Making my HP EliteDesk 800 SFF silent

[Kocane]

Hello.

I've got this HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF which is an alright machine, especially after I put in a MSI 1050 TI LP, which the 240w power supply miraculously can pull off.

However, it's quite noisy. I've never done much when it comes to cooling and modding inside PC cases, so bear with me, but I think that this time, it'll be worth it to do something about the noise.

There's a fan on the GPU and a fan inside the PSU - both a 4-pin PWM

The fan has the odd size of 70mm:

So I guess the first question is gonna be; what's a good 70mm 4-pin fan when it comes to being quiet? As far as I can see, Noctua doesn't make anything in this size, least not 4pin. I also wanna replace the one in the PSU, but it's a bit more of a hassle to disassemble, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's the same 70mm size.

Now the part that'll be more tricky - what can I possibly do to quieten the MSI 1050? The darn thing is running at a minimum 40% fan speed and apparently software can't change that and the BIOS is still not modable. It has a 2-pin fan connector and space in the case is a bit scarse, here pictured without the fans attached:

I'd love some suggestions!

 

[jtd871]

Those bespoke chassis are difficult to change. I'm guessing that you may be better off trying to adjust the fan curve (if you can) or adding a manual or computer fan control to affect the noise.

Another possibility would be to create a custom duct for the 70mm heatsink and mount a larger, quieter fan or fans to the "top" of the case as an intake.

 

[dan1337]

I would try low noise adapters. Your mileage may vary its a bit hit and miss sometimes. But if you hit, you hit the jackpot.

 

[mssm]

Hi Kocane, nice pictures. I have the same machine here and same questions. Have you any new solutions and ideas meanwhile?
I'm switching the hdd for a big 1TB NVMe, noiseless. I upgraded to the biggest CPU available, i7 4790, ok, the 4790K would be even better, but a lot more expensive while I wouldn't even be able to overclock, and head- and power saving is more important to me. So I don't miss the overclocking features on the HP.
About fans: Did you find a better 70mm fan? When running all 4/8 cores on full load, the whole SFF case gets quite hot. Is it really good to have the CPU fan blowing inside the machine, instead of blowing the heat out? For the CPU it's better to take cool fresh air, but the CPU is warming up the whole case. There is no possibility to add a 3rd fan, no mount and no connector on the board.
I'm going to take the Intel heat spreader of the CPU and apply liquid metal. Then I'm going to mount the heatsink with liquid metal as well. This will take more heat energy from the CPU, but the case will be warm as before.
To be clear, the Elitedesk 800 G1 SFF is quite silent when idle, only noisy on load. I guess the noisy part is the power supply fan which is temperatur controlled as well. So if the CPU fan would blow outside, the whole case could stay cooler. What do you think?
Have you tried changing the power supply fan? Is it a 70mm as well?

 

[mssm]

..and I don't use another graphic hardware, I'm fine with the internal graphic driving 3 screens here.

 

[chiliwili]

I get these systems all the time from work for $50. I do not have a graphics card in any of the 3 I am currently running. They do however all have Samsung 850 EVO SSD in them. I think they are relatively quiet.

 

[mssm]

They are quiet in idle state. Did you ever let the CPU work? After running some compilers with load avg 20 all night long I wondered how loud and warm the case was going.
I never had a desktop computer case that was so warm on the surface. But this is the result that the CPU fan is blowing the heat into the case and not outside.

 

[mssm]

I re-mounted the CPU fan on the sink to make it blow the air into the sink and outside the case.
After taking a closer look now at the first picture, that fan is already mounted that direction. When I received the SFF in used shape, the fan was blowing inside the case. Maybe that was not the original mount direction as designed by HP, and your picture shows the correct installation. I just had the idea that blowing outside is better and now I realize that this could be the default.

 

[Valantar]

Yeah, that seems logical - ducting an intake isn't that strange, but I've never seen a business oriented PC that isn't laid out for a front-to-back airflow path (as they're likely to be installed with the front accessible, but the rear might be obstructed in all manner of ways).

If you still need it quieter, I'd look into adapting an 80mm fan to the 70mm mount somehow - you could make an adapter plate from acrylic or a thin sheet of metal (though that might cause turbulence noise at high speed), or make a small duct (more difficult, but probably better for airflow and noise). If you have access to a 3D printer, this should be quite feasible (there are plenty of hits for "fan adapter" on Thingiverse). And remember that fan frames can be safely trimmed by quite a bit if you're having trouble fitting a larger fan - just make sure it fits between the motherboard and side panel

 

[chiliwili]

Hello.

I've got this HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF which is an alright machine, especially after I put in a MSI 1050 TI LP, which the 240w power supply miraculously can pull off.

However, it's quite noisy. I've never done much when it comes to cooling and modding inside PC cases, so bear with me, but I think that this time, it'll be worth it to do something about the noise.

There's a fan on the GPU and a fan inside the PSU - both a 4-pin PWM

The fan is set up correctly to exhaust out the back of the case in this photo.

Turns out 2 of my HP 800s are G2 and have a different set up with a larger 80mm fan.