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A Practical Approach To Shushing Your PC
An anonymous reader points to this wacky but effective-looking home-brewed answer to computer noise, consisting of a wooden case stuffed with ventilation shafts which follow a number of 180-degree turns, and implementing several ideas found at 12ghosts.de (in German). From the description on the site: "By traveling through the shafts, the noise is weakened gradually on its way through the sections. On the front the case has a door for accessing drives, the cables come out of a kind of "mouse hole" at the rear panel. A fan inside pulls an air flow through the wooden box."
I put my PC in the fridge and have extra long cables!
I'd like a quieter PC, but space is at a premium here and I don't want a PC which is 5'x5'.
...simple as that. Go get a decent Watercooling setup and a , and you've got an (almost) silent PC.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Why using foam tubing (like pipe insulation) with other pieces of foam or rubber coming through the sides to provide obstacles, pointing towards the sources of most noise (ie. processor fan, particularly noisy hard drives, PSU fan) wouldn't be fairly effective without all the hassle and annoyance of constructing a case :)
Also, I'd rather put up with a bit more noise than have my computer's temperature increase. Poor little thing has only just got over its last illness.
Did you see the picture?r otection/p icture1.htm
http://www.carsten-buschmann.de/noise-p
I have to say thats the most pimptastic computer I've ever seen.
If the original design came from 12ghosts.de, how can he patent the design? Or is he the same person that came up with the design at 12ghosts.de? Wouldn't prior art be applicable to patents?
Interesting concept, but that case looks really bulky, and I would worry about airflow. Would this idea work if we shrink it down drastically?
-B
The site claims patents pending?
The guy reinvents the baffle and patents it after sticking it in a PC case.
Sigh.
...is running Virtual PC on an iBook ;-)
Problem is that you will need bigger fans to compensate for limiting the airflow.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
It isn't a terrible idea but the first problem I see is heat. That wooden case is gonna heat up pretty fast I expect. I think one of the easiest ways to make your computer quiet is not to decprate it is shag carpet but it is to find a means to cool your computer in another way besides airflow. Liquid cooling is always an option but has anyone created an efficient means to this?
Bah. Mod your ears and get over it. Augment your body and learn to live in harsh environments. Now that I've been given the chance to live in the 3rd millennium, I insist on transcending my puny human body. /me inserts ear plugs.
I've found that this always does the trick!
I don't like the idea of putting something which gets very hot inside a well insulated wooden box.
I would like to see some case modding for this wooden box.
42 + 1 = 42
Well, I'm willing to believe that it doesn't emit much sound, but what about EM interference? A wooden case doesn't do much in terms of dampening EM fields, no matter how many twists you put in it...
Secondly, putting these twists in the air ducts is going to cause extra friction, so you are still lowering the amount of cooling your system receives. Unless ofcourse you install bigger or more fans, but then the noise level goes up again. This article is pretty useless without some temperature data to go with it.
Lourens
A fan inside pulls an air flow through the wooden box
Computer powered church organ anyone?
The problem with going after the silent PC at all cost is that the level of noise is not purely objective, and there is a strong psychological aspect to how much a sound will disturb you. A lot of people have computers that sound like F15s during take-off, but seem completely surprised when you even mention the noise to them: other people start trying to silence their computers, yet end up finding even the slightest hum annoying.
The problem here is the way our brain work in regards to sound. If a sound is percieved as a threat, then the sound amplified subcontiously, where-as ambient sounds that are percieved as mundane are muffled. It is not difficult to understand why we have evolved that way.
When you start trying to silence your computer, it is easy to start thinking of any sound you hear as a "failure" and thus a threat, which will make you focus on it. Thus you have people who get a silent power supply, only to suddenly find themselves driven up the wall by the CPU-fan, and then the harddisk.
The extreme end of all this, of course, is tinnitus. I've suffered from this condition for ten years, and it is like having a noisy a computer inside your head that nothing can turn off. But at the same time, it works just the same psychologically: if you start fearing the sound, running from it, thinking about how it will be there for the rest of ones life, the condition becomes unbarable. Whereas if you can tell yourself that it really isn't that bad, and learn to just accept it, you can live almost undisturbed. (The latter is easier said then done, even when you realize it is true - myself I tend to have good periods followed by bad.) Some people even argue that tinnitus is entirely psychosomatic in this sense (I would like to believe them).
So, just as a warning, a silent PC isn't a bad thing, but be careful about how far you take yourself down the road of fighting the noise.
And one of the first 'problem' areas I had with it was the noise gernerated by the fans. I bought a volcano 11.. sounded like a jet engine taking off and I only had the dial at 3500rpm (full speed is 5000+). My solution was to remove the metal grill which covered about 50% of the top. It was really badly designed and after getting rid of it not only was the pc quieter but it was cooler too. I know I should bought a aeroflow but that was the only one I could find in my town and I needed it in a rush.
While I'm not the kind of person that needs a silent PC, I know there are a lot of people that require a low noise polution level in their home or work environments. Several studies show that having computers perpetually running can cause people to become aggrivated often, due in part to the noise produced by loud fans or hard drives.
When I had my first computer, I remember every 2-3 minutes the fan would intermittantly become about 40db louder than it should be, warranting a swift kick (or 2,3,4,..) to the side or front panels of the case (and I'm not a violent man). So I can definitely sympathize with why some people find a quiet computing environment optimal.
Sorry, little walk through nostalgia lane. But that said, I do have a few recommendations for people that don't want to build their own wooden case just to limit noise output.
* Buy quiet fans * Buy quiet hard drives * Make sure things are mounted securely! * NEVER skimp out when buying a case
If you follow these very simple, unspecific guidelines, you will be well on your way to a quieter computer (at least one that doesn't require you to kick its ass at regular intervals)
I appologize if this didn't turn out coherent, I tried to proofread, but I'm a little out of it ~~
You're just mad because the voices in your head talk to me.
... and I sure could use it: I'm getting deaf with two computers in my right ear.
But his webpage design powers are remarkable. Congrats on a very intelligent use of html.
Now regarding that patent he's applying for "private reproduction", I'm sorry but I don't intend to do it in public.
Check this one out: http://www.overclockers.com/tips873/
I do a fair bit of recording. I just bought good fans, lined the side panels and much of the front with with rubber-base carpet, and used rubber washers and the like at various bracket connections and what not. This works very well. And I'm a guy who sleeps on a piece of foam on my floor because I think it's better to have my bed fanagled over my window(faces the street, grrr...), along with sheetrock I found on the street.
It is a good idea, that is exactly what I wanted to build for myself this upcoming holiday break. I was first :B
:
Or another solution.
Put the noisy PC in another room, and have a super quiet Mini ITX system under or on your desk.
If you primarily use
Linux - ssh, remote X or VNC into the machine. Or even use that linux program that allows you run windows remotely.
Windows - Use VNC or something.
Go to enough loud rock concerts and voila! your Ear Mod is complete, and you can't hear that fan noise (or anything below 80 dB) anymore!
Freedom: "I won't!"
1. Get the latest tunes from your faviourite record company/piracy source.
2. Turn the volume up.
3. Press play.
There is no need for you to work next to
your computer box, the cables/RF connecting your
screen keyboard and mouse to your computer
can run a great distance. I have a computer set up
in my bedroom with the box in a diffrent room.
with a Screen a keyboard a mouse and a USB CDRW
drive conviniently available.
No nutty modifications, just USB extention cords.
Me.
... that plush cover is one of the coolest (hrm, no pun intended) ways to decorate a computer I've ever seen!
Yeah, I know I'm weird, but I like it that way.
This idea has been with cars for a while now. It's got fiberglass batting for extra sound absorption and it's been called a MUFFLER. Go see Midas.
but I want cooler(really cool) computer than quite machine.
I have a home-built computer here but the cpu and power fans are so damn loud, I have to close the computer room door when I go to sleep at night. You can hear the fans all the way across the house if the doors are open. My wife's Dell Optiplex on the other hand is nearly silent.
Can someone recommend a good source for a QUIET power supply and CPU fan? (300W ought to do it, and I'm using an athlon processor)
Large airflow restriction this will cut your flow rate substantially.
And for the poster who said mufflers are glass fiber lined, they typically aren't, it's just an empty chamber.
Be careful, folks: he's patenting it. (See the bottom of the page.)
Macintosh Cube
No Fan
Softsonic Fluid Dynamic Bearing Barracuda Seagate 120 GB HDD
Silence is priceless
Clever idea. It is the same as building a speaker; the ports (passages) are tuned to only allow through the low frequencies, which the computer does not create.
I've never understood people's obsession with getting their PCs quieter. My PC has maybe 6/7 fans in it all going at the same time, and it honestly doesn't bother me. If it was silent, other noise would piss me off. For example, human voices actually piss me off a lot more. I find it very hard to concentrate in multi-user environments like libraries. And these people are saying that a small whirring is unbearable?? They need to adapt to life.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Well, actually, the secret here is that the wall behind my monitor is very thin wood paneling (3 or 4 mm) separating the main basement from the workroom, which isn't used much. Cables thus run from the desk in the basement through a 2" x 3" hole in the paneling under the desk and into the computer. By closing the door that separates the two rooms, I simply cannot hear the computer, even during hard drive activity and full fans blasting.
There is, of course, one unfortunate aspect to this: I have to take about five steps to access the CD drive; this problem could be solved by buying an external drive, but I don't use the CD drive often enough for this to be a problem. The benefits, however, are twofold: no computer sounds, as previously mentioned, and also, because of the colder air in the other room and the full-power fans, I can run a 2.4 GHz P4 overclocked to 3.0 GHz at 27 degrees Celcius idle, maxing out at 35 degrees C under full load.
Oh, yes: the hole I mentioned earlier... I named it Glory
Seriously, folks, this is the answer. A top notch desktop computer, doesn't look like it belongs in a basement, and it's really quiet. Not silent, but quiet. I can hear my PC from the other side of the room, I can hardly hear the iMac 5 feet away.
The joy, the joy... no longer do I need to play loud rock music on the stereo to hide that 'airplane taking off' noise, I can now appreciate jazz and classical music!
I just worked a bit on making my pc silent, mostly for the fun of it but it was a nice bonus if I could get less noisy PC :)
First I got the MSI FX5900 with the dual fans. Makes less noise than my GF3 TI500 and a lot less heat.(no more warm cabinet
Then I swapped the standard Intel P4 cooler with a Zalman CNPS7000A-CU.
I also installed a Thermaltake PSU that I already had, which lowered the noise compared to the noname PSU I had before.
I exchanged the Western Digital harddrive with a Seagate Barracuda which has no rotation noise, unlike the WD harddrive. I have a 5" mounting frame for the HD that suspends the HD screws in some rubber thingys that I hope will lower the head movent noise that the Seagate does have.
Finally my cabinet has room for a big fan in the front which I have installed and adjusted so it runs slowly with little noise.
So what now makes the most noise in my PC are the fans on the Thermaltake PSU. Regarding the cooler. The CPU temp went to 35c when idle(and fan runnin 200rpm) and 50c under full load with fan running at 70%(before staring to make noise). With the original cooler the idle temp was 43c and it hit 55c(full fan speed and a lot of noise) under full load where the motherboard kicked in at fired up the fan to full speed. I don't have much expirence in this and I am a bit unsure if I have applied the correct amount of thermal paste, but I have a lot left for experimentation, so I will try different configurations. I was expecting poor air flow inside the cabinet to be the cause of the high operating temperature but I tried opening the cabinet and placed an office fan above it to make sure the air in the cabinet was room temp. and the CPU temp. readings was pretty much the same. They only got 2-3c higher when the cabinet are closed.
Also if anyone has any suggestions for a silent harddrive, I would like to know. Of course I would like it to be fast but noise levels are the top priority.
It has been fun playing with this, tryng to make the optimal air flow and getting the most out of as little cooling as possible. And it is now clear to me that noise reduction and a silent PC is often one of the things you don't get in a DIY PC unless you put some effort into it.
I received a pair of these the other day. They are incredibly effective at blocking computer noise and also provide an effective method of silencing your boss/wife/gf without encasing them in a wooden box.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
You could just replace the existing fans with Panaflo L1As (probably the best "quiet fans" in existence), put vibration dampeners on any fan mounts that need it, and get a quiet power supply such as an Antec TruePower. Provided that you spend an estimated ten U.S. dollars on getting a decent CPU heatsink, you should never have any heat problems even given the low output of these fans.
Of course, if this approach is too radical, you could build an exterior case for your computer the size of a car.
Have you seen the Apple G5 case? A terrific setup with a enclosed area and special fan just for the CPU. When the case is closed, the fan moves at a slow speed, drawing air front to back. When opened ('cause everyone has to look inside to admire its layout) the air channel is no longer as efficient and the fan picks up speed. Why can't my Dell be made that way?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I'm having the same problem. My athlon fan is constantly changing its volume and it's driving me nuts, especially during those all nighter Comp Sci assignments.
I was about to buy some fans from www.quietpc.com when this thread came up.
Has anyone had any experience with the products on this site? Their prices seem to be much better than thinkgeek's.
SCO Sucks T-shirt. Shirts donate to the Open Source Now Fund.
um... guys? Air doesn't like this. It doesn't like to flow around corners and tight 180 degree bends. Air is compressible you know. If you treat it badly, it just increases or decreases pressure to compensate. That's why the small print on your fans say that they deliver rated airflow if exhausted into a plenum. Think about it. It's not as easy as you think.
If you aren't checking airflow at the CPU where it's needed, your wacky design is likely to result in silicon soup.
Anyone ever converted one of those 12v Igloo or Coleman Thermoelectric/Peltier cooler to cool a case or CPU? You can get one those for uner $100 and they work pretty good and most come with an AC adapter. I've seen a lot of do it your self peltiers but why bother when they are mass produced?
I've been looking for a way to silence my HTPC and also shut out the annoying Dolby Digital Soundtrack inherently accompanies most of my DVD movies.
Tweaker
It works very well, and keeps my AOpen hx-08 silent.)
It does, however, increase heat drastically... a link to the worklog is here
(I'm referring to the design mentioned in the text, from http://www.carsten-buschmann.de/noise-protection/
Move sig!
I've only ever had a limited amount of success with this little trick - it definitely does something, but it's never really made things much quieter. Anyone gotten a better result with this?
- Stormcaller
http://www.stormcaller.net
Offtopic, but there are some really stupid patents out there. Comparatively, the "Computer Noise Insulation Case" is a masterpiece of ingenuity. For example:
US5,443,036 - Method of exercising a cat
"A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of
invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor
or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then
moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in
an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a
chase instinct."
The rest of this is funnier, or more depressing, depending on your outlook.
I met some one once (who did a fair bit of sound composing), who solved his noise problem by keeping his computer in a sealed refrigerated box. Disk drive and anything else he needed were external and came through a rubber seal into a sepperate box and then out that box onto the desk.
Don't know if he ever bothered with any performance enhancements, but I bet the computer would have run cool enough to overclock it quite a bit.
If you want a silent PC (as I do), build it silent from the start...
There are good web sites devoted to doing this.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
http://www.silent.se/
My Dell has one fan (aside from the PS). It's right behind the CPU mounted to the back of the case. It has a little plastic duct that slips over the top of the CPU, so all of the air moving through the case goes past the CPU on the way out.
;)
The thing is frikin quiet unless I'm in a CPU intensive program (game or DC or something) and then the fan spins up.
The PS fan is REALLY quiet.
Dude! You're getting a Dell!
Yes, that's right kids! You, too, can spend an evening of fun with your dad (picture 50's father figure in sweater smoking pipe) in the family room burning side panels of your brand new Pentium Woodburning Kit!
Simply affix the panels you wish to scorch, burn or set fire to on the sides of the box. Plug in the power cord and turn on the power. Play a few rounds of GTA III or leave SETI@Home running. When you start to smell smoke, you're almost done!
As an added bonus, mom won't know what's going wrong: the cordless phone may start acting funny and, boy, do the upstairs neighbors love having their tv reception screwed up. RFI can be fun!
This is a old idea that was in use for years at recording studios and was used for line printers back in the 80's.
and he has a "patent pending" on it, making him a jerk.
Many equipment enclosures for recording studios have labrynth vents, the more effective units have labrynth vents that have no parallel surfaces to eliminate resonance, while having a magnetic seal door on the front with dual pane plexiglass also that are not parallel to eliminate noise emissions out the front but allowing viewing of the equipment, like ADAT recorders and others.
In fact a simple labrynth is usually found on the backs of the old line printer cabinets, although some simply used sound deadening material that would allow air flow.
nothing innovative or new here. Just someone that had an idea from looking at someone else's idea and did not research it enough.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In my house we keep the fan (only the fan) running on the hvac unit 24/7/365. It does three things for us:
1) Evens out temperatures so the hot and cold spots in the house are less pronounced.
2) Filters out some of the ambient cat hair and dust (yes I change my filters often) and
3) Provides white noise to cover the otherwise distracting sounds of being married to someone who keeps a differant schedule than you do.
And let me tell you, it was CRUCIAL when we still lived in apartments to block the noise though our neighboirs walls. Do I really want to block all the noise of my computer to improve my perception of (a few years ago) my neighbour listening to "Who let the dogs out?" On repeat? There are worse things in the world than white noise.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
Get some Bose noise cancelling headphones.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Sound enclosures have been around a while, but usually for noisier things. A company I worked for purchased a sound deadening box like this for a client's noisy dot-matrix printer in the early 90's.
Here's someone making sound deadening boxes for G4's (a favorite of AV types, I guess).
As an ameture speaker designer I'd be worried about the folded ports forming resonances that my not even be audible due to extreme low frequency, but which are still subconciously iritating. Granted there is usualy no coherent audio souce in a computer, and the ports are small buy audio standards but resistive coupling can produce some odd results just when you don't what it. I agree with others who have said "build silent to start". The Apple G5 design IS pretty damn nifty, but not perfect. As someone who has owned an Apple Beige G3 tower with five auxiliary fans and four 10,000 RPM Seagate drives in the case I KNOW what a bitch a REALLY REALLY loud computer can be. I aplaud all efforts to make computers quieter.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
How's the Cube for being quiet? Or the new G5? Hell-looooo!
-m
http://www.invisik.com
A nice trick is to swap out the PSU fan with a quieter one if you don't want to spring the $60 for a new PSU.
Panaflo makes some of the quietest fans out there
..........FULL STOP.
I just unplugged the fans on my P4 / GeForce. The temp goes up but it is still within specs. Been running with no crashes for over a year.
just turn it of if it's bothering you :)
I found this one out just yesterday Step 1: Press the "Off" button until the screen goes blank.
In Soviet Russia, beowulf clusters imagine YOU!
I've thought about approaches like this. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the engineering involved.
It seemed to me that any approach that produces more reflection (running things through a series of turns) also reduces airflow, requiring a louder fan to produce the required airflow. I'm curious as to what the best approach to reducing sound relative to airflow is.
May we never see th
you can get a mac
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
The G5 is a derivative of an IBM Power chipset. The G5 case also owes a lot to IBM. Take a look at an RS/6000 520 or 540 from about 1990. They had a similar "air tunnel" cooling system.
I can't imagine Apple owns any patents on this other than perhaps some BS on controlling fan speeds based upon temperature.
The ATX standard is designed with an entirely different (and cheaper) system of cooling. It would take a new motherboard, power supply and case standard to bring a system like this to the PC. I for one would welcome it and with Intel talking of quieter PCs now perhaps we'll see it.
I've seen somewhere on the web a nifty little hdd enclosure that suspended the hard drive in an elastic web. Think of it as a hard drive being suspended with rubber bands on all sides - from what I can recall about it the enclosure almost eliminated all the noise, as the hard drive was acoustically isolated from the chassis by the rubber bands. That's the big reason you hear the noise, it's being amplified by the case itself.
But if it helps at all, try Samsung drives - I have a Spinpoint 80Gb drive in this PC and it's absolutely silent. I can't hear it at all - even though it's directly connected to the case. It also happens to run quite cool to, especially for a 7200RPM drive. Running a S.M.A.R.T. monitor the highest I've seen the drive temp has been about 17C.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
From the book of truly desperate measures to "silence" a PC (without killing it), take a look at this interesting episode (only some images archived - anyone got a mirror?): An entire mainboard was submerged into pure mineral oil, to work silently below the surface of this unconventional computer coolant - which it actually did, and survived...
Then only contribute more heat to your thermal problem (as do excessive fans).
:-)
Think about it like this: peltier coolers only serve to create a temperature gradient, but you can't transfer heat out of your CPU faster than the "slowest" part of your thermal solution. This slowest part is almost always the heatsink/air interface.
The chip/heatsink interface is usually good enough, especially if you don't overdo it with thermal grease, and the chips are designed to work with a heatsink anyway. They don't need assistance getting the heat off the chip. The interface between a peltier cooling plate/chip will not be better than a properly machined copper heatsink/chip interface; if it was, the heatsink manufacturer would just copy the peltier cooler manufacturer.
Again, all the peltier does is create a temperature gradient. It's designed to cool things that have trouble getting rid of the heat by surface transfer (which is not characteristic of even overclocked CPUs). If the heatsink can't remove the heat properly, the peltier will just make it hotter; the chip and peltier "cool" side will enter into equilbrium, forcing the "hot" side to get REALLY hot.
If you were to leave the peltier out of it (but keep the packaged heatsink), then you would just be interfacing the chip directly, and not have to deal with the additional heat generated by the peltier's inefficency. If attaching a peltier makes your CPU temp. cooler, that just means the heatsink you were using before sucked.
So do yourself a favor, and spend the money on a big heatsink with lots of surface area, and don't apply too much thermal grease. Get a big, slow turning fan, and place it nearby. You'll get maximum cooling without the noise.
Or you could spend some money getting a case where thermal currents carry heat away efficiently without fans (or with just one or two). It's not easy, but it's possible. Your ears will thank you.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
this is pointless. do like me, just buy 10 meters extensions for vga, ps2 (*2 for mouse and keyb) and stereo, put your case in the next room and your station in whatever rooom you work in. no need to cage in your pc.
see subject/B.
Did you see the picture of that thing??!!! It looks like Elmo's long lost cousin!!!
I'm sorry but I wouldn't want it in my office.
I planned on inserting something witty here but never got around to it.
The shafts are very narrow and lined with foam. No effective way to clean out the dust that is sure to accumulate. No filters. Will clog and die inside of a month. :(
Mine is in a closet right next to me, with the UPS and an A/C unit. It is very quite, but that is not why I did it. I wanted all componets cooled, but not me... LOL
Daniel Connor
Anyone sell an active noise cancelling solution that would work off a PSU power supply?
/dev/entropy into a pink/white filter to the sound device?
You'd think with all that power my AMD has, 1% could be used to track and cancel by white noise the offending sounds?
I figure there is more to this than there seems?
Like disturbing my brain with whitenoise.
Has someone figured out how to dump
aka almost like here
CONGRATULATION! YOU GET THE VICTOLY!!!!!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Corrent amount of paste is as thing as you can get. Remember the paste is only to help the low spots in the CPU make contact with the bottom of the hopefully smooth heatsink. A good guide, use a business card to scrape off nearly everything but a very thin layer. The reason? Thermal paste is not as efficient at transfering heat as the metal. The more you put in (past a certain small amount) the LESS heat transfer you get. And if you overflow the actual CPU squre itself you can get problems since the paste is usually conductive and there are little wire things on the surface of AMD cpus that (not sure about intel) that determine voltage and clock speed.
with ventilation shafts which follow a number of 180-degree turns, and
180 degrees isn't a turn...it's a line...
that that ringing in my ears should stop if i turn off the computer? ill have to try this technique you speak of
The best solution I've found is to have 15 metre mouse, keyboard and monitor cables.
You then simply put your computer into another room, such as the kitchen or even your garage.
Viola ! - no noise !
It also has the added benefit of making you get out of your chair every once in a while to put in a CD which is definately good for a geeks health !
Yes - I'm really not serious...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Didn't the original Apple that Woz made have a wooden case?
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
Two points:
1. Elastic HDD suspensions may lead to a significant performance inpact with current hard drive models because they decrease the accuracy of the head positioning mechanism. The tracks are positioned extremely close to each other nowadays (the drive electronics even have to figure out which track's data they're reading based on probability calculations - google for "PRML") and the head actuator moving the head assembly exerts force on the suspension, causing the drive to move ever so slightly and the heads missing the track.
2. Is the 17C HDD Temperature you're quoting a typo? The best you can do without active cooling is having the drive down to case air temperature, and that is illusory given the energy consumption of the HDD itself, especially for a 7200 RPM HDD. I never trust the readings from the internal HDD sensors and use one-time temperature strips when it comes to judging if a HDD runs too hot - you don't get the internal temperature, but the comparison of the same drive in a well-ventilated case and in the tested case yields a good indication if the drive needs additional cooling.
I worked at an OEM muffler plant.
None of Honda Odessy, Honda Civic (as of around 1999/2000) or GM Pickups had glass lined mufflers.
Some have a fiber mat outside the muffler, but not on the inside with the air.
Perhaps you need to go look into this further before you claim I'm uninformed.
Put the sides back on...
Brought to you via Pidgeon TCP
Your long cords gave me an idea, I happened to have a stair well behind the wall where my HTPC (Home Theater PC) lives. After a recent upgrade to an athlon 2600+ the CPU fan was too loud.
Thanks to your post I realized I could put my HTPC under the stairs in the closet and simply run the cords through the wall!
Yesterday I bought a set of 6' cords and a couple of "old work" electrical boxes to make a nice tunnel through the wall to run the cords. I used my table saw to cut the backs off the boxes and then placed them in the wall back to back.
After running all the cords through to the PC and the USB cords back out I have full functionality and NO Fan Noise. I did have to seal the door with weather stripping to make the sound completely dissappear.
Fortunately the closet is large enough and doesn't get too warm.
If anyone is interested I took many pictures but haven't compiled them into a web page yet. Let me know if you are interested and I'll post them somewhere.
Thanks for the idea!!
*This message was sent using 100% recycled electrons*
The Tweaker
Maybe it's just me. I dig the bigger, better, faster, quieter debate, but what are you trying to sneak up on with your PC that you have to completely silence it? Taladan
I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary.
1. Thanks for the info - I didn't really stop to think about those implications.
2. It's not a typo, it's the internal sensor reading though. The drive is all by it's lonesome in a well ventilated case away from all other heat generating hear, so that probably has a big deal to do with it.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!