Nofan IcePipe A40-Z68 Silent PC

A silent, convection cooled computer with solid-state storage was a dream of mine ever since my old Amstrad PC1512 (floppy disk version) in 1986 or 87, which was actually even then not fully silent because of a distinct and rather irritating very high pitch ‘whistle’ from the electronics. Since then all the computers I’ve had were somewhat troublesome for me because of the fan plus hard disk noise. After being more than just nudged by a quietpc.com full page ad in PC Advisor mag, and getting more and more interested as I went through the website details of these silent PCs, I placed my order for an A40, and actually received the computer before a week was up - not bad for a stated lead time of 7 days.

The computer is a joy to use - completely silent for all practical purposes, and much faster and more ‘snappy’ than anything I’d used previously; I would definitely give it a top ‘star’ rating. It was most encouraging to see the CPU core temperatures displayed by the very handy SpeedFan utility while I ran a quite processor-intensive compressed backup task. Even when CPU activity was nearing saturation, the core temperatures were still fluctuating in the 40s (47 maximum), and each time the activity in either core dropped back a little, almost instantaneously its temperature dropped back just as though the system had a really efficient fan cooling system. Indeed, my impression was that the temperatures were a little more rapidly responsive in dropping back than was the case in my previous, fan cooled computer with an Intel Core Duo CPU.

One little grouse of mine is the oh-so-fashionable use of black as the case colour for the Nofan computer range. To me that is really ugly, and symbols and text upon that black are very difficult to read, and when I try to plug something into one of the USB ports on the front I grope about somewhat because the sockets are actually quite difficult to see in detail unless I shine a torch close directly at them. That grouse aside, I shall definitely be recommending Nofan Silent PCs to others, and am still sighing great sighs of relief to be no longer bugged by constantly nag-nag-nagging system noise as I work at the PC.

Having become fed up with fan noise from my previous PCs I thought I’d invest in a silent PC to end the drone once and for all. The Nofan IcePipe is a dream come true: a powerful machine that’s totally silent and it’s well worth the slight price premium to be able to hear yourself think.

Set up was straightforward and performance with the Intel Core i7 2700K 3.5GHz, SSD, and 16Gb is blistering.

Like others who have posted reviews, I’ve started to notice low level noises in the room that I wasn’t hearing before: the clock ticking for example!

Quiet PC’s service was quick and exemplary and I have no hesitation in recommending them.

I’ve spent nearly eleven thousand pounds on goods from Quiet PC over the last few years and it’s fair to say I’ve not found a more knowledgeable or helpful company. I’ve had some excellent PCs in that time including several water cooled machines. Until now, the best ever was a Zalman TNN 500 based machine which was as close to silent as possible but it was still audible (just) if you stuck your ear next to it and anyway they don’t make the case anymore.

This PC is not audible at all! It is eerily silent. I now have four PCs running in my office and the loudest noise is the cat purring. It is what I’ve dreamed of for more than ten years (sad isn’t it).

I can’t recommend this PC highly enough, if you are serious about silence it’s worth every penny!

Chris

I have built several quiet PC’s over the years but to find a totally silent powerful machine was something else. The build quality is excellent and going for SSD drives a real advantage. The machine is a delight to use. The service to date has been impeccable and I live in France but this was no problem and only a charge of £13.87 carriage was a nice surprise. The only very small thing is that there is no power socket on the rear for the external eSATA drive. Would have been 10/10 if it had got this on.

I love this machine! I wanted a computer for home recording, I wanted to go up to 64bit, and I wanted it to be literally silent. It is. I’ve spent money and much time in the past trying to spec quiet PCs that I could work with and it’s just never happened. This Nofan machine actually works!!!! It’s fast, comes with a nicely uncluttered Windows - no bloatware on startup, fewer processes running than I’ve ever seen before - and makes absolutely no noise whatsoever (apart from the DVD re-writer checking itself out for half a second just after you’ve pressed the on button).

I did find installing my UAD-2 DSP cards and my PCI soundcard slightly fiddly, as the motherboard is quite tight against the case; and in order to stop providing power to my iLok2 when the machine was off I had to move a power connector, following the advice of Glenn at Quietpc, who has been extremely helpful. No doubt that could be done before delivery if required. In all - silence is golden, and I’ve got it! Yes!!!!!

This was exactly what I was looking for. A truly silent PC without compromising on system performance and it uses the standard PC architecture, so that I can easily upgrade or modify it later if the need arises. The exception to this is that the 16x PCI Express slot is not accessible, but it’s not something that I need to use anyway as I don’t use my PC for games - if you are looking for a top end gaming rig then you’ll need to look elsewhere, however.

My build is: i7 2600k with a Vertex 3 SSD (I asked for a Vertex 3 instead of a Corsair; the Vertex 3 is a bit faster).

The result: this machine is blisteringly fast, but completely quiet. I’ve had it for a month now and it is continuing to perform superbly. The CPU temp is typically around 36C in normal (i.e. light) use - ambient temp 20C. Running the Prime95 torture test (100% CPU on all cores) for 15 minutes saw it steady at 68C.

Lastly, I’d just like to mention the excellent build quality and customer service.