Editing Quiet PC (section)

===Motherboard===
{{Main|Motherboard}}
[[Image:Silent PC-Northbridge chipset.JPG|thumb|Passively cooled northbridge chipsets help reduce noise.]]
A motherboard based on a [[chipset]] that uses less energy will be easier to cool quietly. [[Undervolting]] and [[underclocking]] generally require motherboard support, but when available can be used to reduce energy use and heat output, and therefore cooling requirements.

Many modern motherboard chipsets have hot [[Northbridge (computing)|northbridges]] which may come with active cooling in the form of a small, noisy fan. Some motherboard manufacturers have replaced these fans by incorporating large heat sinks or [[heatpipe]] coolers,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=1&artpage=1971&articID=473|title=Motherboard Chipset Cooler Roundup |publisher= Mad shrimps | place = [[Belgium|BE]] | first = Mich | last = VM |date= 2006-08-12 | access-date = 2008-10-10}}</ref><ref name= SPCRHeatsinksP2>{{cite web| url = http://www.silentpcreview.com/article30-page2.html |title=Recommended Heatsinks| first = Michael ‘Mike’ | last = Chin| date=2002-07-16| publisher =SPCR|access-date=2008-10-10}}</ref> however they still require good case airflow to remove heat. Motherboard [[voltage regulator]]s also often have heat sinks and may need airflow to ensure adequate cooling.

Some motherboards can control the fan speed using an integrated [[hardware monitoring]] chip<ref name=ieee07/> (often a function within a [[Super I/O]] solution<ref name=ieee07/>), which can be configured through [[BIOS#Hardware monitoring|BIOS]] or with a [[system monitor]]ing software like [[SpeedFan]] and [[Argus Monitor]], and most recent motherboards have built-in PWM fan control for one or two fans.

Even though a given hardware monitoring chip may be capable of performing fan control,<ref name=ieee07>{{Cite conference
|author= Constantine A. Murenin |date= 2007-04-17
|url = http://sensors.cnst.su/IEEE_ICNSC_2007
|section = 2. Hardware review
|title= Generalised Interfacing with Microprocessor System Hardware Monitors
|conference= Proceedings of 2007 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control, 15–17 April 2007.
|location= London, United Kingdom
|publisher=[[IEEE]]
|pages = 901–906 |doi = 10.1109/ICNSC.2007.372901 |isbn = 978-1-4244-1076-7
|id = IEEE ICNSC 2007, pp. 901—906.
}}</ref> a motherboard manufacturer may not necessarily wire up the fan header pins of the motherboard correctly to the hardware monitoring chip, thus sometimes [[computer fan control]] cannot be performed on a given motherboard due to the wiring irregularities, even though the software may indicate that the fan control is available due to the underlying support by the hardware monitoring chip itself.<ref name=abc2010>{{Cite conference
|author1= Constantine A. Murenin
|author2= Raouf Boutaba
|author2-link = Raouf Boutaba
|date= 2010-03-14
|url = http://sensors.cnst.su/fanctl/
|section = 3.1. Shortcomings with general-purpose fan-control software; 7.1. Even easier fan control
|title= Quiet Computing with BSD: Fan control with sysctl hw.sensors.
|conference= AsiaBSDCon 2010 Proceedings. 11–14 March 2010
|location= Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan
|publication-date= 2010-03-13
|pages=85–92
|archive-url= http://web.archive.org/web/20100225000000/http://sensors.cnst.su/fanctl/
|archive-date= 2010-02-25
|url-status= live
|access-date= 2019-03-10
}} [http://2010.asiabsdcon.org/papers/abc2010-P6B-paper.pdf Alt URL]</ref>  Other times, it may be the case that a single fan-control setting may affect all fan connector headers on the motherboard at the same time, even if individual settings for each fan are available in the hardware monitoring chip itself; these wiring issues being very common makes it difficult to design good general-purpose [[user interface]]s for configuring fan control.<ref name=abc2010/>

Motherboards can also produce [[electromagnetically induced acoustic noise and vibration|audible electromagnetic noise]].