Recommendations for a Quiet 9x System

[kingofthespill]

I am wondering if anyone has opinions on building a quieter system at a reasonable cost. After years of reliable AMD socket A (socket 462) processors I am wondering would a Pentium 4 processor and fan be a wiser choice, thinking of something like a ASRock P4I65G motherboard.

My current take on noise contributors:

Power-supply

CPU fan

drives

case

I am guessing that a processor aimed at laptops would create less heat and noise.

Background: I have used Emachine computers running 98 for 10 years and my main complaint is noise, and I am sick of it. I did replace a power supply which cut the noise down significantly, and used the best of three fans on my AMD 1800+ processor which cut the noise down a bit. The number 3 noise contributor in that system is a cheap Maxtor EIDE 7200 hard drive, but it is minor. In spite of the hardware changes, that system can't hold a candle to a 2001 Dell Dimension 8200 (not Optiplex as I thought earlier) I am playing around with. That system crashes a bit and has no native drivers for 9x. It probably has a much better sound-dampening case, but it is not that noisy running with the case open.

Any opinions?

Edited October 13, 2010 by kingofthespill

[herbalist]

Which model of Dell Optiplex do you have? I'm dual booting 98SE and XP on an Optiplex GX260. It's a Pentium 4, 2.4GHZ with 1GB RAM and a 160GB hard drive, split into several partitions. It's also very quiet. 98 drivers for this model are available from Dell with several more available thru Intel support, including the chipset, audio, display, and the built in network. The Dell Optiplex is proving to be a very stable platform for 98SE. Everything works as it should. My only complaint regarding the Optiplex is that it doesn't have room for more than one hard drive, not that big of an issue as my external hard drive works well with it. If yours is the same model, you might want to look over this thread, in which I received some very good help getting this PC built.

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

I've been using Zalman power supplies and CPU heat-sinks and fans on my P4 socket 478 motherboards for a long time now.

Over the years, I think that the high-pitched whine of hard drives has been the most offensive noise source, followed by the power-supply fan and CPU fan.

Hard drives are almost silent now, and CPU fans can be almost silent. The biggest challenge will be the power supply. I have a couple of fanless power supplies (I forget the maker) that I bought 2-3 years ago that I haven't yet installed in my next win-98 machine. This next PC will have socket 775 CPU and one or two 400-500 gb SATA drives and Asrock 4-core VSTA board.

[kingofthespill]

I made a mistake about the Dell, and after looking it up it turned was a Dell Dimension 8200 Pentium 4 1.7GHz, the kind with RDRAM. It was a donation, so I am not complaining, but Dell's website has no drivers for the motherboard earlier than Windows 2000. I can use its onboard USB, but not any PCI slots (which was surprising). I use Dragon Dictate which works great, and the output of the integrated sound card works as a SB compatible, but overall it's not that stable after an hour of use, especially simple browsing. Even something like Notepad has complained on exit. (This is the improved version *after* applying the 98SE patches). If I could get an essentially new Optiplex GX260, I would be very happy. Short of that I am content to slowly build something around a genuinely 98SE compatible, new motherboard.

I ought to add that I have low-use old 80GB Western Digital Caviar drive ( PATA 100, still being sold new online) in that machine, which is nice and quiet. It's slow compared to today's drives, but not too bad.

I took a look at the Zalman power supply and fans, and they look interesting. I actually thought those custom components were somewhat more expensive.

Another tidbit: I am aware that AMD has a "Cool'n'Quiet" feature on their newer processors, but it might only work on later OS'es than Windows 9x.

Edited October 15, 2010 by kingofthespill

[TmEE]

I have just made the fans in my PC to run at half the speed... in a PSU the fan is almost useless, and on a CPU those few extra C make no difference in performance. GFX card fans are the most noisy ones though, the smaller the worse it gets.

[herbalist]

Dell support does have drivers for the 8200 for WinME. Many if not most of them should work with 98SE. On this page.

According to their manual, the 8200 uses the 850 or 850E chipset. Intel has 98 drivers for these here.

There's a good chance that Intel will also have display drivers if you're not using a separate card.

If you make a full system backup first, there's no risk in trying the WinME drivers. The manual for that PC is available on the Dell site. It should identify the individual components. Once you know the make and model of the components, look for the drivers on the component vendors site. You'll probably find most everything you need.

I'll be starting a similar project very soon. Just obtained a Dell dimension E310 with a 3.06 Pentium 4 and 2GB RAM. Going to try to put 98lite on it.

Edited October 13, 2010 by herbalist

[kingofthespill]

Thanks for the suggestion. I never have tried ME Edition drivers, just have stayed away because of the historic instability of that version.

[pointertovoid]

The "historic instability of Win Me" is probably a myth. At least here, I saw many unstable W98se and only very stable Win Me. Remember something like 3% of all users ever had a Win Me but everyone tells an opinion about it.

I can give some hints about silent hardware, but not if W98 or Me can run on them, please check by yourself.

The general idea is that you need a low power consumption so that the fans can be silent.

This helps the power supply as well.

Better: in Summer, your room won't heat as much. And it does make a difference on the electricity bill.

For that purpose, a Socket A isn't the leader... And a Pentium 4 even worse! At the same computing power or better, a Core 2 or an Athlon 64 draws far less power than a P4 (remember the BUT with W98-Me).

As well, some mobo chipsets may require a fan, so have a check, especially if you want an Amd Cpu.

Depending on your graphics needs, you can choose a video card with passive cooling. Many 3D games are perfectly possible, but not all.

Depending on your applications, you may prefer a dual or single core over a quad. Radical change in power consumption. Only a few video games and image-video editing applications use several cores in 2010.

I feel the varied throttle modes useless, because noise at bootup or at full load disturbs me as well.

Just as an example, I wanted an extremely silent computer as well. I took a Core 2 Duo E8600 @4GHz because no single core was available (Core i5 would be more recent) and a P45 chipset: they're still the fastest on single-task applications. I sold the Nv9500 because its fan was noisy at bootup and bought a passive Nv8600, perfect. The power supply is anonymous: it has a big fan.

You can get a used 30GB Vertex for 70 euro. More important for system speed than everything else, and silent. Once you have an Ssd, you may tolerate a less agile mechanical disk as a complement, like a 7200.12, which is very silent.

[kingofthespill]

I bought a ConRoe865GV and will slowly build up a quiet killer 98 system on a reasonable budget =). I will need to find a fanless video card that is compatible, (the motherboard manual does say it is not compatible with all 8xAGP cards). For now it will get a 4x.

That Vertex looks promising if it can work with a SATA I interface in 98 compatibility mode. I'm seriously considering that now. I wonder if it needs a adapter to hold it in a 3.5" slot.

I did some research and found that the power dissipation went down to 65W going from Pentium 4(s) to Core 2 Duo, but the old K7 Athon 1800 XP+ I have been using for years was 50-60W range. Clearly I have had noisy fans.

Anyway, I am going eventually to get a Core2duo E4x00 which is as fast as the motherboard can handle. NOTE: apparently only a single core can be used :-(.

Edited October 26, 2010 by kingofthespill

[kingofthespill]

I just read that SSDs may wear out quickly on 98, although I imagine that it could be worked around. link

Edited October 26, 2010 by kingofthespill

[Multibooter]

Depending on your graphics needs, you can choose a video card with passive cooling. Many 3D games are perfectly possible, but not all.

I am using a bfg 7800 GS OC AGP card under Win98SE. This card has a very noisy fan, which has made me think more than once about downgrading. Edited October 26, 2010 by Multibooter

[kingofthespill]

I have been thinking to save my money for one of these, which is about the best my non-AGP 3.0 motherboard can handle. Nvidia Geforce 6600. For now a 4x, 64MB Geforce 2 MX400 works for me.

Edited October 27, 2010 by kingofthespill