Build your own PC - Part 1: Ultimate quiet

Building your own PC can often seem like a crazy idea. They normally work out more expensive than pre-built systems and you don't even get a technical support line to call. But saving money is not what building your own PC is about.

It's about getting the PC you want without compromise. It's about seeing how things can be done better with the best components available. It's about devising your dream PC, and having the satisfaction of putting it together yourself.

But if the professionals are already using the best processors, drives, memory and graphics, how can you put together something superior? The answer is to look beyond these familiar components and consider areas often neglected or overlooked on commercial systems.

It's an opportunity to use the latest in silent cooling technology to create a PC that runs in virtual silence. It's a chance to forget about plastic beige cases and go for an aluminium model with far superior build quality and to specify a decent power supply too.

But why stop there when you can also customise the appearance of your PC? You could fit an LCD panel displaying anything from system temperatures to scrolling news reports or the title of the song that's playing. You could even cut windows in the side of your case and fit internal lighting to show off your components.

Building your own PC lets you do all of this and much more. To help you think out of the beige box, we've looked into creating the ultimate PC in three unique areas. We'll kick off with the ultimate quiet PC, followed by the ultimate home entertainment PC, and finish with the ultimate modded PC.

In each case we'll look at what makes this kind of PC different and desirable, compare the products and techniques that make it possible, then describe what's needed to build the ultimate version.

This is for those people who've already built a PC or are looking for a good excuse to get stuck in and end up with something a bit special. A system which will be unique and the envy of their friends and family.

One of the most common complaints about today's PCs is the constant noise they generate. This noise has been present since the dawn of computing, but is usually masked by air conditioning and general office noise.

As an increasing number of PCs now find themselves in the quieter surroundings of homes and small offices, though, their noise has become obvious and seriously annoying. Some people even believe the constant low-level hum of office equipment can be bad for your health.

The good news is that it's possible to build much quieter PCs and, in some cases, silence them completely. This is essential for any computer designed for use in a living room, but equally beneficial for back rooms and offices that desire a little more peace and quiet.

The culprits
The main culprits behind PC noise are of course their cooling fans - and the Catch 22 is that our desire for quicker (and hotter) hardware is only making the problem worse.

The worst offender is usually the main processor cooling fan, but coming a close second are the exhaust fans fitted in power supplies. Contributing further are the tiny fans you'll find on many high-performance graphics cards and main motherboard chipsets. Some PC cases may also feature one ormore fans to further cool the innards.

PC noise isn't just about whirring fans, though. Modern hard disks and optical drives feature components that spin at thousands of revolutions per minute, which at times can sound not unlike a plane preparing for take-off. Worse, if these drives aren't screwed securely in place, their vibrations can generate even greater noise.

The solutions
The two main approaches behind building a quieter PC are to look for cooling solutions that don't make as much noise and, second, to consider components that don't get as hot or noisy in the first place.

Most fans are noisy because they spin so fast. If you slowed the fan, you'd generate less noise, but also create insufficient airflow. The solution therefore is to use a larger fan that can generate the requiredairflow without spinning as fast.

Fans rarely work alone in the cooling process. Normally they sit atop heatsinks, drawing hot air away from their fins. Going for a larger or more efficient heatsink could reduce the amount of heat needed to be drawn away by a fan, thereby allowing it to spin even slower and more quietly.

Alternatively you could consider cooling that doesn't use fans at all. Water cooling was once the preserve of serious overclockers, but there's no reason it can't be used on normal PCs. Water cooling isn't silent due to the pumps, but often works out quieter than most fans and more effective too.

Costing from £80 to several hundred pounds, though, water coolers are currently expensive but could end up becoming a mainstream cooling solution if and when processors get any hotter.

It's also important to consider ways you could make the insides of your PC easier to cool in the first place. A messy jumble of cables will restrict internal airflow, making your PC components run hotter and require more cooling. Carefully routed cables, or the use of special thin ones will maximise airflow, thereby making the job of keeping your PC cool much easier.

In terms of drives, there are some models that inherently run quieter than others. Optical drives can be a bigger problem as they noisily spin-up to maximum speed, but manufacturer utilities may be available to force them to run at single speed in almost silence.

You may balk at disabling the potential of a fast optical drive, but most people rarely exploit their speed after the initial OS and application install. Don't forget, DVD movies and audio CDs by definition are only played at single speed. It's an extreme measure admittedly, but a good one for systems where the speed has become unnecessary.

Quiet cooling products
If you're building a PC (or already own one) with an AMD Athlon or Intel Pentium processor, the first step to quietening it is with a decent heatsink and fan. Head to specialist suppliers such as the appropriately named QuietPC website which supplies numerous ultra-efficient heatsink and quiet fan solutions.

One of our favourites is the Zalman Flower, a package including an elaborately designed heatsink, a large fan and a variable resistor to adjust rotational speed. The fan isn't attached to the top of the heatsink, but hangs above it on a supplied bracket.

Zalman claims noise levels between 20 to 33dBa (acoustic decibels) depending on the fan speed, and its halfway setting or slower is pretty much inaudible from a closed system at a short distance. The aluminium and copper Zalman Flower costs £29, while the all-copper version costs £38 (all prices listed here exclude VAT).

An alternative is to use a huge heatsink, such as an Alpha PA ^L8942T or Thermalright's SLK-800, and top it with a large but slowly spinning 80mm fan, such as the Papst 8412 NGML 0.6w model. The heatsinks cost around £30 and the fan an additional £14, all from Overclockers UK. Papst rates the noise of this fan at 19dBa and, like the Zalman it was virtually silent, yet very effective in use.

The second step for a peaceful PC is to buy a quiet power supply such as the Q-Technology models from QuietPC (£45 for 300w), or an Enermax supply with an adjustable fan from Overclockers UK (£39.95 for a 350w).

Next you should tackle the tiny fans that are commonly found on motherboard northbridges and graphics chipsets. In many cases, single larger heatsinks will be sufficient to cool each passively, without the need for a fan.

The motherboard northbridge shouldn't pose a problem, and replacement heatsinks are available from QuietPC for just £10. Graphics chipsets, particularly on high-end cards, can get very hot and require something a bit more serious. Fortunately Zalman offers a large flat heatsink that fits to both sides of a card (£22 from QuietPC) and claims it'll even cool a Geforce F ^X5900 or a Radeon 9800.

Now the only thing remaining is to ensure your drives are screwed tightly in place and that there's decent airflow in the case. Small rubber washers can also be used between a drive and case to minimise vibrations, while rounded IDE cables (or those for Serial ATA drives) can maximise airflow. Acoustic pads can also be fitted internally to further dampen any sound.

Building a silent PC
While the products and techniques in the last section can render a PC very quiet, the existence of fans and other mechanical parts means they can never be truly silent. To build a genuinely silent PC, you really need to eliminate all moving parts, and for starters that means no fans.

While the prospect of cooling without fans seems an insurmountable problem for PCs, it's just one of scale and component selection. Take hi-fi amplifiers, for instance, which generate a great deal of heat, yet get rid of it all by simply using massive heatsinks. Similar brute force, coupled with cooler-running components are the keys behind a completely silent PC.

Sadly there's no way you can cool a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP with a practically sized heatsink alone. Via's Eden and ^C3 processors both run much cooler though, and the Eden can get by with a normal heatsink. Modest performance eliminates the Eden from this project, but the ^C3 is faster and, while normally equipped with a modest fan, can be cooled passively by the right kind of heatsink.

Sticking with Via we've opted for one of its tiny Mini-ITX Epia motherboards which houses an embedded C3 processor; this sacrifices CPU upgradeability, but allows the smallest form factor around. We've gone for the Epia M10000 model featuring a 1GHz C3 (with the latest Nehemiah core), costing £105 from the Mini-ITX website.

It won't match the performance of even a modest Pentium 4 or Athlon XP, but is sufficiently quick for most office applications and features hardware mpeg-2 decoding for smooth DVD playback. This motherboard only has one PCI slot, so consider your expansion options carefully.

As standard the Epia M10000 uses a small heatsink and fan to cool the processor, but passive cooling is possible with a little inspiration from the hi-fi industry. Hush Technologies and Tranquil PC have created cases for the Epia motherboards with large heatsinks running entirely along one or both sides.

In each case, the standard fansink is removed from the C3 and a heatpipe attached which connects itto the large case heatsink.

Cleverly, both manufacturers have also exploited the low power requirements of the Epia motherboard to fit a power supply that requires no fans. With around one-sixth the power output of a standard PC supply, though, your choice of drives is limited.

You can use a 3.5in hard disk, but there's insufficient juice for a 5.25in optical drive. Fortunately there's enough power for a slimline notebook optical drive, and their smaller dimensions also allow a slimmer overall case.

Since the processor heatpipe can't be fitted by the end user, neither the Hush nor Tranquil case can be bought alone; the Hush machine is only available as a preconfigured system. Tranquil offers a better prospect for DIY enthusiasts with a barebones option where the motherboard, heatpipe and power supply have been fitted, leaving you to select drives and memory.

We opted for this in black with the Epia M10000 motherboard fitted for £299 from Mini-ITX. You'll need a slimline optical drive and the Mini-ITX website offers several models; we've gone for the smart slot-loading Panasonic CD-RW/DVD drive with a black bezel to match the case, costing £139; we'll also need an adaptor (priced at £9.50) to connect it to the Epia IDE connector.

When buying memory, remember the Epia M10000 only has one slot, so to be safe we've gone for 512MB of PC2100, which costs £53.99 from Crucial. The quietest hard disks we've tested are the Seagate Barracudas, with the 80GB model costing £52 from Dabs.com.

Our system price therefore comes to £553.49 ex VAT, minus an operating system, monitor, keyboard and mouse, although for just £10 more you can buy the same configuration pre-built from Mini-ITX.

And finally ...
So for less than £100 you can effectively quieten an existing PC and, with a careful choice of components, build a new one that is virtually silent. But as we said earlier, you'd need to eliminate all moving parts and that means finding new types of drives.

While there's not much you can do about the optical drive beyond forcing it to run at single-speed, the hard disk could in theory be swapped for a solid-state solution with no moving parts. Adaptors are available that allow you to connect a Compact Flash (CF) memory card directly to a standard IDE controller, and effectively use it as a normal, albeit smaller hard disk.

The CF IDE website sells several different CF-to-IDE adaptors for £19.99. 512MB and 1GB CF cards from Crucial cost £77.99 and £158.99 respectively, although most conventional operating systems are out of the question due to high storage requirements; XP Pro requires 2GB for example.

Consequently it may only be economical to use embedded OSs, but a solid-state disk certainly opens many exciting possibilities.

Useful contacts:

A-Tech

AVS Forum

CF IDE

Cool Case Mods

Crucial

Crystalfontz

Cyberlink

Dabs.com

Evation

Hauppauge

Hush Technologies

Intolect

Kustom PCs

LCDC

Quiet PC

Matrix Orbital

Mini-ITX

Overclockers UK

Powerstrip

Showshifter

Snapstream

Tranquil PC