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."

Comments

I don't see..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Hmm whats that I smell burning?

[bacon-kidney-pie]

I don't like the idea of putting something which gets very hot inside a well insulated wooden box.

The risk of chasing the silent PC

[hanssprudel]

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.

Moderate Tweaks

[malverian]

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 ~~

Apple did it right

[JThaddeus]

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?