Corsair RM550x power supply and Noctua NF-F12 and NF-A9 case fans fitted in the final part of a series in which I make a desktop PC very quiet indeed!
The first part of this series, in which I fitted a Noctua NH-U9S CPU cooler, is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iVMGSBFy-M
The Corsair RMx PSU is on Amazon.co.uk here: https://amzn.to/3KaKyMA
The Noctua NF-F12 fan is on Amazon.co.uk here: https://amzn.to/3DAfSBV and on Amazon.com here: https://amzn.to/35x07yO -- whilst the NF-A9 is on Amazon.co.uk here: https://amzn.to/3J5WYnk and on Amazon.com here: https://amzn.to/3LzEqO2
A Noctua NH-U9S CPU cooler can be purchased on Amazon.com here: https://amzn.to/36IKmFj and Amazon.co.uk here: https://amzn.to/3uyTe8y Note that these links are to the version of the cooler in its standard colours, not in chromax black.
NOTE THAT THE ABOVE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS, and that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases when you click on them.
More videos on computing and related topics can be found at http://www.youtube.com/explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: http://www.youtube.com/explainingthefuture
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Quiet Power
04:34 Corsair RM550x PSU
09:54 Fan Plan
11:31 Noctua Case Fans
16:31 Cool Results
20:33 Wrap
#QuietPC #PSU #CorsairRMx #Noctua #ExplainingComputers
Why is it today possible that newer ATX powersupplies can work without fan at lower temperatures unlike older units? Is it soley because of higher efficiences or did the fabricants need to change to higher quality or different components that can work at higher temperatures? thanks.
@lucilaci Says:
thank you for rekindling my interest in pc hardware and a bit in software! i especially like your usage of older components. they still work good for many things. (i played games so i wasnt that interested in them, but i changed)
thanks for your videos :)
@ph11p3540 Says:
It's been a really long time that I have seen such a low wattage power supply. I am so used to 850 watt power supplies and up because high end graphics cards that are so power hungry.
@charlesdeens8927 Says:
Great vid. As a PC enthusiast myself, fan noise has always been a thorn in my side. Nice that manufactures are providing near silent solutions for powerful PC's these days.
@dime124 Says:
You are the Tony Hart of modern computing, who wouldn't want to watch.
@randylahey1232 Says:
I use the rm1000 iv had it for 10 years and just recently its now powering a new pc its very quiet and very reliable it seems case fans are all noctua cpu cooler also noctua i dont give my money to any cooling company other then noctua
@martinwilkinson2344 Says:
Here’s my cautionary tale if you replace conventional desktop PC case fans with PWM fans….
Last Summer I replaced both my conventional (non-PWM) case fans (which were supplied with the case) with Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans as featured here.
I noticed that I was getting a high pitched whine from the case for a minute or two when booting up (see my last post). It then stopped. I used the great little tool “HWMonitor” and found that the whining coincided with one or both PWM fans not spinning (i.e. at 0 rpm), before the case warmed up enough for the motherboard to start them spinning. Once the PWM fans were spinning, no whine.
I didn’t really know what was going on, but I assumed that one or both of the PWM fans didn’t like not being spun, and that I was hearing some sort of “PWM whine” possibly related to the mark/space ratio of the signal from the motherboard being so low (as the MB didn’t need to spin the fan).
Anyway, it gradually got worse over winter but I’ve only just investigated properly.
Long story short, the whine was not coming from the fans, but the PC buzzer. The BIOS was set to Alarm when either of the case fans failed, and as they weren’t spinning for a minute or 2 after power up, it interpreted this as them having failed, so triggered the “alarm” i.e. the buzzer whine. I wish the alarm had been an intermittent beep or something a bit more obvious, rather than sounding like swarm of mosquitoes!
Lesson painfully learned – but at least I hadn’t put the old fans back in which I was preparing to do!
@martinjones1390 Says:
I only discovered your channel about a week ago and have been bingeing through the last 10 years. Great stuff
Regarding the silent PC upgrade. To be fair the lightweight generic case you used didn't really help you very much.
For the last 10 years or so , (and several build/upgrades), I have use a Fractal Design 3 case. Very solid with good airflow, dust filtering and sound deadening materials applied to the sides and probably the top of the case. My current build, dating from late 2017, is a Ryzen 5 1600 processor with an 8GB R570 gpu plus various SSD's and HDD's. I have two front case fans and one rear fan which I think were supplied with the case. My PSU is a Corsair, (can't remember which model but around 600W), and I always fit my PSU's to draw air from inside the case - reduces dust intrusion and supplements the rear case fan. Temps and noise are quite acceptable.
For the next upgrade I'll definitely be looking at some of those larger and slower revolving Corsair fans. I think that the Fractal Design case will last me a few years yet as my under the desk machine.
@hasansalim1868 Says:
Now we know who is the culprit! Stanley the knife is creating all that noise not the poor PSU fan 😄 Anyways, Merry Christmas Chris. Wish you a prosperous new year.
@leatherwiz Says:
Thank you for another great video explaining computers. I need to change my PSU and some fans too to get my pc quieter.
@martinwilkinson2344 Says:
Just fitted a couple of those Noctua fans. I would advise against using the silicon anti-vibration mounts unless:
a) you have good all-round access to the fan (the mounts need pulling through the holes in the fan with pliers - they're not rigid enough to just push the fan onto)
b) you are mounting to holes in the PC case (rather than slots). My rear fan mounts to slots and the silicon mounts don't grip the slots.
Apart from that, they seem well made fans, and although they haven't made a stunning difference to the noise level (which was quite low anyway), it's nice knowing that they are PWM controlled and the best they can be.
The only other observation is that when I turn my PC on, I get a high pitched whine until it gets into Windows. I suspect it might be the PWM sorting itself out, but that's probably a motherboard "feature".
Loudest thing by far now is when the graphics card fans kick in.
@shazzaworks Says:
I got a RM750x and it's silent and full of connectors for almost any situation..... great PSU
@moomah5929 Says:
My Fractal Design R3 (or is it a R4?) was so quiet at the beginning and with it's stock fans, that I couldn't even hear it at all. I actually had to look under the table to see if the LED is on when the screen went into power saver. xD
Over the years the fans got louder and I replaced them with Noctua ones 1.5 years ago (yeah, the packaging it a bit of an overkill) but was tad disappointed by them being louder than Fractal Design's stock fans. In general the case is great for low noise levels as it has high quality and good dampening materials.
Later I got a be quiet! case for my wife's PC because it got praised by Gamers Nexus for being quiet but find it's quality far below Fractal's, with really thin feeling and sounding metal panels and even the damping material being worse.Also worse build quality with mainboard some standoffs not even be able to screwing in tightly but spinning in their screw holes of the case.
@bland9876 Says:
My computer sounds like a jet engine taking off when I try to play games on it.
It reminds me of the og Xbox 360.
@marcussoininen2084 Says:
Those silicon mounts are a great addition, they reduce the case resonance quite a bit on a computer that runs hot but at those low low fan speeds that shouldn't make much of a difference.
@afriedli Says:
Does that bag of bits add up to anywhere close to the cost of a baseline M1 Mac Mini, which most of the time is completely silent (and could no doubt be throttled to never use the fan, as per my MacBook Air that doesn't have one).
@antoniocouto7092 Says:
You solved my problem, i am building i5 12400 on Silverstone PS 15 case and this noctua cooler fit perfect, thanks for the effort.
@alpzepta Says:
Great now my girlfriend can sleep peacefully while I do some gaming and editing a video! Thanks!!
@BatemanPsycho Says:
Lovely (:
I think I've got some fans to replace.
@dnoodspodu1159 Says:
07:46 I find semi-fanless PSUs to have an inherent flow: if the fan fails to spin properly, the whole unit can can be damaged. A complete fanless PSU takes care of that, unlikely but possibly fatal, occurance
@dnoodspodu1159 Says:
A long shot next episode would be about making HDDs quieter with the usage of all kinds of boxes - a very niche subject
@TheFartfish Says:
Food for algorithm ;-)
@tubey84 Says:
Saw the thumbnail and for a mad split second was wondering why someone was trying to interview a power supply.
@riteshkunal9462 Says:
Please Make a tutorial on Raspberry pi 4 based PLEX SERVER, with nas service enabled so that every time we copy a movie it can be done through device available on lan and no need to unplug the SSD from RPie4.
@420bobby69 Says:
Yeah, I love these. I really like how practical your approach is. Most people building PCs on YouTube are going for these crazy unobtainable high-end machines. It can be cool, but I really appreciate how you have a realistic purpose-built mentality. You let your experience carry the content instead of relying on fancy hardware.
@alittlepeaceandkarma Says:
Interesting, so it wastes energy as heat?
@etiennecharpentier3238 Says:
Hi Christopher; thanks for great video; what about power efficient computer for windows while practically usable for basic office work to reduce carbon footprint ? it would be great for you to do video(s) on such topic …
@meowthx1985 Says:
Your upgrade and tests make sense as Britain is raising its energy prices. Having new fans and energy-efficient PSUs is indeed quite crucial for reducing noise pollution, excessive energy consumption as well as cooler temperatures to keep the motherboard and hard drives safe as they don't like heat that would brick the HDDs and maybe melt the soldering or worse pop several of those capacitors etc
@glennplumbe7815 Says:
It amazing how such a small out lay makes a huge difference Great work Now time for a new knife lol
@ovalwingnut Says:
What a relief (and joy) to finally see a NORMAL PC on YouTube.. All those "rocket ships to the moon" builds are so Zen'-depleted :O) Props to Mr. Scissors, s/he's sharp!
@AcornElectron Says:
Of course, a slightly cheaper option is get noise cancelling headphones when you buy your headphones….
@AcornElectron Says:
I’d like to extoll the virtues of the 2000w Chineseum psu as featured on LTT this week. Never mind this expensive modular affair. 🤣🕹😉
@treyquattro Says:
haha, I can't hear the recording of fan noise made by your computer over the fan noise being made by mine. The Noctua fans are a great choice (I'm using a laptop - older MacBook running Linux - so don't have the option)
@lawrenceallwright7041 Says:
Unfortunately, when you demonstrated how quiet the new fans were, I couldn't hear them over the noise from my own D-Link ShareCenter!
Must get round to home-building a better NAS sometime.
@anon_y_mousse Says:
Have you been watching Matt at DIY Perks, because this is right up his alley. He hates fan and really any noise from computers. I'd like to try building one of those WeeCee's, though that's just for running old DOS and Win98 games, would still be fun.
@DONK8008 Says:
I love Noctua fans, but they are so ugly.
@alanjrobertson Says:
Very impressive reduction in noise. The low idle power requirements are also excellent and will add up over time 👍
@reggiep75 Says:
My next PC will be a great deal quieter than my current PC even then that is really low on my SPL monitor at 36-37dB idle. Another great and enjoyable vid. 👍
@briankleinschmidt3664 Says:
Its easier if you put the cables on the PSU before installation. Who says otherwise? I'll fight 'em.
@BoyceBailey Says:
I've not bought a case in a long time. I wonder what silent options there are these days.
@Panzergruppe22 Says:
ahaha 9:08 octopus
we call them snakes here
@MarvinStroud3 Says:
When you have lived 87 years as I have you just remove your hearing aids.
@wamy7619 Says:
I didn't think I'd enjoy these as much as I did. This has been an eyeopener and really rather fun to watch. Getting into the works is so much. I always found the internals the most frustrating part an you made it a joy. Thanks!
@bsvenss2 Says:
This has to be the best Noctua "advertising" ever created. ;-) Next time I build a PC I will strongly consider Noctua.
@dimitrisgakis9206 Says:
Use Argus Monitor, thank me later
@Baygul318 Says:
Corsair RMx and Noctua fans and cooler are what I ran in my system. Very quiet even when gaming, I love this setup.
@der.Schtefan Says:
You can post a pic witch spectral view in audacity. I bet the old PC had a lot of high pitched noise.
@der.Schtefan Says:
Hooray for Noctua! :) Austrian quality!
@der.Schtefan Says:
Regarding expensive: a night at the cinema will set you back (depending on country) 15 USD for the ticket, 15 USD for pop corn, drinks, snacks, and 3-5 for travel. You are entertained for 2 hours and will then forget the plot of the movie a week after (unless it is an exceptionally good one). The same 35 USD gets you almost two Noctua which will provide you joy every day you use the PC :)
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