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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."
The author indicates that one of his problems is the noise from hard drives, even after decoupling them from the case using rubber mounts. Water cooling isn't going to fix that. He was trying for a solution that addresses all sources of sound, and isn't affected by upgrading or replacing the computer.
...is running Virtual PC on an iBook ;-)
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.
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.
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
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.
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')
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