Motherboard - fanless but not silent?

[Ralph072]

Hi all,

 

I built my want-to-be-silent music server with the Zotac NM10-ITX motherboard. Its passively cooled and has a recent Atom processor. I was surprised to hear quite some noise coming from it. I can still hear it when I'm standing a meter away from it.

 

Am I being over sensitive? Have you got similar experiences?

 

I'm thinking if a Intel 510MO would be better or the one that Chris suggested for the CAPS.

 

What do you guys think?

 

Cheers, Ralph

 

PS. In contrast my harddisk is totally silent..

 

[ldolse]

Shouldn't be making any noise.... My passively cooled Atom board is dead silent.

 

[ldolse]

Dupe

 

[Ralph072]

Hi, that's what I thought. What type of board have you got?

 

[ldolse]

D945GSEJT, same board recommended in the C.U.P.S. article. However before that I was using an underclocked Asus board which was passively cooled and it was also silent. I'm guessing you must be hearing some sort of electrical hum/buzz, and that's not normal...

 

[Ralph072]

sorry, guys. I think the noise is not coming from the mobo, but from the spinning hard drive - which of course makes much more sense.

 

By the way, I found an interesting article on hard drive isolation, in case someone is interested:

 

http://www.earshockandvibe.com/pdfs/engineering/2.5HDD.pdf

 

[firedog]

Do you have other fans in the server? On the PS, or exhaust fans?

 

If so, replace them with after market quiet fans from Zalman or Coolermaster or another brand.

 

My fanless Atom server makes no noise, except for occasional HD noise, but it isn't audible unless you are right next to the unit.

 

[ldolse]

Yeah, I wouldn't put a traditional hard drive in the music server myself. Currently running off USB sticks or Compact Flash, but thinking about something like this to speed up my boot time:

http://www.mini-box.com/SATA-Flash-Modules

 

All the audio is on a NAS which doesn't need to be in the listening area. That said, if you're looking for convenience you can buy very quiet hard disks. Try checking http://www.silentpcreview.com/ for reviews on quiet drives, etc.

 

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_Hard_Drives

 

 

[Ralph072]

Thanks, guys. There are no other fans in my system & I'm using an external power supply - like for a notebook - without fan.

 

I looked at the silentpcreview - and the drive I have is recommended there ) It's a WD Scorpio Blue 2.5 inch with 640MB.

 

I guess the problem is, that the drive is attached under the top of my (small) case. Which causes the case to vibrate. I want to try to use grommets for isolation, like these ones:

 

http://www.inline-info.de/index.php?six_do=cms&six_art=33082&lang=en

 

I will report back if that solved the problem.

 

[firedog]

I'm using them and they are very quiet - when serving music I don't hear them at all.

 

When doing someintense tasks like backup I can hear them a bit if I'm close, but that's it.

 

In any case, I'm betting some isolation does the trick for you. Good luck.

 

[1audio]

Even silent motherboards can make some noise. They all have switching supplies that squeal to some degree. It will change with load making it all more audible. And even transistors can make some noise. It can be unnerving to hear a power amp squeak when tested under power.

 

A good reason for a box.