Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

I am wondering if anyone has successfully upgraded the fans in a digi(magma) 13 slot pci chassis to a newer "silent" fan and gotten quieter operation. If so, what brand/model of fans worked best? Also on that subject, has anyone done any worthwhile fan upgrades on g4's or any other macs to reduce the noise they make?

I'm doing a little acoustic modification(tighter door seals, plexiglass windows) to hopefully seal off my rack a little better, but still thinking that might not be enough. We'll find out when I get everything back together...

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

I have made a complete modification of my magama chassis (seven slots). I use a new fan and a new and better power supply. My chassis is a "no noise at all chassis" right now (less than my octo-core mac). The cost around 100€. I will be back to my studio in two days and I will tell you wich replacements I had.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Awesome, thanks. This will be very helpful to me.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Since I don't have a Expansion Chassis I can't tell you whats in it as far as fans ands PSU's go but after doing some extensive testing on the PC side I can tell that the Nexus 80MM fans are excellent along with the Nexus 120MM which are available from EndPCnoise.com. The Noctua's are rated the best and are available from EndPCnoise also. Newegg carries the Scythe Slipstream series fans and I can't tell any real difference between the Nexus, Noctua and Scythe 120mm fans.

Check out the reviews at silentpcreview.com for some actual lab testing. Assuming the expansion chassis uses a standard ATX12 PSU its hard to beat the Corsair HX520 or HX620, Very Very Quiet PSU's.

I'll bet you can nearly silence it using some after market fans and a PSU.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Yes, it's just a standard ATX Power supply. Thanks for the info, there are so many so-called "silent" fans these days that it's hard to know what works and what doesn't.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

I've had great luck using Vantec brand case fans. They are very quiet. If you find fans or power supplies that spec under 22db DBA (and there are some lower than 19) they'll be pretty darn quiet.

Try www.pricewatch.com and type searches like "silent fan" or "silent power supply" and like I said, www.endpcnoise.com is a great resource too.

Zalman CPU fans are good too.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

I had H 6 cards running in a magma 7 slot 64 bit .I just disconnected the front fans that sounded like an airplane taking off.
My room has AC and the temperature was always cool inside.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Magma sells an ATX power supply with a dead silent fan. I bought one and it is actually totally silent. I also disconnected the front fans and everything is way cool enough. Sorry I can't remember the actual model number, but if you call them they will know what you're referring to.

Re: Noisy PCI expansion chassis - upgrade with quiet fans?
 

Okay, I have opened everything up and I'm getting ready to pick out what fans and/or power supplies to buy. In case anyone else is thinking of doing this, I'll post another cool link I found about swapping out the power supply in a pre-ADC connector G4. (G4's with the ADC video card can take this mod too, but you lose the functionality of the ADC connector). G4's use an ATX power supply with the standard 20 pin connector. You have to resolder 2 of the connections, but that's easy enough. So if you have a bad power supply to begin with, you can replace it with a "quiet" ATX supply. Here's the link:

http://xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ATX_G...e_pg2.htm#next

So, I actually have a total of 3 studio noisemakers I'm modding:

1. Magma 13 slot chassis:
a. has 3 92mm fans in front.
b. uses standard ATX power supply. depending on make, it may have one or two fans of various sizes. mine has one 80mm and one 92mm

2. G4 "sawtooth" AGP graphics 400 mhz
a. Apple ATX power supply has one 80mm fan. Since my power supply works, I think I'll just swap out the fan...
b. Case also has a 120mm fan located below/ behind the power supply.

3. G3 beige - desktop configuration
a. One single 120mm fan on the bottom of a MASSIVE power supply(with ATX connector).

Now, here's what I'm thinking... I have already taken the G3 out of it's ugly, crappy case long ago and mounted everything in a 4U server case, which sits below the magma. The magma's motherboard has 2 ATX connectors on it. Does anyone know why? If they are wired in parallel, It would be really nice to just put one big 500-600watt power supply in the magma, and then tap into the second ATX connector to power the G3. I haven't looked closely at cost yet, but it seems these days that a big power supply is usually almost the same price as a smaller one.

Also had another noisemaker, it was my UPS. It hummed 60 cycles annoyingly whenever it had a load on it. I couldn't hear it over all of the other fans, so up until now I let it be. But I checked into it while everything is apart right now, the design of the case was the problem. The noise was a vibration from the transformer resonating the top of the case. I took the top off and the hum went away. Putting caulk on all of the mating surfaces of the top and the rest of the case fixed the problem. I'll let everyone know how the new fans work out.