Slashdot Mirror
Noise Control Stealth Tower
Ben writes: "I have just reviewed a really innovative case. Noise dampening kits have been available for some time, but I think this is the first solution where the manufacturer has done something to combat the noise coming out of the BACK of the case! With its whisper box, the Noise Control Stealth Tower finally solves this problem" Update: 06/06 21:02 GMT by T : Ben points to this mirror, too.
now if they could only make something for a set of rack-mounts.......
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Be bewwwwwy, bewwwwy, qwwwyyyet. I'm hacking wabbit.com. . .
You are not the customer.
I've gotten so used to the noise of my fans running that I can't sleep without them. Its amazing how well a dual proc G4 acts as a white noise machine.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
Now maybe I can sleep at night!
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
I have moved my very noisy server into a kitchen closet that previously held a small refrigerator. So it has a power outlet and is well ventilated. No more noise in the bedroom (at least from the server ;-). And buying wireless LAN equipment to connect the server to my laptop costs less than the quiet case in the article.
The alternative to using said "stealth case" is to run a quieter power supply with a cool-running CPU. Such systems are easy to obtain; you could either use an early 486 or unplug your Athlon. Of course, you don't get much processing power either way, but it sure is quiet. You could even use a mirror in full sun; it processes at the speed of light!
Incidentally, I have a Gateway 486 DX2 that has had all of the parts replaced except the case and power supply. It's completely silent; the soft hum from my printer's wall wart is louder. (Makes a great firewall, I might add.)
It has stealth in the name, which raises the cool factor by like 10! Your friends will be thinking it escapes radar detection and that it may bomb them at any time.
You do want your friends to fear you, don't you?
I would think that the fleece would reduce heat transfer. The noise is a big plus, but isn't there some way to get quiter without losing heat transer. In our apartment all the computers run hot. And some reach dangerous levels periodicly. I woyuld also think that the felt or fleece could also blaok airflow if your not careful also hurting heat transfer.
/* Lobster Stick To Magnet!*/
Posted anonymously because I have enough karma. First page only; the server is almost dead.
--- Story: ---
Introduction
We are quite a fan of Noise Control's products so far here at OcPrices, with both their Magic Fleece noise dampening material and Silverado coolers providing great quiet solutions for today's noisy PCs. Their latest product is the "Stealth Tower" case, complete with "whisper box". The Stealth Tower is basically a high-quality tower case pre-lined professionally with magic fleece. In our tests of the magic fleece, whilst the drop in noise was quite significant, the majority of the noise was now coming out of the back of the PC, via the case fans and PSU. Naturally these couldn't be lined with the fleece! With the stealth tower, Noise Control have constructed a "whisper box", a metal box heavily lined with fleece, with some cleverly aligned holes that allow air to circulate, but should stop 90% of the noise from escaping.
As you can see the case is quite a behemoth! With five external 5¼" bays and four 3½" bays, you won't be running out of space any time soon. Because of the case's heavy fleece lining, and the fact that it is a big case already, the stealth tower is a heavy object. Hauling it onto some scales revealed an empty weight of 12.5kg (27.5lb).
Thanks to Chillblast for providing me with a World Exclusive review on this case. You can *only* buy this case from them if you are in the UK since they are the only Noise Control UK distributors. The case costs 166.99 inc. VAT - but as you are about to see, you certainly get your money's worth. Lets take a look at some mug shots.
Page 1:
NoiseControl Stealth Tower with Whisper box
Manufacturer:Noise Control
Cases
Posted by Ben on 5-June-2002 at 7:02
Introduction
We are quite a fan of Noise Control's products so far here at OcPrices, with both their Magic Fleece noise dampening material and Silverado coolers providing great quiet solutions for today's noisy PCs. Their latest product is the "Stealth Tower" case, complete with "whisper box". The Stealth Tower is basically a high-quality tower case pre-lined professionally with magic fleece. In our tests of the magic fleece, whilst the drop in noise was quite significant, the majority of the noise was now coming out of the back of the PC, via the case fans and PSU. Naturally these couldn't be lined with the fleece! With the stealth tower, Noise Control have constructed a "whisper box", a metal box heavily lined with fleece, with some cleverly aligned holes that allow air to circulate, but should stop 90% of the noise from escaping.
As you can see the case is quite a behemoth! With five external 5¼" bays and four 3½" bays, you won't be running out of space any time soon. Because of the case's heavy fleece lining, and the fact that it is a big case already, the stealth tower is a heavy object. Hauling it onto some scales revealed an empty weight of 12.5kg (27.5lb).
Thanks to Chillblast for providing me with a World Exclusive review on this case. You can *only* buy this case from them if you are in the UK since they are the only Noise Control UK distributors. The case costs 166.99 inc. VAT - but as you are about to see, you certainly get your money's worth. Lets take a look at some mug shots.
Page 2:
Case Exterior
The stealth tower is an attractive case despite its bulk, with a sliding cover to hide CD-ROM drives and other paraphernalia from sight. I was particularly impressed with the whisper box, which blends seamlessly with the case's design.
Now that we have taken a look at the exterior, lets have a look at the much more important interior where the Stealth Tower really comes into its own compared to other cases.
Page 3:
The Interior
Inside the Stealth Tower you will find wall-to-wall carpeting the likes of which you have never seen! Most of the panels are double lined with the noise dampening material, so the dampening effect should be much more profound than when I tested the Magic Fleece kit myself.
The large metal expanse with no fleece attached is where you install the motherboard and other components. Behind this tray is a double lined side panel
You can see the notch in the second layer has been carefully cut so that the side panel fits on snugly, fitting the case skeleton like a glove.
You can see that the drive bays, where normally a lot of noise escapes is extremely heavily lined with fleece. I am very impressed with the sheer amount of noise dampening matting used in the case - if you were to DIY a case of this size with the same extent of sound proofing, you would have to factor in at least two fleece packs - which would set you back over £80 alone from Chillblast.
Here is the inside-back. Plenty of spare PCI slot gaps, and space for an 80mm fan to be mounted. This is where 90% of the noise escapes in a regular fleeced case. Enter the whisper box!
Page 4:
Whisper Box
The whisper box is large and heavy contraption that attaches onto the back of the Stealth Tower by means of extremely strong magnetic strips.
Once attached to the case, it has no likeliness of coming loose without a good tug, allowing you to drag the case around without it slipping off. If you are planning to carry the case around however, of course it is a good idea to remove the box.
The whisper box works on the premise that hot air can move by convection, whereas sound travels in straight lines. The box is split into two sections, one for the PSU, and another for the case fan / PCI peripherals. Nearly all of the sound waves are deflected straight into fleece, where as the warm air coming out of the PSU and case fans can drift up to the top of the box and be expelled, and warm air from the case fan is expelled from the bottom due to pressure build up.
The entire interior of the whisper box is heavily lined with magic fleece noise killer, and thus weighs quite a lot. It's build quality is fabulous, and it looks like part of the case rather than just a third party add-on.
Page 5:
Performance
I will compare the Stealth Tower to my other case, the Lian Li PC-60. I have fitted both with the same 80mm case fan and the same Enermax 430W whisper PSU. Lets compare both decibel readings, taken with the following contraption, and then case temperatures.
For the CPU I have fitted a 2100XP processor, with an Arkua copper core thermoengine. Its not the loudest of coolers, but certainly couldn't be considered quiet either. It is about on a par with most "regular" 4500rpm fans. The graphics card is the Creative GeForce 4 Ti-4600, which has quite a loud and annoying fan - and definately the noisiest component in my PC. It will be interesting to see how the Stealth Tower copes with it.
Case CPU temperature (full load) Case temperature
Lian Li PC-60 48.9 26.4
Stealth Tower 52.1 29.0
The Noise Control case results in a 3 degree increase on both the CPU and ambient case temperature. Initially I did the test with no case fans installed in any case, and the difference was a much more profound 6 degrees. The CPU was also a rather worrying 51 degrees with the Lian Li, and a borderline pass of 57 degrees with the noise control case. It just goes to show how stupidly hot these Athlons are getting now - even with a good cooler. Lets see whether the reduction in noise is worth the temperature cost. I also dug out my old fleeced case that I built myself and fitted the same components again. Readings were taken exactly half a foot from the front, then the side and then the back of the case about half way up in all tests.
Case Side Back Front
Lian Li PC-60 48.0 Db 56.9 Db 50.8
DIY Fleece case 43.5 Db 55.4 Db 44.5.1Db
Stealth Tower 40.1 Db 45.3 Db 40.1Db
The extent to which the Stealth Tower reduces system noise is truly amazing. There was barely an audible whisper coming from the whole PC, and it certianly showed up my l33t fleecing skills or lack thereof! To be fair to myself, the main difference between my DIY effort and the Stealth Tower is the whisper box on the back, it really does do wonders for noise reduction, with the PSU only audible if you put your ear to the whisper boxes top port. The differences in Db may not look like much, but when you consider it is a logarithmic scale, the differences are really VERY significant. Just for fun I placed a Delta screamer in the Lian Li (not actually connected to anything except the fan header) and then again in the fleece case and listened for the difference. I would say that the difference was maybe 80%. In the Lian Li, the Delta is as-ever, unusable in my opinion. In the Noise Control case it really isn't so bad! Finally! That said, I find it unlikely that anyone investing in the Stealth Tower would then negate its huge potential by putting such an uncivilised cooler in it!
Page 6:
Conclusion
The Noise Control Stealth Tower case is big, beautifully made and sublimely quiet. Sure you get an increase in system temperature compared to an aluminium case, but the differences in volume need to be heard to be believed. Remember this review was conducted using regular equipment, with the likes of Zalman CPU coolers and PSU's, a silent PC - even an Athlon 2100XP PC - is now a possibility. People hankering after tranquillity, and especially those that NEED quiet PCs, for audio visual work or recording etc should not hesitate to buy this case. I am a total sound Nazi, and although I found the original magic fleece DIY kit impressive, the amount of noise coming out of the back of the case was still an annoyance. With the Stealth Tower, Noise Control have finally come up with a viable solution, and for that I humbly thank them!!
Click for an explanation of our awards.
Highs
- Huge potential for expansion
- Substantial size ideal for watercooling
- Nice looking
- Amazingly quiet
- Revolutionary Whisper box
- Sublime build quality
Lows
- Heavy
- Not cheap
- No removable motherboard tray
Comment on this review in our forums here.
Check out the prices on these and other cases, plus guaranteed CPUs, peltiers, water coolers, case modding equipment and more in our Overclocking Equipment Pricelist featuring 70 overclocking retailers/vendors from 9 countries.
n.b. moderators: I have enough karma, maybe I will post anonymously
I don't think I can quiet down my case that much
dk
I've found the noise from the Athlon 1800+ in my bedroom to be quite soothing in the amount of white noise it creates in the background.
I did a little somewhat unscientific case study on the white noise it generated a few months back. I started shutting the box down at night while I was in bed. It turned out after 1 week of shutting it down to get rid of the noise that I actually had a harder time getting to sleep, and often woke up in the middle of the night. Within a few nights of leaving it on all night and day again I was back to sleeping like a baby.
With a baby on the way I'm tempted to set up a computer in the baby's room, not only so I have something to do at 4AM in the morning between feeding/changing, but also as an introduction of white noise into the room. I guess I'll see how well this works, maybe it'll be as soothing his mother's voice.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
People complaining about the noise from computers are the same people that stand in front of microwaves screaming "Faster, Faster!".
Best Windows Freeware
One possible approach as other have mentioned is noise cancelling. Not noise damping with magic fleece or carpet. More like active noice cancelling technology, like the hellicopter whisper mode in the movies :)
I've been running a reliable water cooled setup (including many moves, dropping upside down, upgrades, etc) for over 6 months now. It works great. I have install details written up for anyone who's interested. The noise went from deafening to a mild hum.
I'm currently gathering pieces for a passive watercooled setup (no fans) that handles cooling the video, system chip and processor. The power supply fan will be removed and replaced with a low-voltage 120mm top-mounted fan that runs silently with good airflow (for HD cooling as well).
Rather than mount the radiator inside the case, the radiator will be top mounted with a custom lexan mount. This moves the heat outside the system (closed box). In addition, the inside will be sound deadened with leftover Dynamat Extreme from my car stereo install. This should result in a cool looking, silent machine, with no compromises. It isn't going to be cheap though.
..don't panic
2. Get Swiftech MCX462 heatsink (CAD$85) plus Vantec Stealth fan 80 mm (CAD$20, 21 dBA) to cool it. Use Artic Silver 3 thermal compound (CAD$13/tube).
3. Replace case fans and possibly power supply fan with Vantec Stealth fans.
4. Avoid slot loading DVD drives (i.e. like car cd players, no tray) because noise gets out of the slot.
5. Make sure your box is sitting on carpet and not wood/concrete.
6. If worried about airflow, remove those bulky IDE and floppy cables and get rounded cables. (About CAD$15-20 each.)
Caveats: Kinda expensive, probably less expensive than this case. Overclocking is a no-no.
I want an Antec designed case. I've been through many a case in my lifetime, and Antec is by far the best I've ever used. I'm sure this case really does muffle the sound, but how can I be sure the rest of the case is up to my modern (Antec) standards?
Little things make the biggest difference when it comes to cases, flip out drive bays, drive slide rails, efficient use of available space, easy access to the motherboard side (my Antec has a handle).
Is there anyone who could compare it to an Antec? Probably wishful thinking
WWJD? JWRTFA!
As we all know, Snow is a great noise dampener and a perfect way to keep your box cool...
And slightly cheaper than a diamond mesh.
in the loo ofcourse ... ...
less sound , and you cant find out whose makin that goddam stink
Noise Control
although there is not so much mention of this new tower. Bit odd
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Moe: Oh, boy! The deep fryer's here. Heh heh, I got it used from the navy. You can flash-fry a buffalo in forty seconds.
Homer: Forty seconds? But I want it now!
What about the Apple Cube? No noise came out of that sucker!
Why do they sell the whisper box only with their case? Why not sell it seperately? From the article it sounds like the majority of noise normally comes out of the fan, so why not just attach their whisper box to a regular case? I would like to see some stats on that, and maybe some examples of DIY. Admittedly, I think a lot of noise from my computer comes from my DVD player, but if i could get a 20$ addon that would cut that in half (or by sqrt(2) ;-)) then i would probably buy it. My only concern is using magnetic strips to attach, but since the computer is heavily shielded i wouldn't be too worried.
Got an Athlon XP 2000+ chugging away accompanied by 5 Fans (2 Case Fans, 1 Hard Drive Fan, 1 CPU Fan, 1 AGP Fan) + 2 120GB Hard Drives + Sparkle 400W PSU.
The only way I realized to get my mind off the noise is when I turn on Winamp with Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits anyone) crooning "Why worry" and "Brothers in Arms". Me and my wife sleep like babies in 5 mins tops.
Rapid Nirvana
Is anyone else having trouble seeing the pictures on the website.... I know for sure it is not the connection on my side. Does anyone know of another place to see this article/case?
"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
You can't hear the pump I use in operation. One, it's in a sealed box, and two, it's submersed in water. My case makes noise because I have a 120mm fan on the radiator, but that is much quieter than the fans it replaced. My next design won't make that necessary, and a 120mm fan at low voltage moves a lot of air at extremely low noise levels.
Relax.
..don't panic
but is it quieter than my case?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I tried 3 types of "quiet" fans and sound absorbtion padding and what worked the best is a Zalman flower cooler. They are about $28 with a speed adjustment control included. With my Athlon XP 1800, I was able to reduce the speed to the minimum with only a 4C hit on temperature from my ultra fast CPU fan I had originally. Now the next source of noise is the fan on my video card!
You don't want to try it. Deionized water is not the same as 100% pure water. Absolutely pure water does not conduct electricity, true, but then again absolutely pure water is practically impossible to find.
:)
Unless you feel like investing in the equivalent of a couple kilos of platinum, you'd be better off with a more conventional approach.
noise dampener by its other name: abspestos.
www.quietpc.com carries some quality gear for making a machine quieter. I have purchased the silent PSU from their range and it's made a huge difference. There's still noise from the CPU fan and the GeForce fan, but they are next on my list :)
Why doesn't someone put a simple anti-noise circuit, a microphone and a speaker on the output of the PSU? It would not restrict airflow if cleverly placed and the sound is consistent enough to easily generate the anti-noise.
A sample link: http://www.headwize.com/tech/anr_tech.htm
Frankly, I take a certain amount of pride that the 3 fans in my box make. I don't know that I would want a noise dampener. I mean, it would be like building a Harley and then putting some kind of ridiculous muffler on it.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
Ive had this thought..
:).
If you take 2 identic fans, they make +/- the same noise. Now can't this be used to dampen the noise (use the second fan to create anti-noise?) It would need some software-controlled feedback, but hey, that's the fun part
What do you people think?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Is this a variation on the "couldn't tell your a**hole from a hole in the ground" theme?
Yes and if speed is not of the essence you can just switch it off and relax in the peace and quiet that follows !
Seems to me that a PC's fans are a good candidate for active noise cancellation. Basically you hook up a microphone and speaker at the same location as the noise source, and playback a 1/2-cycle-delayed recording of the noise. Timed correctly, the sound waves interfere and cancel each other out.
I am guessing that if someone researched this carefully, they'd find a handful of frequencies that contribute the most to fan noise, and a small electronic device could be designed to counter just those major harmonics in the fan noise.
Or I could be talking out my ass, who knows?
Edith Keeler Must Die
These guys seem to claim the noise is good for you! I quote the bit of interest for the guys to busy to read the whole thing.
A recent advancement in technology that is becoming widely used in psychological counseling and health service settings is the random noise generator. These devices, similar to the size and configuration of a smoke detector and/or an air purification device, emit a wide frequency band described as "white" or "pink noise." Adjusted to a relatively low level, these can be effectively utilized in the spaces in which the client interaction occurs to mask undesirable environmental sounds without negatively impacting the client interactions by being intrusive in nature.
AFAIK the noise from a fan is pretty close to white.
Seems that in medicine though there are always conflicting studies so I expect to be presented with the opposite result in a case study.
I wish I had had a really big one of these back when I was stationed on an aircraft carrier. Some masochist bastard marine architect decided to put the crew living area directly underneath the catapults. The only way I can think to describe it is it's probably a lot like trying to sleep between the rails of the New York subway during rush-hour.
Twenty years have passed, and now if it's really, really quiet, I can't sleep.
You can silence and cool your computer at the same time. :)
me karma am bad
If you have good hearing, the noise from a powerful machine is very noticeable, and if you work 8+ hours a day with them for years on end, you'll start to see the benefits of quieter machines - unless, as I said, you're half deaf.
this is the first solution where the manufacturer has done something to combat the noise coming out of the BACK of the case
My systems guy would like to know if something similar could be used to combat noise coming out of the back of certain users?
I have an ordinary dampened case from the company that makes them (A Conto) and are quite satisfied.
The cases have been available for several years and I think the "Magiv Vent" back-dampener is on the market for a year or so now.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
Most of the time the noise out of towers/desktops is acceptable, I expect some noise. I tend to buy quieter products, but not go the extra mile for the near-silent experience.
However, I plan to build a dedicated Home Theater system, and am looking hard at the Shuttle barebones. In the past I had heard they were loud, but this has been improved in the latest revision, can anyone testify as to how quiet they are?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Some of the Cubes shipped with an ATI graphics card that had a fan on it.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Seeing this post I just remembered that research is going into subjects such as noise cancellation and the like. Doing a bit of googling I quickly hit upon this faq on Active Noise Control.
Seems to me that this technology would be ideally suited to solve the problem of noisy computers.
I'd love to see Creative, for example, releasing some new hardware/drivers to help out in this area!
In the meantime, maybe I'll get myself a pair of these.
Chieftec's cases are the same as Antecs... but I will agree that their cases are the best (for the money?).
Apple has done quite well with their iMac designs. And the Cube was an interesting, if not entirely successful, attempt at a tower-ish design that didn't require a lot of heavy cooling equipment.
Sure, they're not that upgradeable, and you can't cram 3 video cards, 6 SCSI controllers, 4 sound cards, and a dozen hard drives, but if you need to do that, sound isn't your first consideration anyway. And if it is, try a disk array and remote terminals; put the noisy bits somewhere else.
Air flow is the key. Convection can be a great help, but towers aren't designed to allow that to work efficiently. Volkswagen made an entire car without a radiator or any kind of water cooling system, primarily due to re-examining the design of the car itself. Surely there are better case designs to be had.
Do not touch -Willie
"Magic Fleece"? Sounds like something a dog and an old bitch would be raving about on an Old Navy commercial...
"New MAGIC FLEECE performance case, only from Old Navy! It's FLEESETASTIC!"
I installed five quantum SCSI drives I got on the cheap from an auction site, after quantum went out of business.
Four drives failed, I sold the fifth at auction. It failed during shipping, and I refunded the guy.
So, 5 for 5? Quantum is a nightmare.
I think what Maxtor got was the production capacity of the Quantum plants, and did away with their crap designs entirely. At least that's what I hope happened.
As for silencing, I find that 5400rpm drives are fairly quiet. With adequate RAM (2-4GB), accessing the hard drive becomes a rarity.
Torsten
Somebody deserves attribution for that.
Try John Watson or Pavlov...
All this guy did was re-write the story of Watson's experiment, adding a little bit of fruity comments from the "Director".
You also have to get special equipment to extend the monitor cable so that it shows up clear if you put the box in another room.
...uhhhh, maybe a little EXPENSIVE, but hardly special equipment. I got sick of my new boxes getting louder and louder and finally chose a simple solution. Extension cables for the monitor, audio, keyboard, mouse and USB. My box now sits 30-40ft away in another room, and my workstation is peaceful once more.
No flicker, no ghosting. Picked them up from Belkin .
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
I agree. There should be different approaches to the case designs. For example, why laptops can be so quiet when their desktop equivalents are loud.
The old Volkswagens still amaze me. They used an oil cooler. It worked well despite it's size. Back in the day, they used to replace the small cooler with slightly larger coils from air-conditioners; a great improvement. Also, IIRC, the heaters in the car worked off of the heat dissapated from the exhaust pipes. Once the engine warmed up, you could bring the temp inside the car up a summer meltdown in minutes.
I'm not a hard core gamer... I mostly use my computer for work. I recently upgraded to a 1900+ AMD. I picked up a pretty heafty fan for it (the guy at Fry's said it was the best. I've learned never to trust the guy at Fry's, so I did some research and discovered it was the best they carried.
Compared to my old Duron 600, this thing is a beast. The noise is terrible, and for the first time I find myself shutting my computer off at night just so I can sleep.
Can't someone just design a case that allows air to go through, cool the CPU, and still be quiet? We have all these enginers giving us bigger and bitter processers, yet nobody is giving any real thought to noise control.
Oh gee. A case designer makes it quiet out the back. No! I want a total quiet noise solution. I'm a consumer! I'll pay for it!
--
The Internet is generally stupid
Or perhaps Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World" from which this quote was blatantly plagiarized?
It would be so easy. All we have to do is to get our Computer cases to move at about 40 mile per hour then we can remove the fans.
Get a free ipod.
HAHA, you suck. NOOB
- Satchel
1) Finally I can shut up that horrible teenage punk band next door.
2) Lowered mini-trucks with sub-sonic speakers that drive by my house at 2am are now a thing of the past.
3) Bob Saget Stealth - speaks for itself. Can also be used as Mother_in_law stealth.
4) Every Verizon TV commerical ever made stealth.
Get the Silverado CPU cooler; it has the most amazingly low sound level, bar none. There are a couple of articles on coolers at Tom's Hardware that you can check out; this link is the table of sound levels from one of the articles.
I believe you can find this cooler at OCPrices (the site in the original link for this article) once they're no longer slashdotted.
Good luck!
- Leo
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Why are you unable to find more interesting ways to waste your time?
Define most people? I would bet you that most people don't leave a fan running in their room.
But I'm pretty sure the SysAdmin is quietly weeping as he watches his server get /.ed into oblivion.
I stole this Sig
Instead of paying attention to every noise source inside a modern computer this series of external cases does the job by encasing the case.
The page is in german or this link for Google's translation.
There is even a 19" rack version English verison!
"The whisper box is large and heavy contraption that attaches onto the back of the Stealth Tower by means of extremely strong magnetic strips."
I've gotta believe there's a better way to to secure the whisper box than with magnets, much less extremely strong ones. Velcro? Screws? Hire some homeless guy to stand there and hold it?
Kinda reminds me of one of our tech support cases. Lady kept having problems with her HD becoming corrupt. Each time the tech came up to look at it, she had her PC cleaned off and ready to be taken for repair. After several re-images and even new drives, the problem persisted and we finally got her a new machine. Tech stopped by her cube a couple days after the new machine was installed only to find that she had covered the box with literally hundreds of small magnetic cat ornaments.
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
use the right pump and there's no noise from the pump whatsoever. For example, enheim pumps (by fafr the most popular for these kits) are almost inaudible, if you mount them on rubber feet.
As for the necessity for high-cooling, we're not talking about 386's here, some of these cpu's are dissipating 80 watts..
Here we go.. quick and easy:
1.) Large, low-rpm fans - cut holes, use adapters if necessary. Nothing smaller than 80mm. That means replacing any chipset / video cooler fans too. Nothing higher than 2500rpm--preferably around 2000. Use manually adj. speed fans if possible so you can achieve proper airflow around hotspots and balance case intake / exhaust.
2.) Don't overclock excessively. If you need extra cooling as a result, it's not worth it.
3.) Quiet hard drive(s). High frequency sounds are much more annoying, so if you go with a 7200+ rpm drive, buy a really quiet one like Seagate's Barracuda IV ATA or else sandwich the drive in aluminum and acoustic foam.
Sure, there are more drastic measures. But these
Thanks for /.'ing this site. Could you posters PLEASE contact these smaller site's first and ask them if they are ready for a flood of traffic??
grep >= ! == $your
Here is a new mirror guys - its the new design with the new server - should cope much better. Looks like we were unprepared for the great slash dot onslaught :)
http://66.227.7.83/indexb.php?rev_id=36&page=1
...I really didn't need to see that...
What, does the case spray water on the noise?
People always get these two terms confused... Noise and vibration are damped, not dampened.
I'm having a hard time locating online vendors that sell this. Could someone post some links? Thanks.
grep >= ! == $your
Something easy and cheap to reduce case fan noise that worked great for me:
Get or make a small cardboard box - about 2" bigger than your fan e.g. about 5x5x5 for the typical case fan. remove two adjacent sides of the box and line the remaining four sides with foam (ideally dense acoustic foam - but whatever you got).
Then just cover the case fan with the box. Worked great for me. You can use a shallower box so the foam is closer to the fan - or use egg-crate style foam. The main thing is, the sound hits the foam and is reduced before leaving the vent.
I've also used PVC sewer pipe elbows from Home depot. Works very well (Better with a foam baffle), but it's kind of hard to attach to the case.
Good source for acoustic foam Good source for cheap silent CPU and Case fans including supercheap panaflos and Vantec Stealths
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
I don't think I can quiet down my case [digitalzophar.net] that much
Crap! If I hadn't just finished setting up my new system, I'd a offered you some money for that case.
Paul
Piping Design Central
[poopingdesign.com]
Yeah, cause any faster than that and they'd just get plain old unstable! Oh, are we talking about computers or VWs?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
why do computer manufacturers still keep the power supply inside of the cpu case? I mean, isn't that where a sizeable percentage of all the noise, heat, and dust is coming from? Why is it even necessary to fan ventilate the power supply if it isn't in the case in the first place heating up all the other components? Why not just have a 4/5 wire d.c. line going from the cpu to some Commodore-64 style "brick" that sits on the floor? Better yet, why not integrate it into a UPS unit?
Then again, some people can sleep through falling out of bed. The top bunk.
I myself tend to sleep through anything, and am generally surprised that there was heavy thunder at night, for example.
WHAT KIND of fucking pansy assed mother fucker could possibly hear their computer over top of their stereo ? What kind of volume levels do you fucking wusses listen at ? FOR GOD's SAKE! Turn the stereo the fuck up man!! HEAD BANG GODDAMNIT YOU FUKCING PUSSIES. Worship SATAN, listen to CANNIBAL CORPSE, and don't be a fucking looser and sissy bitch - DO NOT turn it off while you are sleeping. Besides it give you fucking awesome ass nightmares dude!!!!