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Building the Ultimate Silent PC
TRH writes "You had a post not long ago about building a totally quiet PC, I came across this article on Rabid Hardware where the author had another approach for quieting down a PC, through ripping out fans, motors and replacing heat sinks with sound deadener material. Funny read, especially from a site that's known in the modding world for being a little off-the-wall to begin with." Finally, the silent PC you crave, and for a change, this one won't cost you a fortune.
Need a silent pc its easy just maintain the power off..
I hate it when there's no noise. Without that, and my lights burnt out, I can never tell if the wonky parts are still going!
Someone PLEASE post a link to a reputable site that has QUIET fans (CPU fans, projector fans, powersupply fans) that can be bought in Canada! PLEASE!!!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I never hear my fans as is. To me the only time I hear my computer is when a CDrom is spinning up or the harddrive is cranking and even that isn't very loud.
;)
Geeks are very picky
*DrugCheese rants*
So all you need is to build a Beowulf cluster of Vic-20s.
water cooling + Lian-Li + ball bearing fans...nuff said
Quiet PCs are easy. There's lots that you can do to make your PC quieter.
Instructions on how to make a quieter mother-in-law? I'd really like to see that.
Anyone else have a crazy Korean mother-in-law? You know what I mean!
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
One of the problems that many home musicians encounter is background noise. Most people I know just do not have the money/space to install a separate sound-proofed booth to record audio, and encasing a standard PC within a sealed soundproofed cabinet is dangerous (I know one person who's computer overheated due to this). Off the shelf solutions for silent PC's are ridiculously expensive... Maybe this is the solution that many musicians have been waiting for.
-- 7 string electric violin + live loop samplers
Also the tapping of the keys really annoyed me. So eventually I told him to sort it out or else, because I wasn't getting sleep and I was working as a receptionist at the time so needed it. He found a way to dampen the noise using some sort of cloth that was very effective, and he "lowclocked" it he said so that it didn't get as hot?
I really had to tell him to do a lot of things like that to keep noise down, it's a real shame. But now I have a computer job and I find it is really universal that they make this noise.
Anyway, I hope I didn't push him too hard. he left me, eventually, but I don't think it was over the computer. it was because he didn't like my candles (I am Catholic and Scottish).
I wish I hadn't told him to do that now, I could do with a really powerful computer for my computing course at college. It would help a lot, and I miss him.
So my point is, be careful about computer noise. it can cause a lot of tension and problems in a relationship, as I found out to my cost, beyond just headaches.
Thanks, Margot. :o)
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
I have found that my PC runs silently when I play my illegally gotten mp3's at ear crunching loud volumes. Preferrably "System of a Down" or "Tool" although I have been known to play the soundtrack from "Fiddler on a Roof" or "The Fantasticks" also.
Is he nuts?
You, like, need air flow and shit.
Eveybody knows that a totaly silent PC is a virtual one: all the other are too noisy to compare anyway !!!
[Pruneau
10/21/2002: Netscape innaugurates Mozilla open source project!
10/20/2002: Windows NT 4.0 released!
10/19/2002: DEC changes name to Digital, and/or vice versa!
10/18/2002: Altair home computer released!
10/17/2002: New "Multics" project aims to revolutionize operating systems!
10/16/2002: New "high level" programming language Fortran promises to revolutionize number-crunching!
10/15/2002: This just in: Renowned mathematician Alan Turing found dead!
10/14/2002: HITLER INVADES CZECHOSLOVAKIA!
10/13/2002: Council of Trent adjourns!
10/12/2002: EMPEROR DIOCLETIAN ACCEDES TO THRONE!
10/11/2002: Orgmph discover fire! Fire good! Cook meat!
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
some guys wrecked a computer and took pictures.
and this is a hilarious parody of other 'how-tos', i guess. har har.
now post a link to a collection of knock knock jokes.
or the cartoon of maggie sucking barts weiner while he says 'dont have a cow mom, she lost her pacifier'.
And could someone please tell me a little more about fresh, delicious subway subs? I hear they bake the bread fresh every day.
is the one at the store that I can't afford. All I hear is a little voice that says, "buy me, buy me". It might just be in my head.
currently my computer sounds like a shopvac that is running all the time. without that noise, how would i be able to sleep at night?
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
Block all vents and unplug the fans. That should make it extremely quiet, don't you think?
Can we get a silent pc icon already or something? :)
It seems like we get instructions for building a quiet PC every week... if you don't know now, you're obviously not interested... I'm... not interested...
Hmmmm. Links dead. Assuming that's his server, too, I think he ripped out more than just some trivial fans and motors...
Back in the day when Dynamat was used in car audio, it was tested by numerous magazines and found to have no signifigant impact on noise level.
And I just took my old pastachio-green commode to teh dump last week. Not that you'd want a 20-year old toilet with all the hard water stains that go with it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Don't forget the Enron executive that committed suicide. That's 3 right there.
Actually, there is at least one "Bush Bodycount" website. I'm sure you and Mr Google can find some.
BTW, plane crashes are the Bush family signature, going at least as far back as Osama bin Laden's brother and Bush business partner, Salem bin Laden. He was killed in a small plane crash after visiting the Bush family in Texas in the 1980's.
Well if they're like the ol' Chicago voters then death won't stop a Democrat from voting either. :-D
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
but at least their (civilian) bodycount is lower than the Clintons.
Errr... if you're not one of those conspiracy KOOKS that count 9/11 as a coup d'etat.
Or maybe they're just better at hiding the bodies.
Oh, stop your fretting. The Dems. can replace him with anybody they like whenever they like just like in New Jersey.
... you probably *didn't* read last week's article on the same thing ... ;)
I didn't know heat sinks made any noise, so why replace them? I also didn't think "sound deadener material" would work as a heat sink, unless it's different from the sound deadening material I've seen.
You post an article on "Building a Silent PC".
Do you have no logic? Did a bell not ring when you noticed that they replaced a heat sink with NOTHING?
You even missed the "Back to Humour" link at the bottom.
Nice journalism. Slashdot just gets worse and worse by the day.
1. Rip out fans and heat sinks
2. Put some sound dampening dynamat over fan and heat sink holes
3. Put back together
4. Turn on... wait a few seconds
5. Extinguish flames
6. Go to store.apple.com and buy a Mac
Man, that's just cold blooded.
Sign on as an AC, throw a monster flamebait out, and put your bosses'/ex-boyfriend's/enemy's email out.
Damn, you are too cool.
I can't -BELIEVE- anyone actually took this seriously.
"Not only can dynamat run at peak performance without any fan whatsoever, but also it insulates to prevent nasty CPU vibration. You're gonna want this especially for the P4 series, as they create a ton of vibration, that's just not good for the rest of your components."
Did anyone actually read the story before approving it? Remove heatsink on a Athlon 1700 and replace it with a piece of INSULATING MATERIAL? "CPU vibration"?
This is the link I found.
3 55 04879271.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/25/10
Ya want to talk about a cheap "ultimate quiet computer", come into my garage. I have a whole shelf of computers that haven't made so much as a beep in years!
packRatMerlin.
..for heaven's sake people, remove it from your bedroom :).
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
You can either spend ~USD120.00 for 39ft2 of Dynamat or you can get the same effect with materials like B-Quiet Extreme and get 50ft2 for USD85.00.
I'm not affiliated with them, I just hate seeing people spend a ton of money on something that has an equal quality, lesser-priced alternative.
Maybe this is the solution that many musicians have been waiting for.
Did you even read the article? It's a joke:
"I cut a piece of Dynamat the size of the CPU, and stuck it on the CPU. Not only can dynamat run at peak performance without any fan whatsoever, but also it insulates to prevent nasty CPU vibration."
And if you weren't sharp enough to catch that, it says "humour" in the fscking URL, for christ's sake.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
IT'S A JOKE PEOPLE! Nobody in their right mind would really do this. I doubt half of you actually read the article.
"I get my jollies building computers" Steve Jobs, 1983
http://www.888webtoday.com/webopinion112.html"
http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/index.shtml
http://witewillo.homestead.com/files/bushbodycount .htm
http://www.stormtronic.co.uk/9-11/bushmurders.htm
http://www.stopbush2000.com/project.htm
You can either spend approximately $120 for 39 square feet of Dynamat or you can get the same effect with materials like B-Quiet Extreme and get 50 square feet for $85.
You must be up to your nostrils in theses. I'm sorry.
I am currently working on a water cooled PC. However I would like to move the powersupply out to another location. Can anyone see a problem with 20 foot long extremely well shielded low resistance power supply cables? The box will be alluminum with TONS of vents, but no fans in a room with 65 degree farenheit ambient tempature. And yes, even the harddrive is water cooled, in its own airtight enclosure. (still kept cool by water)
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Well didn't think it'd get this much traffic... the site is slow as hell, but it's still going surprisingly enough.
;)
I guess I'll just mention, the article is HUMOUR. Feel free to read our disclaimer on our Staff Page, if you can get to it
Cheers,
Doc
RabidHardware
It was a Compaq.
I wasn't dating her for her brains.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
... just a subtle smouldering sound for ambiance
Who benefits from his death?
Wellstone was going to narrowly lose his re-election bid. The Republicans had that seat, anyway.
Now, Wellstone's corpse will garner enough of a sympathy vote to put the Democrats over the top.
The Republicans have nothing to gain and everything to lose by his death. The Democrats have nothing to lose and everything to gain by his death.
New Jersey proved that the Democrats will break any law to maintain their lead in the Senate. Wellstone was no longer of any use to them.
:) (I have to type in here so /. will accept my comment)
Since the net result is a quiet, non-functional PC, I've found a superior method to accomplish the same level of noiselessness WITHOUT costly tools or dynamat. The best part? It's totally reversable with no damage to the computer!
Turn the system OFF.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
You are making us Libertarians look bad with your kookery.
Are you the guy in Montana whose skin turned blue?
This is not the solution that many musicians have been waiting for, this is the solution the RIAA has been waiting for.
You do all these things to your computer and the RIAA won't have to worry about independent musicians anymore, because your computer will go *p00f!
(If this is a troll, it is Physics Genius level troll. :)
That's ridiculously overpriced! I can break my computer and set it on fire for only $50 with... err...
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=43312&cid=4532 346
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, you might READ the article before posting/commenting about it? Or maybe you did read it, and took it seriously.
In the latter case, I pity you...
Jim must have given some snot nose a bad grade
Given there's been more than one or two posts about how this is a really good idea, I think it's time to make something absolutely clear:
Do not, for the love of God, do this to your computer
I mean, people. Pay attention! It's in the humor section. The guy is 'removing nasty noise producting chips' with a dull pair of sissors.
Sanity now!
They aren't serious!
Aaron
AaronCameron.net
How about Jesse Ventura?
Wellstone has been found alive in the wreckage! He claimed to have survived for the last several hours by sucking man-juice from the dying pilot.
1 gallon of man-juice 2 gallon2 of man-juice 3 gallons of man-juice 4 gallonsa of man-juice 5 gallonsb of man-juice 6 gallonsc of man-juice 7 gallonsd of man-juice 8 gallonse of man-juice 9 gallonsf of man-juice 10 gallonsg of man-juice 11 gallonsh of man-juice 12 gallonsi of man-juice 13 gallonsj of man-juice 14 gallonsk of man-juice 15 gallonsl of man-juice 16 gallonsm of man-juice 17 gallonsn of man-juice 18 gallonso of man-juice 19 gallonsp of man-juice 20 gallonsq of man-juice 21 gallonsr of man-juice 22 gallonss of man-juice 23 gallonst of man-juice 24 gallonsu of man-juice 25 gallonsv of man-juice 26 gallonsw of man-juice 27 gallonsx of man-juice 28 gallonsy of man-juice
I think the /. effect is above all the best way to silence a PC... it seems to have worked here.
...the slashdot effect hits?
(Anybody got a mirror? I can't read the article.)
http://www.888webtoday.com/webopinion112.html"
http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/index.shtml
http://witewillo.homestead.com/files/bushbodycount .htm
http://www.stormtronic.co.uk/9-11/bushmurders.htm
http://www.stopbush2000.com/project.htm
Why so many stories on building silent pc's? Its not like its hard to make your pc silent if thats your thing. Here's a hint.. take out the fans.
The vast majority of these Silent PCs HOWTOs are just that, guides on how to yank the fans off.
It seems like it would be common sense to take the fans off, line the case with dynamat and make sure you have a decent heat sink.
is the one where he's prying a liteon chip of of a circuitboard with a pari of scissors, and says, "begone, noisy electronics!" Sounds like something many users I've supported would do :-)
$8.95/mo web hosting
now that they've been utterly /.ed?
Here's the text of the article....
=======
Building a Silent PC
Date:
10.24.2002
By:
Doc
In this day and age, overclocking has changed the face of computing. From the designs of decades past, the venerable Celeron 300A, to today's powerhouses, people are striving to get the most out of their processor. While this may all be fine and dandy, it creates several side effects: heat, empty wallets and worst of all, noise.
As CPUs become hot during overclocking, the need to put a bigger and faster cooler on them increases. The problem, is the noise. Anybody who's run a high-speed Delta has the scars, the bleeding, popped eardrums, ruptured spleen, collapsed lungs from the pressure it creates. This may make overclocking seem less enjoyable for anybody other then those scary hardcore freaks who probably enjoy massive internal injuries anyway.
And here begins our quest to create a completely silent PC.
The premise? Well if a super nintendo (and all it's unrefined, raw power) can work perfectly fine without fannage of any kind, why can't a PC? they both do the same thing.. play heavily commercialized and overpriced games.
Our target PC (the basics):
Athlon XP 1700+
Abit KR7A-RAID motherboard
512MB Corsair DDR
Currently, it's running the Alpha 8045 with Delta's whirring 80mm/80CFM fan of incessant shrieking and hearing loss(+2).
This will not do.
I traveled far and wide down the street to our haven of expensive electronics, Future Shop. Around the back, the car stereo install bay. I was in search of Dynamat, the black sheet of silent goodness. It was a great price, was just sitting on somebody's seat. The owner obviously left it for the taking. I proceeded to grab it out of the car and take it home, but not before stopping by Tim Hortons cause they make good coffee. and stuff. Not that fancy almond mint chocolate brownie cinnamon frappachino with sprinkles made with real coffee beans passed thru a jungle cat that they sell at that disgusting Starbucks place, either.
Anyway, back to the silent PC. First things first, we need to remove that bulky Alpha fan and drop in something sleek and silent. I cut a piece of Dynamat the size of the CPU, and stuck it on the CPU. Not only can dynamat run at peak performance without any fan whatsoever, but also it insulates to prevent nasty CPU vibration. You're gonna want this especially for the P4 series, as they create a ton of vibration, that?s just not good for the rest of your components.
The dynamat was going great, but it looked like it was already losing performance against the Alpha. So I proceeded to slap some performance modifications on our heat sink, this will increase FPS by 15% right away:
Now that we have the CPU taken care of, time to rid ourselves of those pesky fans. We can start by removing all the case fans. Usually you can remove them with a screwdriver or by those fancy little black plugs, but if you're the adventuring type, you can just use a dremel or jigsaw to cut the fan out:
Next off, we need to remove that nasty ass fan from our power supply. As my enermax 631 is out of commission from my recent attempt at LN2+duct tape cooling, I'll use my standby 300W AMD/Intel approved PSU (w/30% more tartar control). First step is to remove the fan, this can be done by cutting the grill off the back of the PSU and extracting the fan:
Next step is to dampen the vibrations coming from the capacitors in the power supply by covering the hole with dynamat:
Don't worry folks, we're already at least 3% closer to having a completely silent PC!
Now for those of you who are unlucky enough to have a fan on your video card or motherboard chipset, we need to remove these as well, since these particular fans really don't help anything (they're just there for looks). While you have the noisy bastards uninstalled, we can do a few performance mods to the GPU and northbridge, as well:
Once we've conquered the fan problem, we need to pay heed to another top producer of badly refined noise, dc motors. You can find these devices in CD-ROMs, floppy drives, and of course, hard drives. First device we'll tackle is the floppy drive. All that?s required is to pull the shroud off the top of the drive. The motor is the small cylindrical object near the back of the drive. A couple screws later and it should pop right out. Otherwise, don your biggest crowbar or pliers and commence with the persuasion.
Of course, since the floppy drive runs off a noisy ribbon cable, we'll use a little dynamat to secure the electronics in here:
CD-ROMs are relatively easy to secure. Once we remove the motors (3! Tray, spinny motor and the wee one that moves the optics back and forth), the rest is child's play. I doubt this Lite-On drive will make much electronic vibration afterwards, but I'm also removing any chips that have the potential to create noise, just to be safe.
Be gone, noisy electronics!
Our test rig has a 20 gig Quantum hard drive, and believe me, it creates an assload of noise and heat. Once we remove the motor, she'll be purring like a frozen kitten.
Upon opening the drive, I quickly realized that were was no DC motor to be found! Instead I found the disc (where everything is stored), and some triangle piece that looked like a fancy roach clip. I ended up removing the roach clip, it wasn't touching the disc anyway.
As you can see, I've filled in the empty space in the drive with dynamat to allow for as little air in the drive as possible. As you know, air always has a potential for noise.
Now that we've eliminated 99% of the noise in our components, the only thing left was to put it all back together and let er rip!
Halfway into the windows loading, I started to smell a funky odor. Once I concluded that I had in fact taken a shower this fall, the smoke detector went off. The rest I shall say, is history. All I can leave you with is a important safety tip:
COMPUTERS ARE FLAMMABLE!
For some reason it caught fire. I couldn't quite pinpoint it, but I think our CPU heat sink was the first to go. I guess I shouldn't have added those performance mods to the dynamat. My CPU is now a little wafer of carbon, not unlike a badly charred potato chip. The hard drive, although working is a little slow to access. The floppy drive will only take those old 5 1/4 disks now and the CD-ROM makes great melted beer coasters.
All in all I think it was a success. Next time I think I'll try black powder, I hear it also makes a great sound dampener. On top of that, I have a nifty new roach clip too!
That aboot covers our look into a totally silent PC. Enjoy the rest of the program!
Cheers,
Doc
I know this sounds like a joke, but...
... and it really is so completely silent that the faint, high voltage hum/sizzle from my 19 inch monitor actually bothers me. I never even knew it was making a sound until the masking noise provided by the computer was gone.
...
... check out the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP).
:-)
Q: How quiet is your computer?
A: My computer is soooo quiet that I need to find a quieter monitor.
Hah hah.
Except I'm serious! I have a fully functional x-terminal set up
If anyone here wishes they had a quieter computer, I wholeheartedly recommend setting up your own x-terminal system. It's such a great setup! I still get to have all the fun related to having a massive full tower case - one with screaming 10K SCSI drives, ancient chainsaw-grade SCSI II drives, a tape drive, optical drives, etc - but with all of that noise isolated in another room on the other side of my apartment!
That's the basic idea. You keep a server somewhere in your house, and then connect a basic "x-terminal" (just an old PC) to it via a long network cable (or whole network if you're lucky enough to have one). The x-terminal is typically very simple - it doesn't even need a hard disk. It's also typically ancient enough that it requires little or no active cooling (no fans).
My x-terminal is a mixture of old stuff I had lying around, and a few strategically purchased - yet cheap - new items.
It's built around a Pentium 75 (heatsink only; no fan required) with 64 Mb of RAM (consisting of ancient FPM SIMMS). No hard disk required - it boots off a floppy disk, and then over to the server via the network. As for other components, to make my life easier I decided to get some new, brand-name items just so that everything had a good chance at being autodetected. If you have some extra money, I really recommend doing that. You get improved performance for very little money, and you don't have to go through configuration hell. With that in mind, I installed a $25 ATI 8Mb PCI video card, a $30 Intel 100Mbs network card, and a $20 SB sound card. That's all. There are so few components to draw power in my x-terminal, that I decided to risk removing the power supply fan and just leave the power supply cover off instead (an attempt at enhancing convection which seems to be effective). I still use the exterior computer case so there's little threat of collateral damage (i.e. electrocution). Be sure you really understand the risks before you try doing that though. For most tasks, the speed of the setup is so good that I CANNOT tell that what I'm looking at right now is NOT hooked up directly to the originating computer. For any task (such as an intensive game) that exceeds what the networked/x-terminal setup can provide, I just walk over to the room with my server in it, endure the noise, and work directly off the server. I lose nothing with this arrangement.
This is PERFECTION! I cannot convey how happy this setup makes me. I'd always hated the noise my computer made, but now that I have total silence, I can fully appreciate it. I just have to take care of this monitor somehow
How do you set up something like this? It's pretty easy
The LTSP packages are extra cool because with them, I've been able to hook-up both my laser printer and scanner to the x-terminal. I've also got the CD-ROM and floppy drove working locally too. So the occasional complaint about x-terminal systems forcing you to go back to the server to do some hardware-related stuff just don't apply here.
Have I mentioned how great this is?
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
I know this article is a joke but there is a very real solution to the noise and form factor problems. It's via's mini-itx motherboards.
Check out mini-itx.com the boards are low heat, low noise and fairly powerful (500-700 mhz). They are perfectly suitable for a media box, router, or low end linux/windows workstation. All parts included they whole things comes in at under $500 usd. That's pretty reasonable, and the site has a greate many interesting links about projects (like the one I think is cool, the computer in a cigar-box, the 'Hummidor64').
I CAN'T HEAR A DAMN THING WITH THIS SERVER BESIDE ME
(I sincerely apologise for this crap below. The joke simply doesn't work if I don't type it in all caps)
Avoiding lameness filter
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The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Yet another /.'ing. Mirrors up at Earlham College and at UW-Madison.
Be warned that I am planning on taking down the UW-Madison server for repairs and upgrades later tonight, so Earlham is probably your best bet.
Modern PCs are blazing fast and have more horse power than the so called "super computers" of the past. But the noise of the cooling fans and the cracking noise of hard-drive still make modern PC sound like soooooo 20th century. Its hard to believe that we are still using a stupid fan to cool the CPU.
The real ultimate silent PC.
Erik
I know most of the machines around my house have started to get noticibly loud fan noise. I'm
guessing that if I took the time to shut them down and give the fans a good cleaning, it would
cut the noise out by half or more.
It's cheaper than a new super quiet power supply too
Did Commander Taco post this story as some sort of test, to prove once and for all that no one reads the articles posted? Its bizzaro stories like this that at least keep you on your toes i guess.
That's it! Let the free market solve the problem. If water prices go up enough, people will either adopt conservation measures that they choose, or they'll spend more on water! Supreme executive authority derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony!
I used to have to sleep to the hum, the pleasant white noise of my computer... now i have nothing to dao ll day after following the article. :(
I thought GHB was involved in setting up the Bay of Pigs invasion.
If you can hear the sound from your computer its a sign that your music is way to low.
Slashdot it into oblivion.
How about Beowulf of Palm Pilot PDAs?
Less is more !
FIRSTUS POSTUS, BEEEEOTCHII!
Bow down and worship my reflugent corescuence!
pleeeeease?!!!
seriously, i lined the door of my antec SOHO case with it and it noticably cut down on the ambient noise given off by the system. im even running 3 case fans, 2 psu fans, 1 cpu fan and 1 gpu fan. trust me it works, its almost as silent as the G4 400 sitting next to it.
I want 2D games back.
Haha thanks, ya broke the site ;)
I've mirrored the article here:
Building a Silent PC
I'd just like to stress too:
Disclaimer: This article is a satirical (HUMOUR) look at building a silent PC. If you break anything of yours trying anything in this article, it's your own fault! Better yet, don't try anything that you see in here, unless you know the consquences, because neither RH or I will take any responsibility.
mmmkay?
Cheers,
Doc
RabidHardware
The noise my computer makes helps put me to sleep. When I have my computer off It is way to quiet in my apartment. So I dont mind a loud case.
keanmarine.com
I don't know anything of "Dynamat", but when I read the part about removing critical motors from floppy/cd-rom drives I finally go it! This is a joke as far as I'm concerned, and anyone that follows these directions are bound to have not only a silent PC, but an inoperative PC as well. Better to just turn the darned thing off...much easier and doesn't require obtaining this "Dynamat" material! Hehehehehehehehehhehee!
Guyote was here.....
You could buy a mac, but that costs a plethura. Macs have never needed fans.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
I'll start by explaining I know this is a joke.
However, it did remind me of a british Company that used to make PC's back in the early eighties, I can't quite remmember their name.
They put the power supply in the monitor, which has enough fanless vantilation, and thus did not need the power fan in the main case. The CPU's of those days did not require fans so it was a completely quiet setting.
However, one of the first FUD rumours was spread that this was somehow wrong, so they put a useless fan circulating air inside the main case to make noise. Those who had a clue, ripped off the power supply of that fan.
Anyhow, wouldn't it be possible to just put the power supply in the monitor or such, and thus eliminate the main source of noise (the big power fan)?
I wish there was less persecution, but those heretical Protestants know that they're Hellbound, and take it out on those of us who belong to the True Church.
A. Rightmann
I keep hearing everyone saying not to take this article seriously... that these aren't well thought out mods....Nothing could be further from the truth! PLEASE try every mod in the article! I highly recommend putting at least 3 layers of dynaMat on the processor... it really does keep it cool and significantly reduces vibration!! Happy Modding! .... Well, now that their gone... maybe the SNR will get back to normal! ;-)
next($sig) unless($sig =~
Maybe I should put up a page for the LOUDEST PC on the planet? Ok, I know truthfully I would never get anywhere near some designs, but I bet I could get things pretty loud by installing some heavy-duty, chop-off-your-fingers steel 120V axial cooling fans (15,000cfm baby!)... heh...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
From Everything2.com:
Guide to making a quieter computer
1) Turn off your computer. This will make it totally silent. However, this won't solve the problem forever.
2) Remove all cables, and place the computer in an open area with plenty of room.
3) Meditate for fifteen minutes, focusing all power into your muscles, utilizing the silent abstract construct of the mind.
4) Examine the computer closely, silently, taking in every niche and feature of it's exterior without touching it. The bottom will be out of sight, so you must keep it in your mind's eye.
5) Strike, drive first, with force. Use all physical advantages to overcome the calculating beast, including your weight to crush the tenuous metal. Let the silence of space, and the infinite thoughts of inertia that result to charge your being as you desecrate the church of frag.
6) Bask in silence.
-- Wibble
All that soundproofing stuff is too complicated. On my computer I just reversed the polarity on the clock generator so it runs at negative 1.7 GHz. Now my cpu runs cold instead of hot and I don't need any pesky cooling fans.
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Yeah! Next time, he plans to use black powder in his modding attempts! How long do you think can a 1700+ run before ignition? Does the P4's thermal throttling prevent total burnout?
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I just want to see what happens when some dumb person's "Quiet mod" is booted for the first time after reading this page.
1p}{ 1 sp34k |33+ +|-|e|\| p30p13 \/\/il| 8e i/\/\pr3553|)
... here's my recipe for a *cheap* silent PC. BTW I only post this because the parts I like to use for that kind of machine are disappering fast from the channel, and it doesn't look like anything suitable is going to come out anytime soon. That said: CPU: 1.4 GHz Intel "Tualatin" Celeron (basically a 0.13 u PIII), underclocked to 933 MHz because it's running on FSB 66. Undervolted to 1.2V VCore it works nicely with an Alpha PAL 6035 heatsink *without* fan. Mainboard: Any Tualatin capable i815 board that allows VCore selection to *undervolt* the CPU. An Asus TUSL2-C is a good choice. If you don't mind wire tricking your CPU to run at lower VCore, an ECS P6S5AT can be had for next to nothing and is a surprisingly well done board (picky on DDR-RAM though, but that's the only caveat). Harddrive: Seagate "Cuda" IV. This thing is *silent*. If you have to do with something else, it pays to dampen the drive by mounting it with rubber O-Rings hooked in a 5 1/4 drive tray. GFX card: if you like to have something with 3D acceleration, just get a late (i.e. built in 2002) Geforce 3, remove the fan it shipped with and stick a bigger passive heatsink on it (got one from the local electronics shop that works nicely). Dot of thermal paste in the center, 4 dots of superglue in the corners of the GPU, done. If you don't need 3D, any Matrox G Series or Ati Rage 128 will do and be passive cooled out of the box. Case: Old no name ATX mini tower with an FSP 235W CPU. Other super cheap cases and PSUs will do, because the components used draw very little amps. Just make sure the PSU fan is speed controled. If you don't leave the box on 24/7, just disconnect the PSU fan. Optical storage: Toshiba DVD 1612. This is a compromise because the thing is *loud* while at full speed but sufficiently quiet when playing DVDs. Voila. Cheap and not exactly a speed demon, but it plays Neverwinter Nights at acceptable framerates and does audio editing fast enough, those being the two tasks that hit the thing hard enough to make a difference WRT FSB. For anything else I do, it's simply good enough.
Anyone here heard of apple computer? my i$mac has no fan, hd whirrs a bit here and there. my UPS backup is louder.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
"You are STUUUPID! You are STUUUPID! Oh, and don't forget: You are STUUUPID!"
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
I wanted a toilet that would allow me to use the regular water saving flush for 90% of the flushes and a high powered department store style flush for 10% of the flushes.
...
To do this mod you'll need
1 extra toilet basin
5 feet of pvc piping
1 super high powered water pump
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
I space, not one can hear your PC!
(think aliens)
Life is too short to proofread.
Your tone makes it obvious why British-Isle Catholics and Protestants don't get along. First you make it sound like you are simply persecuted for your beliefs, but then you condemn Protestants for what they believe in a very condescending way. Can't you just respect your fellow human like you want them to do, while you're on this planet?
Sorry, but it gets my goat when someone complains about other people doing the same thing that he/she does him/herself.
It's called a "thin client". :)
And it is people like you that make me think of it. i don't know why you need to be hateful. What have I ever said to you? Why not just leave me alone, you take me back to being 12 which is probably what age you are. Just go away please?
or at least try and think and understand why saying what you do might hurt someone. it isn't just a post on the internet. you aren't free of cause and effect. Everything you do here has an effect on you spiritually and emotionally, and can pervert you and punish you. You should avoid this, well, no other word for it, sin and behaving like what you say has no consequences on you or other people, and start being a bit grown up and responsible. Telling people they should top themselves is a hurtful disgrace, and I'm just glad I am much more solid in the head than I was a few years ago, when I did turn away from my community and even my faith for a while, and I payed. You should think carefully and try to be more moral.
Margot. no xxx for you
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
...The abacus
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Thats why the people that founded the US left England in the first place, 200 years later and its still an obnoxious religious society.
At least the majority in America don't give a hoot who or what you worship, as long as you leave the rest of us alone.
If so, tell him that I said hello.
Before we all lose our tempers and start yelling "Ogg Vorbis rules!" and "Microsoft Sucks" let's take a minute to read the disclaimer attached to the article.
It's hard to miss considering that it's prominently displayed in bold red text... But just in case, here it is anyways:
Disclaimer: This article is a satirical (HUMOUR) look at building a silent PC. If you break anything of yours trying anything in this article, it's your own fault! Better yet, don't try anything that you see in here, unless you know the consequences, because neither RH or I will take any responsibility. Thank ya, now back to the article...
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
I have 3 PCs, and my computer room is nearly silent. All 3 are in the closet, and all the wires to the monitors, keyboards, mouses, etc go through a small hole drilled in the wall. Cheap and easy... The only cost was a bathroom vent fan that had to be installed in the closet for airflow. And as an added bonus my computer room is now the same temp as the rest of my house...
Perhaps she used to be a guy and is now a gal.
(you know...spent $$$ to have the OEM eq removed and a retofit done)
*lame joke alert*
Here's yet another way of getting rid of that annoying whirr of motors: Get two mother-of-god sized speakers, sandwich your head in between them while they're playing at full volume for a few hours.
Not only does it solve the problem with own computer, it'll deal with other computers, mother-in-laws, bosses, and political debates.
Hey wait, you won't ever buy CDs/DVDs/8tracks again! Oh no! Will the RIAA be against this solution and slap me with a gag-order for this flagitious solution?
Take your stock pc where the cooling method is
to use a few high rpm fans to suck air around
for the whole system. The parts have been designed with that in mind and so systems are quick to slap together for vendors. Inneficient but easy.
Things I did to make my system cool and quiet:
Replaced small high rpm cpu fan with case fan ziptied above the heatsink.
Use ducting for the cpu fan exhaust.
My power supply has fans on intake and exhaust.
cut away metal obstructing intake airflow.
Arranged cables to not obstruct airflow. Most cases I've had have a pocket of space next to the drive cage where I route my cables. One of the big selling points for Serial ATA is it's thin cable for better airflow, yet with smart arrangement, you can have unobstructed airflow now.
Having improved the airflow, I then lowered the voltage on all the fans from 12v to 7v. I plugged ground into powersupply 5v rail.
To reduce heat and help match my quiet cooling capabilites, I lowered cpu voltage as much as I could while still remaining stable.
The one step that cost money was to buy a non whiny Seagate Barracua IV drive that has fluid bearings.
My system is an AMD XP1700+.
afrotechmods.com
We're commissioning a system at work with Dell 6600 Poweredge (quadruple 1.6GHz Xeon servers with a SCSI disk array). They sound like shopvacs. I should hire this fellow to cool them down.
Begone noisy hardware!
Good work, George. Finishing what your daddy couldn't, again.
Ok so where is the humorous foot icon?
I know a couple who are Irish. He's prodestant, she's catholic. Whenever they argue, she blows up his car.
Anything like that?
This is funny?
How about if we replace the prodestant (sic) with an American, the catholic with someone who's Islamic and the car with his office building.
Still funny now? Yeah, I didn't think so.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
No they don't. The G4 cube is completely silent - can't even hear the hard drive spinning. It's cooled by convection. I don't think any of powerbooks have fans either, though hard drive sounds like a distant vacuum cleaner.
--Hi. I'm in Portland and it's raining. This appears to be a permanent condition.
All I had to do was rip out the power supply, and the thing hasn't made a peep since.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I actually did this a month or so ago... bought a few feet of dynamat and wrapped everything in it. Barely made a difference ::sigh::
Isn't this somewhat how they fight for justice, peace, freedom and against terrorism?
Isn't this somewhat how 'they' fight for justice, peace, freedom, creativity, and against terrorism, and so on?
NOT SAFE FOR WORK!
You asshole!
That site is filled with homosexual pornography, and features a grinning kike faggot on it's front page.
Shouldn't this topic/thread have a Foot (it's funny, laugh) Logo?
;)
:p
I mean, it's *Hardly* a serious news article.
After all, how many of the threads below are assuming the topic is an actual article on legitimate System Silencing?
I was one of those who was wishing it had a serious side to it. Alas, the silly seems to have won out
Just my braindroppings leaking out again
In the end, I ended up using US-based Plycon for the Papst fans (they are the best queiet fans you can get, bar none) and Magic Fleece. Other bits, like the Zalman cooler, I had to buy in the UK.
Why is it that it's so difficult to find any of this gear in Canada? In this regard, Canada is a third world country!
-- As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
That whirring noise you hear as soon as you
click the on button? It's not your cpu fan;
it's your harddrive.
1. Replace your drives with Seagate Barracuda IV's
2. Remove your older harddrives
3. Replace your cpu fan's with the zalman
flower heatsink+fans
4. Replace case fans with variable zalman fans
5. Replace powersupply with zalman
I've been deliriously happy since I replaced
the fans in my system with the zalman stuff...I
didn't even knew they existed until I saw their
flower heatsink.
After replacing most of the stuff in my system,
I wondered why my systems were still so loud.
Then I figured it out..the harddrives were
whining even when doing nothing. FDB bearings
to the rescue...simply wonderful.
You'd think that PC manufacturers would get a
clue. Dell could make a fortune just by making
their PC's silent and marketing them as such.
Gourry