Intel i5 3570K with stock cooler (30-40 degrees idle, 60-70 when gaming)
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Motherboard
2xNoctua 120mm fans (front intake, back exhaust)
Asus GTX670 Direct CUII (35-45 degrees idle, 75 degrees at 98% load fans 55%)
Coolermaster Elite 430 case
My problem is that I live in a small room in my house at University, and I can't leave it on due to fan noise. Is this normal? The sound isn't excessive, it's like someone whispering, however I'd like it to be as quiet as possible without overheating. My motherboard doesn't have too many options in the form of fan control, but I have some software that allows me to control the CPU fan, rear exhaust and my graphics card fans.
What can I do to help keep the system quiet and cool?
you can try add sound deading material to your case but that will increase the heat as the material converts sound energy into heat. you can also try replacing your fans with low noise fans but i think the noctua's are as quite as you can get
you can get a fan controller to lower your fan speed, or find a fan resistor that lowers the speed of the fan.
work on your cable management, the turbulence within your case can cause noise too.
replace your stock cpu cooler with a larger cooler that can utilize a larger fan that can move a good amount of air at a lower speed (quieter)
you could try mounting the fans with sound dampening connectors, though it will never be trully silent. Also, a harddrive that is mounted without vibration dampening will make a fan-like noise resonate throughout ur case.
Have you managed to locate where exactly the noise comes from? eg which fan.
My cables are managed as much as possible, but the case doesn't offer many options in terms of cable management, and also the power supply isn't modular, so I've done the best I can to get everything out of the way.
Regarding the CPU cooler - I was looking into getting a new cooler however I don't currently have the funds to replace my current one. If you could recommend a nice CPU cooler I could save up for (say the nicer side of £100) I'd happily invest in the future.
The Noctua's are some of the quietest I've ever heard, so I don't think they're the problem.
I think most of the noise is coming from the GPU, however it is advertised as 'quiet' and the fans only really ramp up to 50%, but they're still pretty loud. Is there anything I can do to make them quieter?
I'll look into adding some dampening to the HDD that I use for storage, thanks!
if it's actually the graphicscard, then all you could do is add sound dampening around your pc which will decrease cooling by quite a bit. In other words it won't get much more quiet, sorry