Modern PCs are capable of generating a shocking amount of noise, and I’m not referring to any audio or loudspeaker capabilities.

It’s the combination of cooling fans and high-speed drives which can cause a racket and become a greater issue than performance.

The only reason a PC makes a lot of noise is because it’s been fitted with the cheapest solutions to keep it cool. By upgrading these to better designed solutions, you can keep your PC as cool without generating as much noise.

We regularly review quiet cooling products in PCW, but this month we thought we’d go over the basics of getting your PC to run in a more civilised fashion. You may find it more worthwhile than a faster processor.

Quiet cooling: the theory
Modern PC components generate a lot of heat and demand adequate cooling to keep them running. For processors and graphics chipsets, this traditionally means a heatsink to act like a radiator and a fan to blow or suck the heat away.

Quiet cooling solutions tackle noise in two ways. The first involves using a more efficient heatsink to better dissipate heat. The second is to use a quieter fan.

While superior bearings can greatly reduce fan noise, the greatest difference involves running the fan at a slower speed. To compensate for reduced airflow at lower speeds, physically larger fans are used.

So that’s the simple theory behind quiet cooling: a more efficient heatsink with a larger fan, spinning slowly on top. All the cooling solutions we’ll mention here are available from Quiet PC.

Processor
The first step to building a quiet PC is to upgrade the heatsink and fan that cools the main processor. The heatsinks supplied as standard are often the cheapest solutions available, with little or no consideration for noise levels.

Zalman is one of the best-known manufacturers of quiet heatsinks, and its CNPS7000 series is a great choice for cooling most processors; it costs from £28.

If you’re after the ultimate air-cooling solution, Zalman’s CNPS9500 (pictured) can outperform many water-cooling systems; it costs £46.