Melamine Ceiling Tiles and the Quiet PC

Delta Screemer writes "What good are ceiling tiles when it comes to making a computer quieter? Well, Max Page of FrostyTech has found a use for 'Melamine Foam Sound Absorbing Ceiling Tiles' as a cheap way of lowering the noise a computer produces. By lining the insides of a computer with these $3 24"x24" industrial office panels he was able to quiet a computer by several dBA. That may not sound like much (pun intended), but when you compare the price of these melamine foam panel to products like Dynamat the price difference is substantial."

Comments

I like loud computers

[ObviousGuy]

It lets me know things are working correctly.

A silent hard drive is a dead hard drive.

A silent fan is a dead fan.

Give me as many physical clues to the health of the machines, if you please.

Quiet PC?

[bethane]

I used to have a annoying loud PC in my bedroom and it was very difficult to sleep with it on, so what I did was to place it in the basement and use it as a terminal server.
For my bedroom I built myself a not-so-dumb terminal. I used a VIA processor based motherboard and run it diskless.
All I did was fit a CD-ROM so I could boot a minial homebrew Linux based on knoppix and Morphix. Once booted up it logs in automatically and launches Rdesktop which allows me to login to my server in the basement over 802.11b.
This works great and I sleep much better now!

Safety question?

[AndroidCat]

Are those foam panels fireproof (or at least resistant)? If they're used in office ceilings, I'd guess so, but I'd want more than my guess before putting close to stuff that gets hot.

And here, laugh, it's relevant

Silent Power Supply

[meehawl]

Soundproofing your case produces results, but the biggest bang for the buck is definitely replacing the PSU.

I built a TV PC and I was annoyed by the hovercraft-like PSU, so I invested in a silent PSU. There are lots of custom quiet PSUs recommended here, but you pay for the styling and mods.

For me, the most economical approach was to pay $50 for a standard Fortron/Sparkle PSU with inside-case 120mm fan intake. There's a review of it at Tom's.

After the PSU replacement and replacement of the PC case, the PSU is literally inaudible. The loudest ambient noise in the apartment now comes from the fridge compressor in the kitchen one room over.

It's a minimal system though, an underclocked XP2400, a single hard drive. If and when I put in some more drives, I may line the case with soundproofing...

My way..

[pair-a-noyd]

I have 7 computers up and running, 5 of them being in the same room, one in the garage and one in my sons room.

I'm here to tell you that the noise and the heat is more than I can stand. So, I scored a twin door soda display cooler from a drive in grocery store for CHEAP. It was broken and has a bullet hole in it from a robbery attempt. But, it LOOKS good. It's 6.5' tall, 5' wide and 3' deep. It's got a dozen heavy duty adjustable shelves plus internal and external 48" flourescent light fixtures. The doors are self closing, double paned glass.

Well, I stripped out the compressor and all the other cooling things. Now I have a HUGE, insulated sound proof box that is big enough to put ALL of my computers into including my laserjet and other heat producing devices.
pic of cooler stripped all the way down

pic 2 of cooler stripped all the way down

I pulled the doors off and seperated the double panes of glass and removed the "COKE" logos,
pic of one door before removing logos

Now I'm going to apply my own "etched glass" appliques that suit my tastes, I'm sanding the outer cabinet down and priming it so I can put a nice paint job on it and shortly I'll have a giant soundproof box for my pc's..
I'm going to put vents in the bottom rear and baffle and filter them to keep the sound in and and the dust out. In the top I'm going to cut a four inch diameter hole and run a PVC duct through the top of the cabinet and through my ceiling into my attic. With a small, super quiet 4" fan to help exhaust the hot air, my computer room will stay nice and cool and my air conditioner will not have to work nearly so hard as it does now.
In the winter I'll divert the exhaust into the computer room to assist the central heater..

And to top it all off, I'm going to put a few cold cathode lights in it just for a nice effect. The internal 48" flourescent light I'll leave in there to light it up when I have to pull a rack out to work on something...

My biggest problem now is figuring out how to get it into the house. I can take some door frames out but I don't know if it will turn the corners or not..

I've never understood why...

[TeknoHog]

..we first seal the heat-generating components inside a closed case, then start worrying about heat dispersal, and then have to use huge and noisy fans to bring some cool air in and hot air out. Why not solve the problem from the beginning, rather than patching up existing designs?

I've recently built a power amplifier with a practically sealed case with plenty of metal. The case itself is the heat sink, so there's no need to have any dusty air wandering inside. Of course audio devices don't usually need fans, but it's basically the same idea anyway. The next computer I build will hopefully have passive cooling in a similar fashion, and of course a fanless power supply.