Upgrade/Rebuild - Looking for Silence, or constant fan speed

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I rebuilt my PC a few years ago, during COVID and parts shortages, so some of the components were not exactly what I wanted. Its a few years later, and I am planning a rebuild and could do with some advice

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My main issue with the PC is the fan curves, the fans will ramp up when CPU load goes up, which is fine, however they are not constant. If I have a bunch of a Chrome tabs open and 20-30% CPU being consumed, they will ramp up, then back down, then back up, and it drives me crazy

If the fans must ramp up and stay there, fine. If they are silent, fine. But I don’t want to hear a constant change in fan speed over the span of seconds

The fan curve settings on this ASUS motherboard are TERRIBLE. The BIOS control is impossible to get right because of the horrible resolution etc, and the software you need to install to control them is absolute garbage.

What is the best path forward here?

  • A new board with better fan speed control?

  • Some kind of external fan controller?

  • Water cooling?

I don’t care what it costs, I just want good cooling and consistent fan speed

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Arctic P120/P140 fans everywhere.

They peak at like 1800rpm, but they make very nearly no noise even at their (quite conservative) WFO setting. I’d suspect the be quiet! 120 to be similar, so it may be only the case fans getting ramped, in which case you may want to look at which fan headers you have the case fans in and just turn them down until say 65C processor temps (while having a more severe fan curve on the CPU cooler). It’s not uncommon for Zen2/Zen3 to “jump” to a stated temp of ~60-63C from just a quick boost spike, and that is a behavior that doesn’t /really/ change with an AIO, but the AIO would generally add more fans to the mix, which means /more/ fan noise unless you use software to control fans off liquid temperature, which puts the efficiency back in the realm of air coolers.

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So I’m pretty much done with messing with fan curves, the hardware needs to change. I’ve been messing with it for 4 years and there is no fixing it

If I have a build a full custom loop and add a ton of rads, I will

Replacing the fans could help, however I think the main problem is the control of the fans

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Change the fans. I have a Freezer 36 CO on my 3900X system (with ubercheap 120mm case fans x2 in the case) and it’s literally dead silent. The Frost Commander 140 I’m currently using on my 5950X makes perceptible noise once the fans spin up, but I have some P140s and P120s at the ready for STFU operation whenever I feel like getting into a fight with fan clips again.

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For the BIOS resolution. I do not believe replacing the motherboard would inherently resolve the problem. Some basic steps I can recommend trying to resolve this would be to:

  1. Try disabling CSM support in the BIOS. I’ve had this help a lot
  2. Try reseting BIOS settings. Could be something in there is conflicting
  3. May be worth updating BIOS, but sometimes board vendors will drop higher resolution support when they run out of ROM space.

I currently have a ASUS b450F w/ RTX 3070 and it has no problems with BIOS displaying on my 1440p monitor when I hook it up to it.

Most motherboard vendors have pretty trash software imo. I’ve had good luck with Arctic and Corsair fan controllers in the past and corsairs software isn’t the worst that exists.

On the hardware side:

  • I think you would benefit from getting a better air flow focused case such as a phanteks p400a or Fractal Meshify 2. There are a lot of options so would be worth looking up reviews and see what styles you’d like. Gamer Nexus has some good case reviews.

  • From there I’d consider upgrading the case fans to Noctua NF-A12x25 or similar from Arctic/be Quite!.

  • Upgrading the CPU cooler to an NH-d15 or similar would also not hurt and could help with noise as it performs better than the dark rock slim at cooling the CPU and on noise.

Something else you could do is buy a ryzen 7 5700x or x3d since you’ll be opening up the case or maybe switching it out. May be worth it for you going ahead and getting a good performance bump.

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Q-Fan text mode works just fine?
https://youtu.be/O_6yvYRxLkI?t=206 (Select the manual profile)

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Maybe I should be looking to replace Case, CPU Cooler, All Fans and PSU (Will need upgrading for future GPU)

Then, I can easily swap the rest if needed

Thoughts on the Corsair 4000D?

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I mean, It functions the way it says it it will function

But no, it doesn’t really work fine, its hot garbage

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If you get case fans rated at 25-ish dba you’re not going to hear that over the ambient noise level of the room, so swapping case fans is probably a good starting place. I’d do that before you jump into watercooling.

You could also get a cheap decibel meter on Amazon for like $20 just to get some reference on what levels you personally find annoying. It could be the loudness isn’t really changing that much, but the pitch change of the fan motors ramping up and down makes it sound that way.

If that’s the case, then get something like the A14s from Noctua and just run them at 100% all the time.

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I like it. It’s the case I recommend to first time builders atm since its a good value, doesn’t look like a unicorn threw up on it, and its really easy to build in. It’s not the quietest case on the market, but I don’t believe it’s bad either. I’d check the reviews on it first to make sure you’d get what you want out of it.

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The BIOS resolution is what it is, I’m not going to replace the board for BIOS resolution

Unless things have really taken a turn, no BIOS is going to do 3440 x 1440. The real problem here is the fan control, its just not good. Increasing the resolution won’t really solve that problem on this board

The main problem I have with replacing with lower RPM or “Silent” fans is that I’m not really fixing the problem at hand which is fan control, its just making the fans not able to ramp up because they physically don’t go that fast

If the fans NEED to ramp up, then I’m happy for them to, its just this constant back and forth that I hate

When I ugprade, I’ll just get a new board entirely and go with a latest gen CPU, no point in messing with old stuff

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These Corsair AF140’s don’t really sound bad, even when they are “loud” the sound is just wooshing air, which is fine. Its the constant changing of RPM that is no good

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Then you’re doing it wrong, your power management software possibly overrides it or your cooler is simply too small to handle sudden increases in load which causes temperature go all over the place.

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May well be the case, but after 4 years of messing with it, I’m done

The control of the fans is garbage, I don’t think anyone can argue that

There are many third party applications that may or may not control the fans, and then must be started on boot. The ASUS software is terrible, and the control in the BIOS is a mess

When I get a new board, it won’t have this same fan control! I’d sooner buy a pre-built Dell/Lenovo etc, than deal with that

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Okay, here is the plan

New Case, New Fans, new CPU cooler, New GPU and possibly new PSU if I need it

Looking at a 4070, unsure if I should go with Standard, Super, Ti, Super TI etc

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If it’s Windows, FanControl. In the BIOS, ASRock’s the best I’ve used with AM4 for custom fan curves, though MSI’s not bad. Asus B550 was little better than what you’re describing.

For quiet 4070s, PNY XLR8 and MSI (I forget exactly which but IIRC the really big Trios are are quietest) are good starting points. Anecdotally, PNY seems lower risk for coil whine. Generally the lower the power, the quieter. See TechPowerUp’s review data.

Changing out the supply to one with a wide fan stop range, such as RMx or Leadex VII, is an option. I’m unsure how much Super Flower designs for noise but Corsair’s usually pretty careful. If the Pure Power’s not clicking it’s not really needed (and if it is you could RMA).

Staying mostly under 20 dB(A) until the GPU’s spun up should be no problem unless your ambients get fairly high. Might need to change the Dark Rock to like a Phantom Spirit 120 to hit that, though. I’m not aware of good data on AIO pump noise. Or on D5s, for that matter.

The ML140s and the fan suggestions you’ve gotten are ok but I agree it looks mainly a control issue. Silent profiles in the recent-ish BIOSes I’ve worked with start from 50% PWM whereas, with custom curves, I rarely set more than 40-50% max with typical fans. That’s on builds utilizing 850 or 1000 W supplies, though they don’t run in ambients over 30 or so.

See HWCooling and QuasarZone for on application, noise-normalized fan measurements across levels, though. Arctic P12s are cheap, hard to beat unless you happen to hit their hum, the Rev 4s support fan stop, and with FanControl or an equivalent to catch IO and GPU bound workloads, it’s feasible to stop the intakes at light load.

Uhh, they’re pretty likely worse. Ask me how I know… :sob:

Ok but getting dated. Lancool II for air cooled, III for a 360 top rad. If you need to keep the BluRay you’re pretty much forced into Pop Air, though, with adverse consequences for GPU airflow (Fractal doesn’t believe in shroud open area, I guess).

Montech Air and Antec Flux look promising to me but I haven’t built them and there’s limited data of good quality.

Possibly Fractal North if you don’t mind overpriced, underbuilt, and maybe choose a GPU short enough to flip the intake fans inward. (The Torrents’ 180s are 16 dB(A) min, so 19 dB(A) for a pair, and thus poorly suited to a quiet build.)

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Funny you mention the North, I just ordered one!

Parts list of stuff ordered

  • Fractal Design North ATX mATX Mid Tower PC Case - North Charcoal Black with Walnut Front and Dark Tinted TG Side Panel
  • CORSAIR RMx Shift Series RM850x
  • 5 x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax.black.swap
  • Noctua NH-D15S chromax.Black
  • ASUS TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER OC
  • G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) - So I have 64Gb Total
  • AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D

May have got a little overboard since, but oh well.

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Hmm, yeah. Noctua typically charges 2-6x their competitors for parts that are often a little worse and using a glass North variant obviates the case’s functional advantages by blocking GPU side intake and exhaust. Asus’s brand tax is substantial too and, while at times Nvidia’s market manipulations have forced going up to Strix, I’ve also come to try to avoid buying their GPUs because of extent and severity of coil whine. Hopefully your luck’ll be better.

For quad DIMM RGB display I’d probably have done Lancool II, 2x32 Vengeance, Vengeance Light Enhancement, and Royal Knight 120 SE (if available, otherwise Fuma 3). Overall cost and noise’d be a little lower and maintaining DDR4-3600 likely somewhat easier.

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Huh? This is not the case at all. Noctua products blow the competition out the water for quality

GPU was the same price as all the others

DIMM’s, I was matching the existing DIMM’s, no real choice there. How do you figre different DIMM’s would be less noise? DIMM’s have no fans

Cost is not really a huge consideration here, I just don’t want an annoying PC

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I have been using FanControl for the last 12months and am fully satisfied. I even donated to the developer.

This might be what you are looking for, even before you switch fans.