Unauthorized - Parent Directory - Support

Power Supply and Motherboard
WE WANTED A FAIRLY POTENT POWER
supply, on the off chance that
we might someday want to install
two graphics cards in the system.
We’re not big fans of the two systems
out there, CrossFire and SLI—the gain isn’t
always worth the configuration pain. But if the right
game comes along. . . . So we ripped out the included
450W unit and sought something else.
Not all power supplies are created equal, of
course, as we discovered in recent power supply
testing (see go.extremetech.com/powersupplies). One
model that impressed us with its efficiency and relatively
low noise is the 600W Seasonic S12. Rated at
better than 80 percent efficiency (meaning it wastes
little power and generates less unnecessary heat),
the S12 is one of the quieter high-performance power
supplies available. It even has two PCIe six-pin
graphics card power connectors, and it passed our
CrossFire and SLI tests with aplomb.
We wanted a leading-edge motherboard, and the
spanking-new ABIT AN8 32X motherboard seemed
just the ticket. The key is the passively cooled chipset,
called Silent OTES (short for outside thermal
exhaust system, of course). ABIT uses a combination
of passive heat sinks and a heat pipe to direct
the chipset’s heat to the rear of the chassis, where
it’s exhausted out of the case. That removes a substantial
source of annoying noise: the northbridge
fan. Two gigabytes of Corsair’s Twinx2048-4000PT
memory and an AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 processor
rounded out the system.
Drive Noise Out
For many systems,
it’s easy to identify the
loudest part, even from
clear across the room: an
ancient (or, as we like to
say, classic) hard drive.
Molex makes a product
called SilentDrive, basically
a foam-lined sleeve
that swallows most
standard-size IDE and
SCSI drives (recommended
for 5,400-rpm
drives only) while still
allowing them to
function normally. It’ll
silence the high-pitched
whine of a noisy
hard drive.
Mother of all boards
The ABIT AN8 32X
supports the nVidia SLI
X16 chipset, with a full
16 lanes of PCI Express
to each channel. That’s a
lot of graphics goodness.
Don’t forget the
CPU’s separate
12V power cable!
Look! No
northbridge fan!
Foam goes
inside the
duct
Foam the side door
5 Install the foam in
other parts of the case,
including the side door.
Note the thin strip just
below the latch. Remove
it so the Sonata’s support
bar has room. The lowest
rectangle stays in place
on the Sonata II (it needs
to be removed for the
older Sonata I).
Open the air duct
6 The Sonata II ships
with a removable plastic
duct that directs airflow
from the CPU out the
back of the case. The
AcoustiPack kit comes
with precut foam sections
for the duct, but
you’ll need to disassemble
the duct. First, take
the cooling duct apart.
Add foam to it Then
7 install the Acousti-
Pack foam and reassemble
the duct. When
you’re done, it will look
mostly the same but
should run substantially
quieter. Grab your reassembled
duct and your
screwdriver and mount
the duct back into the
Sonata case.
YYePG Proudly Presents, Thx for Support
Quiet your drives
8 Shove a couple of
foam blocks around the
hard drive area. Acousti
recommends not using
these blocks if you plan
on having more than two
drives. The foam is an
addi tional sound-absorbing
layer, but it also traps
heat, which could shorten
your drives’ lifespans .
Add a Drive There’s
a second solution for
loud hard disks: Buy a
new one. We bet you
can find a faster, larger,
quieter drive for under
a hundred dollars. Use
Norton Ghost or a similar
tool to replicate the old
drive’s partition onto
the new drive, set aside
the old one, and it’s
business as usual. You’ve
got a backup as well!
Samsung’s SpinPoint
line is popular for its
quiet operation.
MAY 9, 2006 PC MAGAZINE 93