Bitcoin Forum

What's the best way to minimize noise on a current mining rig? I've been considering a few options:

-Lower the fan speed of the graphics card
-Put a water block on the graphics card
-Get a fanless graphics card (one that only has a heatsink)
-Use a special cooler (such as Accelero)
-Use sound dampening strips (such as Dynamat)

Any suggestions on how to make a current rig less noisy or tips on building a new, quieter rig would be greatly appreciated.

1. No, it will overhead when mining.
2. No ^
3. No ^
4. Possibly
5. Would be your best bet.

I have set up such a system, only one passive 5770 though and a Llano APU does ~260mh on stock settings.
The only thing noticeable is the APU stock cooler which I'd have replaced soon.

Without the APU working the system is quieter than my laptop. however I will probably never get over 500mhash even with 2 5770s and some tweaking it's a nice experiment.  
The main purpose for the system is a desktop though not a dedicated mining machine for which I wouldn't use such cards with a bad mhash/$

I have two 69cc cards. Both have very noisy fans. I have some sound proofing but the noise isn't very different with the case off. That's because the noise from the fans exits with the exhaust.

How to fix this?
1 you can detune the  card. At half my cards usual hashrate the noise is bearable.
2 water cooling. This is a pain in the arse to set up and manage if you've never done it before.
3 build a very large box with good sound proofing with incoming air at one end and a well baffled exhaust at the other. Put whole pc into box, make sure card exhaust exits to baffling system.
4 ear plugs.

Sorry none of these are very useful. I've just put up with it.

Good case design and placement. I have a 5770 and 6970 (both reference design cards, important!) in a RV03 case. It has two 180mm fans in the bottom, and all airflow is directed upwards since the motherboard is 90 tilted, sucked in at the bottom. I have the case on the floor (hot air rises, coldest air near the floor). Place the case near an air intake in your house so it gets the coldest possible air. Take off your socks and feel with your feet where the floor is coldest ;)

Also check the cable management. Cables hinder airflow, which gives you high temperatures. Air hitting cables (turbulence) also generates noise. I sometimes take off fan grills to lower noise. You could also clad the inside of you case sidedoors with some thin noise dampening mats.

Overriding the graphic card cooling is not a good idea. Feeding the card the coldest air possible is the best. And removing the hot air the best possible way. Remember large fans, move more air with less noise.

Mining will use 100% load of gpu right?

Well it should, you sometimes get less than that if the pool stalls. Can be compensated with extra work items in the queue. Cgminer has this option. Also it reduces the load dynamically by default when you use the machine so it doesn't annoy you. Pretty hand if you use your Desktop for mining. :)

you will get used to the noise in time.  then when its not there you will miss it

1) massively underclock the memory on your GPU cards to between 250-300 ..  (you should be doing this anyway to save power)  Unless taken to absolute extremes, this will not impact mining performance.  It will, however, impact gaming performance if this is a dual-use rig.

2) If noise is a bigger concern than performance, underclock the cores on your GPU cards.  This will also save power, and allow you to lower the voltage on the card, saving more power.

By trimming your power consumption, you generate less heat.  The less heat you generate the slower the fan needs to run.  You'll notice there is a cutoff point where the fan will go from "wife has you sleeping in the doghouse" loud to nearly silent. 

Regards,
Sigg

Do they still sell that non-conductive liquid coolant that was salvaged from the Cray super computers? I can't remember too much about it, but I knew someone who had a music studio PC that was immersed in this liquid. I know this stuff wasn't cheap, but it allowed for some heavy overclocking with zero noise.

It's basically a safer version of water cooling. The liquid itself has to be cooled somehow too usually with a radiator with a fan. But water has the highest heat capacity so it is the most efficient version.
It can be viable if you know how. The best thing for water cooling is one of the Volkswagen Golf cabin heater radiators. They fit inside some wider cases and you can attach two 140-160mm fans on it. It is rated something like 3.5kW i think.

If you can have access to a cnc mill you can even make your own water blocks out of some copper or aluminum and some o-rings. Then a powerful aquarium pump and some silicon tubing and here you go :)
So watercooling can be quite cheap if you invest time.. I did it one and I even made some profit selling the system after I wanted to get rid of it. This was a long time ago though but it should still work with current machines.

Undervolt & underclock the card and run it at lower fan speeds. Works wonders for me. :)
I have made two scripts for this.. one for when I'm afk and one for when I'm using the computer. Each script sets appropriate clocks, volts and fan speeds and life's good.

-Put it into another room :D

i'm using my 6970 with a full cover water block and an external radiator with 9*120mm silent fans and a lot of dampening mats to kill any high-pitched noise from water pump, solenoids and hdds.
it was originally used as a gaming rig, and for that purpose i think it was acceptable to use expensive watercooling to build a rig i could sleep next to.
When i've started using for mining, i've put an additional 120mm fan next to the graphics card to prevent any parts that aren't cooled by the waterblock from overheating.

I use an ATI 6990+Corei5 2500k watercooled,

99%, so yeah...

Why watercooling isnt a option ??

I can only assume the poster misread. IMHO Water cooling will be the most effective solution. It is quite costly though, so maybe not worth it.

My solution for noisy cards:

I put new parts in an extremely ugly case from 1997, and set them outside under the back porch. It's dry and shady. Some people claim there is a problem of humidity but I don't see how condensation would form without a shift in temperature, so I just see any humidity there might be as a benefit for transferring heat. Best part is I don't hear a thing and my house is cool.

It is kinda  a visual joke for myself, but I keep my mining computer in the newegg box it came in (it has no case) with 2 large 120mm fans providing overall airflow. Seems to keep it a bit quieter than the aluminium case I was going to plop it in.

Please note this is a fire hazard technically. Do not store you computer in a cardboard box on top of used/filled oil drums. Thank you.

Do you power the rig with an outside outlet and use a wireless NIC? What about heavy rainfall? Or the possibility that someone might steal your rig?

I have my whole rig underwater.

Cost me a pretty penny.

Underclocking is indeed the way to go IMO, if you don't want to use watercooling. That's what I did on my latest rig: I have 2 Radeon 5870. The bottom one underclocked at 750MHz (core) / 300 MHz (memory), the top one, which isn't as well ventilated, is currently at 550/300. I hope to increase those when room temperature gets lower...
You could also flash the graphic card BIOS to modify the fan speed / temperature curve ; unfortunately on my card this wasn't an option.

Get an aftermarket cooler. I had an trad2 gtx on my 4870. When mining at 100% my psu would be the loudest component
But now i have an 6950 with a loud cooler. Watercooling is tempting :D