all my old tat as i want it)

[Hidde]

TJ08-E! Awesome case ^^

[RPGforYOU]

Yeh awesome small case, it's cause my desk is big enough, I don't care about the size of PC.
but otherwise this would be a very good case!

[st0mpy]

hehe the secrets out, yeah its a minibox build, since i wont ever use dual graphics again ive decided i have no need for ATX cased PCs anymore. Ive been building for silence in my PCs for many years, now the aim is small and silent :D

ive started it now, unboxed it all, stripped the case out checked clearances, clamped cables etc.

Unboxed

http://imageshack.us/a/img90/8168/caseunboxedsh.png

Stripped and ripped

http://imageshack.us/a/img507/5766/casestrippedsh.png

Checking clearances with spare units (yes there is 2 HDD in there)

http://imageshack.us/a/img443/7521/casedrivemounttestsh.png

Mobo

http://imageshack.us/a/img856/8294/mobosh.png

Since reviews of the TJ08 say its fan is noisy ive got three of the top performing 140/150MM silent fans to play with (left to right, Thermalright TY150, a 150mm fan in a 140mm body, Thermalright X-Silent 140mm, and a scythe slipstream 140mm fan in a 120mm body)

http://imageshack.us/a/img208/9533/3fanssh.png

[iNco782]

They looks Fan-tastic! :D

I'm sorry I couldn't help myself.

In all seriousness please post which you find the quietest. ÂÂ*Also that case looks great and people are raving about it. ÂÂ*Are you planning to have a fan controller?

[FluggerNO]

Here is a little hint.
Replace the fan on H60. Its to load!...

[st0mpy]

3rd party hardware fan controller no, asus fan expert+ yes, or speedfan if its not adequate (v card fans already controlled by afterburner)

yeah no problem ill report back when I do my highly (un)scientific noise test. I chose them because they all performed well in the xbit 140 review http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/140mm-fan-roundup.html but ofc things dont always turn out like the reviews say which is why I grabbed a few to try.

Lol Flugger, yeah Im not expecting greatness, so much so ive not even bothered to unpack it yet. Â*Was thinking if I cant squeeze the Slipstream on there I have a collection of standard 120s, silent typhoons, panaflo 38mms etc to try.

[FluggerNO]

I replaced the fan with ÂÂ*:arrow: ÂÂ*http://www.nexustek.nl/NXS-120mm-pwm-fan-ultra-quiet.htm

Temp on cpu when I was playing BF3 was 38c.
Normal temp on the cpu is 17c.

[st0mpy]

Its done!

Finally its all rebuilt, OS installed, backups replaced, niggles ironed out and all the old shite abandoned to the ether. Things went reasonably easily, only the crappy build quality of the H60 let me down. Few pics below.

Middle of the build:
Silverstone decided to give enough USB3 cable to reach to the moon, plus its really loose in the socket and kept falling out. Now wedged by cable force. If the PC has to travel ill probably put a sticker or blob of hot glue on the plug.

http://imageshack.us/a/img100/5817/dsc00083br.jpg

Cables being managed:
See the cool little little D cutouts? Cant see them all since theyre being used, theres about 8 or 9 of them over the whole back. Awesome cable mounting method.

http://imageshack.us/a/img100/6996/dsc00106bb.jpg

Crap H60 mounting

The bracket is very proud of the motherboard, meaning when the standoffs are fully screwed down it rattles because of this gap. Corsair forumguy recons this is ok because the screwdown of the cooler will pull it up, I say BS because my block screws went down fully even after i fixed it. Leaving it sloppy with an extra 2-3mm to pull down would result in much weaker pressure at the cpu.

http://imageshack.us/a/img717/3991/dsc00077ba.jpg

without standoff
http://imageshack.us/a/img513/403/dsc00073bw.jpg


My fix was to fit anti shake washers over the bracket posts to bridge the gap and get the base of the standoff sat level on the board so it could pull on the bracket as its tightened, creating a stable set of posts to mount the cpu block on.

http://imageshack.us/a/img688/1362/dsc00080bd.jpg

Finished PC:
Internals. Threw out the HDD cage, much better airflow that way.

http://imageshack.us/a/img841/971/dsc00123bo.jpg

Rear.
http://imageshack.us/a/img716/9504/dsc00138bm.jpg


High points:

Raised D slots for cable management, great idea, even their new SG09 doesnt have them, simply the best cable managment ive ever had on a case.

Upside down mounting of motherboard, reassuring since if the cooler leaks coolant will just wet the carpet and not over any expensive electronics.

Low points:

Crap design of H60. The fan is indeed deafening, motherboard fittings were sloppy and rattled and to cap it all, once I connected the H60 pump to the cpu header it made a grinding noise like an old HDD constantly accessing! louder than anything else in the case. When I installed I shook it down so any air would be in the head of the radiator, and its a closed loop, theoretically it shouldnt need air bleeding. I had to use a fanmate to bring it down to about 2-3K RPM before it would shut up (a friend with an eco cool-it says his runs over 4K without a sound) however temps are within a workable range, no idea if 4K rpm would cool it much better. Its stable for now, which is the only thing preventing me from RMAing it up corsairs backside.

Final build part list:

PSU: Antec 520W (High Current Gamer, +12V@40A continuous, Seasonic built)
CPU: Intel i5 3570K (currently at 4.0Ghz, ive no idea how high it can go yet)
Mobo: Asus P8Z77-M Â*(uATX, PCI3.0, 1x Legacy PCI, high energy efficiency)
RAM: G.Skill TridentX 16GB 2400Mhz (2x8GB, leaving room for 2 more)
VID: Radeon HD6950 (2GB, 5 Monitor)
Sound: Asus Xonar D2 (7.1, DDL/DTS, Midi)
SSD: Crucial M4 256GB (o/s, installed progs, all caches)
HDD: 7TB WD (2x2TB + 1x3TB, general storage, media, full system backup)

Case:

Silverstone TJ-08E Temjin
Thermalright TY150 (front replacement for silverstone noisemaker)
Gentle Typhoon D1225C12B4AP-14 (rad cooler/rear case)
H60 CPU closed loop water cooler
Nexus DoubleTwin
4x Rubber Fan mounts

Misc:

Zalman Fanmate single fan controller for awful H60 pump
8 Pin ATX12V extension (not essential, I just wanted it tucked away)
a dozen or so cable ties

Fan Selection:

I subjected the fans to my totally unscientific test and these are the results.

1st place is the TY150, on full it was a bit louder than the 140 but when both reduced to silent levels it moved slightly more air than the 140. Downside is the so called 150mm blade with 140mm mounts was a bit false, only 2 mounts line up at 140, the other two look like 120. Used rubber fan mounts instead.

2nd place, The 140 was actually the quietest fan ootb, however its slower speed made for less CFM, still a star performer however.

3rd place was my old trusty 120mm Gentle Typhoon (B4AP-14, not the 15), had these for some time, awesome 120s.

4th place was the Scythe Slipstream, it wasnt bad it was just more powerful, good CFM but proportionally louder too, being a smaller blade it had to work harder at lower revs so was edged out to 4th place by the others in the silent testing.

I did retest some of my good 120s (38mm panaflos, the B5AP-15 gentle typhoon etc) but they all ranked lower than the scythe for one reason or another.

Comedy last place goes to the stock H60 fan - It committed both kinds of sin with fan noise, it did move a lot of air but the blade noise was louder than all others together, also the motor noise was terrible, one of the worst ever. File as 'give away to someone deaf'.



CPU Temps are comfortably in the 30s, Ive hammered it with Prime95 and Battlefield and see no need to change the fans from their lowest speed of 40%, which is the minimum in Asus Fan Expert+ and is extremely quiet. I may have a go with speedfan to drop down below 40 but atm my other PCs are louder, so theyre next!

http://imageshack.us/a/img841/3670/tempsk.jpg


Finished Article :)

http://imageshack.us/a/img203/2072/dsc00130c.jpg

Going forward:

- Removing the optical drive - I hate optical media, when a decent external USB3 blu-ray/dvd burner comes along ill grab it and thatll be my optical drive for all my pcs. Since we can boot from USB nowadays theres no need to have a hot bulky optical in every pc, less power used=less heat.

- 4TB drive to replace the 2x2, then the SSD can have a home in the lower front bracket.

-Upgrade sound card to pci-e version, if i can ever find one that does proper stereo to 5.1 DDL/DTS upmix over optical, and midi, without charging me a fortune.

[Burning]

Could you run Prime95 + temp for cpu and maybe dunno ,Heaven + gpu temps on this? :D

[st0mpy]

First off 10 minutes of Heaven with the card following its own temperature profiles and all case fans on minimum

http://imageshack.us/a/img24/8806/uenginepanelfull.png


Thats a little noisy however, so now 10 minutes of same, except with my own low noise maximum gaming profile (note my custom fan curve). This is how BF3 runs. If the temps seem a bit high, its because its only on 40% fan speed, I tuned it that way for minimum noise - as long as its well under Tj Max for the silicon on the card im happy. As you can see from the curve the speed ramping after about 75 is very aggressive :D

http://imageshack.us/a/img26/3522/uenginepanel.png



and then with only a quick reboot, right into 10 minutes of prime95

http://imageshack.us/a/img9/8308/prime95testb.png


The cpu started at 58 after running Heaven and it actually cooled down while prime was running :D

Of course I could improve the thermals a lot if i 1) turned up the case fans from their silent settings or 2) fitted stronger but louder fans, however the aim of the project was to create a near silent machine without restricting performance, and i think ive achieved that :)

[st0mpy]

YAY! I couldnt resist - 4.5Ghz rock solid for over 12 hours now

I hammered the crap out of it yesterday, popped it up to 45x and then hit it with a DOUBLE torture test, Prime95 AND Heaven at the same time :) Â*did that for almost an hour and then left it running all night (not torturing, mostly idle with TS and a few minor tasks) and its still running now, had some rounds of BF, watched tv from last night, surfed some, wrote this etc

Screenshot after half an hour double torture

http://imageshack.us/a/img43/14/tripletorture2.png


Surprisingly gpu temps came down a little, I think prime95 was stealing cycles from Heaven.


I did try it at 4.8Ghz, it posted fine but windows struggled and became unstable, I cant be bothered to goose voltages or increase this and that hunting for the perfect stable config to shoot for 5Ghz, it was just to see what it would do, of course increasing airflow at the radiator would help too but its silence I want.

Even being super stable at 4.5Ghz ill probably drop it back to 4.2 just to give the temps a little extra headroom, its just nice having it so quiet at 4.5 :) :)

[Burning]

Impressive, my HD6950 gets about 69-72 aswell after some hours of bf3. (i dont check inbetween ,might be quicker). I use the default fan-curve for my GPU.
Still need to get myself better CPU cooler.Maybe liquid? There is plenty of 2nd hand watercooling equipment and alot of 1155 blocks. I got a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo atm. Â*Max temp on my 2500K @ 3.8 Ghz is 65. thats on 100% load after an hour, it doesnt increase. Ivy is 28 nm Â*, which helps :D


Nice setup you have there really Â*8)

[RPGforYOU]

Nice, shit. Definably like the smaller case also! :)
Lets trade? ;D

[zladuric]

What I envy you is not the cool gear you have, it's the time (and somewhat-consequently, the will) to do all the tuning, testing, playing with all this crap.

[st0mpy]

YAY one week on, it made it - the pc STILL hasnt been rebooted or powered down since before the double torture testing above, its still firing on all four cores at 4.5Ghz, downloads, TV and games on every day.

Thanks for the nice words guys, its been a lot of researching to get it like this. No more ATX ever again! (at least not for me, ill build anything anyone wants)


@Zladuric, Ah its no time at all, put on benchmark- go wash dishes, put on another bench, go make some food...etc etc. As well as core electronics training ive been modding computers since I first hacksawed an Atari ST keyboard off to extend it with telephone cable (I just wanted a remote keyboard like we have today, worked well :)). Fast forward many years and I probably make it look easy - its not, I just know it like a Baker knows his bread.

[iNco782]

Hey St0mpy

Nice build and thanks for going to the trouble of posting the BMs and pics.

I'm curious what site you use to purchase your components? ÂÂ*I used to use overlockers.co.uk but haven't been in the UK for a while so I'm out of touch on where is best.

[st0mpy]

hi iNco, thanks

I dont have one place, im a heavy user of google shopping and go to whoever can give me the lowest deal on the bundle im looking for at any given day. Â*Since the hardware is exactly the same inside the box its all about the delivery price and how long its going to take for me.

For B&M stores I tend to use yoyotech in central london for off the shelf stuff. Not always a great price but its convenient if im in town anyway. Â*Even in this day and age i still feel happier dealing across a counter, returns are so much easier.

The above PC was made with parts from Yoyo, Scan, Systo, Watercoolinguk, but also I had much of it already.