Advice Needed on cooling a CM 690II

[skit]

Hey guys,

Since I bought my new rig a month ago I'm still changing things here and there trying to make it quiet/quieter.

The CM-690II is filled with holes so it barely does anything when it comes to sound isolation but seems quite good for the airflow.

I have just bought a Noctua U12P SE2 cooler and mounted it vertically (the Noctua Upgrade-Kit is coming).

Heres what I have so far:

The Noctua cooler mounted vertically (should I change it to horizontal? "Heat rises" so ...)

Now, the fans:

Top - 1 outtake Noctua P14 with the 7v thingy (LNA or whatever)

Rear - 1 outtake Noiseblocker XL1 Q-FAN controlled (which since I added the cooler is doing close to nothing).

Bottom - 1 intake CoolerMaster stock fan with 5v mod (dead quiet but also really low CFM)

Front - 1 intake stock CoolerMaster fan Q-FAN controlled

By now I still can't sleep with the PC on but quite near barely hearing it.

The Noctua U12P seems to be goind a great job keeping the x4 955 at 25ºC even when the fans go down to 600/700 rpm.

Should I move things around? Get more air intake?

[thestepster]

loads temps are what matters when talkin about temps mate, plus ull want the cooler going horizontal otherwise its gonna get hot air rising from a gpu if you have one that is? and is the cooler new? y didnt you fork out that little extra for the nh-d14 cause its super awesome

but as for nose mate if u want to get rid of it ull have to repalce all the fans with noctuas (enermax clusters are also awsome) and there u go sorted but ull end up spending £60 in the process to do that just grin and bear the little noise u have from it cause from the sounds of it its not gonna get better without massive outlays in the process

you wouldnt be able to handle my pc it runs 24/7 folding@home (gpus are constantly underload) with high cfm noisy delta fans and 60% fan speed on the gpu's so its quite noticeable its all about gettin used to it when u sleep next to it, mines is right at the bottom of my bed

[skit]

I did try to get the NH-D14 but it was backordered and was going to take a whole month of waiting to get it.

And since I'm not going to overclock that much I think this one will do the job.

I haven't tested it under load yet because I haven't been able to get Q-Fan working properly on the cooler fans.

Yesterday after writing the post I went and shutdown all fans except for the cooler and I reckon it's the cooler that is producing the most dBa so I think I'm kinda sorted when it comes to fans.

But I'll eventually move the cooler to horizontal and probably get the P14 to act as intake at the front and add a P12 as outtake in the back.

So another question should I just give up on Q-Fan and get the cooler fans working @ 900 rpm all the time with the given adapter?

Seems to me from the testing yesterday that the noise produced when at < 900 and close to 900 is quite the same.

BTW I have no graphics card for now. I'm saving for a 6870.

[tinytomlogan]

Plug the noctua into molex adapters straight off your psu. If you need to make the fans slower use the provided adapters (dif colours for a reason so check them)

[thestepster]

wouldnt bother with qfan mate just get a cheap 6 channel fan controller something like the zalman mfc1 plus

[skit]

Thanks guys!

I'll do that. Move the cooler to the 7v molex connector provided.

But I think I'll keep the XL1 in the back, the CM at the front and the P14 at the top controlled by Q-Fan (makes quite a difference in noise).

[skit]

All done.

Idle - 24/25ºC.

Load - 35/36ºC (ran prime 95 for half an hour)

And I noticed something I heard a lot of air "gushing" and thought it was the cooler but actually is the PSU Fan.

Which is probably now the noisiest component in the righ.