How To Get Your Gaming PC Running Quietly?

Thanks to Penny Arcade for its 'Hook Up' column discussing ways to build your gaming PC to run as quietly as possible. The author indicates: "I was able to reduce my Tiny God's noise level by over 30dB (!) measured with my RadioShack SPL meter", and goes on to list ways to silence components such as power supplies ("...the power hungry components that an elite gamer uses... can be extremely noisy") and fans of various kinds ("it's often a toss-up between your CPU fan and your PSU cooler in regards to which one is the loudest"), before pointing out: "You might have 1,000 watts of power driving your speakers, but sometimes nothing beats the sound of silence."

Comments

The Hook Up

[yupchagi]

Good article. He points out that Dynamat isn't very good for sound absorbtion since it isn't designed for higher frequencies (white noise from fans). It also insulates heat too well, and would make your PC case dangerously hot. It's interesting that Dynamat has repackaged their product to make a "Computer Dynamat Pack" or whatever. What a bunch of corporate whores. His previous column on iPods was intriguing as well. Anyone read that?

But I LIKE the noise!

[FeetOfStinky]

My home office is my sanctuary, in no small part due to the white noise generated by my computer. It's where I go to escape barking dogs, revving engines, and dumbasses who think I want to hear the bass from their car inside my house.

If anything, I should probably install more fans in my CPU case, and not because it needs the extra cooling.

My solution

[fluor2]

You need
1 x USB extension coord
1 x VGA-cable extension coord
1 x sound extension coord
1 x PS/2 keyboard extension coord
1 x nearby room with a door

Basically, I just moved the PC in behind a nearby door. Making the PC make it's noise in another room. You can of course also use a closet or similar.

PRO
This makes the PC go almost 100% quiet, and you do not have to invest into an expensive fan or similar stuff.

CON
I seem not to use the cd-rom any more, but some of you that DO use cd-rom (or other hardware devices) may be prepared to walk some steps each time one has to change the cd or similar (i use nocd-cracks or daemon tools anyways).

Mini HOW-TO

[ll1234]

Swapping out HDs makes a big difference and is one of the less invasive upgrades towards a quieter PC. I replaced a Western Digital 60 GB drive with a Samsung (who knew they made HDs?) and the noise/whine difference is substantial. I could hear the WD spin up at startup from the next room (wwwwwwhhhhhhhEEEEEEEEE!) and it continually produced a high-pitch whine while idle. The Samsung produces imperceptible levels of noise at startup or idle and its seek chatter is very low.

Thermalright makes heatsinks. Or more accurately, "massive machined chunks of copper". There's a reason many of their models require bolts to install, they'd pull the socket right out of the motherboard without the additional support. The heatsinks are great besides the heft because they don't include an integrated fan, you can buy a quiet 92mm Panaflo or Pabst fan and quietly cool even top-end CPUs.

Installing a fan controller helps squeeze the last few decibels out of the case, but you might run into the problem of the controller producing a rapid clicking noise at low voltages (the Vantec NXP-201 suffers from this problem, but is dirt cheap). SpeedFan is a software fan controller, but I've never quite figured out its usage.

A PC with a low noise floor makes listening to music more enjoyable as the dynamic range comes through without having to crank of the volume to drown out the fans.

To hangout with the hardcore "suspending harddrives with elastic / undervolting motherboards / 0 db computer" crowd visit Silent PC Review.

Best site around

[evil-osm]

These guys here have great products and ship all over.