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A Silent PC Solution?

Posted by michael on from the earplugs-much-cheaper dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Fed up with the monotonous whirring emanating from your PC? Well for once, someone with an actual knowledge of acoustics demonstrates what can be done AND backs it up with measurements!"

485 comments

  1. Oh just shut up you whiner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Real nerd use fans to repel others:-)

    1. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by ScottGant · · Score: 1

      really...

      I've often marveled at the continued pursuit of a noiseless computer. Is this that big of a deal? I often have music or the TV or something else going on in the house where I never ever even hear the fan on my computer.

      Are we talking about ultra-sensitive people out there that can't stand any noise at all?

      --

      "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
    2. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by b-baggins · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I guess you just have to sit at one to appreciate it.

      I fell in love with quiet computing when I got my Grape iMac. I was in a quiet room and turned the computer on....and...absolute silence. I'm still impressed by the genius of having that entire machine convection-cooled.

      --
      You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
    3. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by marmoset · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a week-old G5 dualie, which replaced a convection cooled Sage iMac (around the same general era as your Grape, maybe slightly later.) What blows my mind is that the G5 is quieter than the iMac. The G5 has a much quieter hard disk, and the low-speed fans are really, really quiet.



      Brilliant engineering.

    4. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by Yewbert · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Is this that big of a deal?

      I'm seeing the value in a very-very-quiet-if-not-silent computer more all the time. I spend a lot of time doing production on live recordings, and just lately, the noise has been getting to me more than usual, making it hard to determine what's background noise on the recording, and what's fan noise from the (ill-placed) CPU reflecting back at me from the corner behind the desk. I could definitely improved things by shuffling the setup around, but it wouldn't really be workable to put the CPU under the table with all the wire-swapping and disc-exchanging I do (not to mention the local cat population milling around amongst the wires).

      All of which is to say, 'depends on your application.'

    5. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by kin_korn_karn · · Score: 1

      Yes, and we're talking about music studio engineers that use PCs for recording and editing. I remember articles in the early 90s about guys that were still using some Mac II because it was the last Mac to be made without a fan (until the iMac)

    6. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by ScottGant · · Score: 1

      Yes, I can see if you're recording something this could hinder you.

      But for day to day, I'd go crazy if it was so quiet in here that I could actually hear the fan in my computer...then if I couldn't even hear that and the room was REALLY quiet...

      I would, in short, go quite insane...

      --

      "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
    7. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by plumby · · Score: 1

      I have to shut the computer room door at night, as the noise from the various bits of kit keeps me awake (or more usually, the wife complaining about the noise keeps me awake). Ok, I could shut the computers off, but they're usually doing something (downloading/backing up/running virus check etc).

    8. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by condensate · · Score: 5, Funny

      I always place a mike in front of the fan and plug it into the amp of my stereo so everybody coming into my room thinks I am running a Beowulf...

      --
      Black holes were created when god tried to divide by zero
    9. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by AmericanInKiev · · Score: 4, Funny

      This Site has a way to make a computer quiet and it is immediately slashdotted - you think there isn't any valid interest in a quiet computer?

      AIK

    10. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by ScottGant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I run a fan in our room at night as it is. I started doing this in college because if I didn't, I'd never get any sleep. The fan would drown out all the noise from people coming and going in the dorm.

      I just continued this on. Of course now, I suppose if someone were to break into my house I'd never hear it...but that's why I have my dog...vicious little blighter that he is.

      --

      "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
    11. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by z_gringo · · Score: 4, Funny

      I office in a big room with 30 or so Servers, and a lot more routers. The whole room resonates with this nice soothing hum.

      People are always asking me "How can you work in here? Doesn't that noise drive you Nuts?" I tell them: If the noise stops is when I'd go nuts!

      That said, I'm obviously not working in a recording studio.

      --
      -- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
    12. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by duckle · · Score: 1

      very true :P i have become used to the fans from the computers in my room. no one else can stand my room for too long and i feel...odd without the humming.

    13. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One caveman to his intellectual superior:
      "Og's abacus county-thingy is too loud!"

    14. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      actually one of the first things you notice after working a week in a really quiet environment is how damn noisy the rest fo the world is. I spent 2 weeks in a remote rural location helping a guy build his recording studio in his vacation home. insane amounts of sound insolation and sound isolation on the studio walls, celing and floor for a studio that is located in a spot where the most noise is at most a few geese flying overhead. it's a place where I have been woke up at night because the STARS were too bright shining through the bedroom window.... and by the time I left could finally make out the bark of the dog at the nearest neighbors 5 miles away in the early morning that he mentioned to me on day one.

      returning to the city, I could not sleep for weeks, and I was highly irritated by the drastic difference in background noise levels. There it was almost zero DB at 10pm outside... the kind of silence you feel and that makes you notice that you can hear the amount of noise your head makes.

      now, mentioning that, I am in a server room with 4 machines right now, 6 72" tall server racks sitting there full of blade severs with a couple of the newer big servers sounding like vaccuum cleaners running. I also have 4 TV's on right now with the sound on to different levels.

      but, when you get used to quiet, you crave it and curse the noise of civilization.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    15. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by nih · · Score: 1

      Damn, imagine a beowulf cluster of those!

      --
      I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life :(
    16. Re:Oh just shut up you whiner by Woody77 · · Score: 1

      The desert is amazingly quiet. I go camping out there, and once I adjust to that level of sound (or absence of it), and come back, everythings loud.

      3 years ago I moved from Silicone Valley into the hills above it, deep into the hills. At night, it's VERY quiet.

      The result is now that I can hear TVs. Annoying high-pitched whine that they all make. I'm hearing a LOT more background noise than before, and as I continually make things quieter, I hear more, and have to make things quieter.

      I figure that the 0dB threshold of hearing has probably been moved up to at least 20dB or so for most people, due to background noise (this is not a scientific number, of course). And as we work to make things quieter again, we'll need to make things quieter until they get back down to the 20dB and then nearer to 0dB.

  2. Headphones are an even better solution.... by Yoda2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is cool, but headphones provide the added benefit of canceling out the buzz & whirring of co-workers.

    1. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by wookyhoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Agreed, headphones are excellent, but not always the best solution. For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?

      My machine is nearly as loud as an airplane, and I can hear it from the other end of my house. Personally I find it comforting, but headhones wouldn't solve the problem if I did want it to be a little quieter in here.

      Now for those working in an office, how many of you really have loud computers that would need this sort of silent PC solution? Headphones would solve the co-worker problem, but the problem of the loud PC is (reasonably) irrelevant in this situation.

    2. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by tuffy · · Score: 5, Insightful
      For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?

      Turn it off?

      I've gone to great lengths to build a quiet PC, but the hum of it is loud enough that I sleep better with it off.

      --

      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

    3. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by wookyhoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Turn it off?

      Granted, that's another good solution :>

      Of course... no good for those running servers on their machines... or those who care more about their uptime than anything else.

    4. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by DikSeaCup · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Mine are always turned off at night. I consider it a security move. ;)

      Also, I don't mind having *some* kind of noise giving me a sign that the thing is actually powered on. Sometimes on really old machines, particularly rebuilds, not all of the LED's work or are hooked up! Besides, sometimes it's nice to know something without actually having to look at something.

      --
      I talk about stuff.
    5. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by jsebrech · · Score: 2, Informative

      My machine is nearly as loud as an airplane, and I can hear it from the other end of my house. Personally I find it comforting, but headhones wouldn't solve the problem if I did want it to be a little quieter in here.

      Yes, they would, if you bought the right ones.

    6. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 2, Interesting
      For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?

      Turn it off?

      I'm sure my family and friends who have email addresses at my domain would really like not being able to send or receive mail for 8 hours each night.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    7. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by acd294 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Turn it off? TURN IT OFF? TURN IT OFF?

      I have got almost 30 days uptime with my crappy winxp box. You want me to ruin that just for my sleeping enjoyment?

      Hell just today something called lsass.exe decided to crash and my computer had the nerve to tell me that it was going to shut down. I nipped that one right in the bud (shutdown /a to the rescue). It still works perfectly fine (okay so i cant watch movies with WMP anymore). And you want me to shutdown my gentoo box in the middle of a kernel compile? Someone has a messed up view of their computers.

      Shut it down? *shakes head*

      --
      main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
    8. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?

      REM Add masturbation joke subroutine here

    9. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1
      In other words, you put a server next to your bed, and now you're complaining. How about putting it under your bed? You'd have to use a desktop case (or lay a tower on its side) and you'd definitely want to install a filter on the intake (turning the fan(s) around if necessary) but then you will only get reflected sound, as the bed will muffle any direct noise.

      It's either that or get one of those old printer enclosures, put a quieter fan in it, and put your PC inside of it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Ratbert42 · · Score: 4, Funny
      ...the hum of it is loud enough that I sleep better with it off.

      Have kids. Then there is no way is any PC noise going to keep you awake.

    11. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by strictnein · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Your SUV may get 15mpg but how many MPI* does it get? * MPI: Miles Per Iraqi

      Well, are you talking about pre-Gulf War II or post Gulf War II?

      Pre-Gulf War 2 the MPI would be much lower as many more Iraqi's were killed on a monthly basis (on average). It did fluctuate of course. For instance, Saddam was still busy killing and torturing his fellow countrymen when the UN turn on their extremely corrupt "oil for food" program, but the MPI did go up at that point as more oil left the country.

      Post-Gulf War 2 the MPI would be highest it has been it quite some time, most likely the highest it has been since shortly after the pleasant Saddam took power in 1979 (although, in reality, he was running the country for awhile before that).

      --
      Casual Games/Downloads
    12. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I agree. I know my relatives would hate not being able to send email for 13 hours out of the night.

    13. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by soulsteal · · Score: 1

      Is a good night's sleep worth paying the extra cash to host your domain somewhere else?

      For me, it is.

    14. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 1
      In other words, you put a server next to your bed, and now you're complaining.

      Nah, I'm not complaining. I picked up one o' them silly little Qube2 MIPS servers a few months ago. Pull the one nasty little fan it comes with and put a quiet PCI slot blower in and the only sound you hear is the hard drive. I was just pointing out that "shut 'er down" isn't always the solution.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    15. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Mignon · · Score: 1
      For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?

      Turn it off?

      I compromised between shutting it off and bearing with the noise by spinning down the drives.

      I wanted to use apm to suspend the machine, but it's a dual proc, and that doesn't work, apparently. (I'd love to hear otherwise!)

      I know that spinning down the drive isn't the best thing for its longevity, but I was willing to make that tradeoff.

    16. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by bitrot42 · · Score: 1
      I've gone to great lengths to build a quiet PC, but the hum of it is loud enough that I sleep better with it off.
      Ay, there's the rub... When you make one part quieter, you can still hear something else. As it gets quieter and quieter, you become aware of, and annoyed by, progressively fainter sounds. You still have to 'tune it out', though it does sometimes make it easier to do so.

      I banished my PC to the basement ages ago, and ran power, usb and video to my office through a conduit between floors. (I take a small hit on image quality due to a 6' extension, but I could build a custom cable to improve things.) This way, the machine is in the always-cool cellar, and can have any sort of fans/drives/etc.

      I thought I'd be set, but not *quite*. Turns out my monitor makes a previously unnoticable buzzing sound, even when it's in sleep mode! I haven't figured out what to do about this yet. I'd love it if this were a good excuse to spring for a spiffy new LCD panel, but the inverter that drives the backlight would probably make an irritating whine, or something...

      It's *very* difficult these days to create a completely noise-free environment. I've found that even when if you do manage it, you are treated to a constant ringing in your ears from all the sounds you've been bombarded by up to that point. *Sigh*.

      The *good* news, though, is that music at any volume will completely mask what's left. Very useful for audio restoration work....

      Regards,

      bitrot.

      --
      FIXME: Add a sig here
    17. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by kyhwana · · Score: 1

      Err, I bet you havn't patched lately right?
      There are bots/scanning tools out, and probably a worm soon that exploits a bunch of vunerabilities that MS releasedpatches do two weeks ago. One of them is in lsass.exe, and i've seen several (unpatched) people having the some problems, and then finding out they were rooted....
      If I were you, (I would've patched already) I'd take that xp box offline asap and go through and do a full scan/system audit/etc..

      --
      My email addy? should be easy enough.
    18. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by JKDguy82 · · Score: 1

      Odd. I've had computers in my room for so long, I actually sleep better with the slight hum. Maybe it's learned habit, as my parents can't sleep with out a floor fan running in the room.

    19. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's that important, don't host it at home. Take what it costs for electicity and host it elsewhere.

      Or, move it out of your room.

    20. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you make the assumption that most slashdotter can find someone willing to have kids with them.

    21. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Headphones are nice, but they don't provide quite as much noise reduction as rupturing your own eardrums with an X-acto knife.

    22. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by TheBoostedBrain · · Score: 1

      "For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do?" I live in a data-center, you insensitive clod....

      --
      -- When did Ignorance Become a Point of View?
    23. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by mrjackson2000 · · Score: 1

      For example, what does the person who has a PC in his room, next to his bed do? i can't sleep if theres no fans running, i sleep great at lan parties when i actualy try to sleep also i'm putting a ibm server next to my bed for a stand probly this weekend, who needs silence :)

    24. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      come on, this is slashdot, there's not much chance of that happening.

    25. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 1
      Is a good night's sleep worth paying the extra cash to host your domain somewhere else?

      What? You mean put my nice hardware where someone else can....can.... LOOK AT IT ? That's CRAZY talk!

      I actually have a quiet, fanless MIPS based Qube2 now, so noise is no longer an issue.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    26. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have kids. Then there is no way is any PC noise going to keep you awake

      I can imagine a beowulf cluster of them - yup, I've got 20 month-old twins!

    27. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure we were all thinkin "That's it! We they should ALL shut them down! That's always the solution!

      To everything!

    28. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by farzadb82 · · Score: 1
      20 month-old twins

      Hehehehe... At first glance I thought you said you had 40 kids!

    29. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 1
      I'm sure we were all thinkin "That's it! We they should ALL shut them down! That's always the solution! To everything!

      Of course y'all weren't. I was trying to gently suggest that "turn it off" is a stupid thing to say because in those situtions where it's a solution it has likely already been implemented.

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    30. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by zedmelon · · Score: 1
      A server next to your bed? Are you crazy?

      I'd never be able to sleep with the noise of clients hitting the server all night. And it would be even worse if it was a chat server!

      --
      Mom says my .sig can beat up your .sig.
    31. Re:Headphones are an even better solution.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >...those who care more about their uptime than anything else.

      Hmmm.....Couldn't they just fake the logs?

  3. A real silent PC solution? by 1337+$14X0r · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just unplug it.

    --

    --- Sigs are dumb.

    1. Re:A real silent PC solution? by Nuclear+Elephant · · Score: 3, Funny

      That would appear to be what he did, either that or it's been slashdotted in the first 10 messages. I bet it's running really cool though.

    2. Re:A real silent PC solution? by Nuclear+Elephant · · Score: 1, Funny

      Silent...dammit I meant silent. Please don't mod me. :(

  4. SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Mr+Smidge · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recently thought I'd give it a shot at trying to silence my desktop PC.

    I have a Zalman flower on the processor, replaced my northbridge fan with a passively cooled heatsink, fitted two 'silent' YS-Tech fans for intake and outtake (with plastic vibration-reducing rings!), and each one is connected with a 12V->10V converter to reduce the speed a bit.

    Heh, well I still can't sleep next to the thing when it's on. There must actually be some phantom device in there making noise.

    What *affordable* things have you /.ers done about graphics card cooling, or noisy hard drives?

    1. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by chullymonster · · Score: 5, Informative

      have you checked the PSU? it will have a fan or two in there to cool it down, that could be the "phantom noise". i'd imagine it's possible to get hold of a quiet/silent one from somewhere or other.

    2. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Mr+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not trying to sounds like a know it all myself, but my understand is 10V for a "silent" fan is still considered ungodly by the purists. Consider Zalman's FANMATE-1 that adjusts down to less than 5V with 11V as a MAX.

      Have you browsed, for example, a Some of the websites dedicated to silent PC's?
      The one I linked has a recommended page where they give noise to performance. For hard drives, the far and ahead winner is the Seagate Barracuda IV which is apparently discontinued. Your PSU is also generally one of the largest sources of noise on your whole machine, what do you use?

      --
      Never confuse volume with power.
    3. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by ikeleib · · Score: 4, Informative

      Glue carpet padding all over the inside the case. It costs about $1. It makes a big difference. It won't make your case really hot; your computer is cooled by forcing air through it, not radiation.

    4. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by xenoweeno · · Score: 2, Informative
      Seagate Barracuda IV which is apparently discontinued

      Not true--in fact, there is now a 200gb version.

      ST3200822A Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 200 GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM 8.5 ms avg DPC
      ST3200822AS Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 200 GB Serial ATA 7200 RPM 8.5 ms avg DPC
    5. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by glueball · · Score: 1

      I work at home. I silenced my systems by putting them* down in the basement except for my dual G5 Mac. I either shell in the Solaris and Linux boxes or VNC into the Windows box.

      Works great, very quiet, and the systems don't heat up my office and the basement is naturally cool. I can now have a Feng Shui uncluttered workspace.

      * 1 9 slot 6U VME Solaris Box
      * 1 Dual Xeon
      * 1 PIII Linux server
      * 1 2 TB Fibre channel disk
      * 1 AMD Noisemaker

    6. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Barracuda IV is discontinued. The Barracuda 7200.7 is its replacement.

    7. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by chegosaurus · · Score: 2, Informative

      I just got one of the new Barracudas (VII I think?) and it's super quiet. I have a feeling the db rating is lower than the IV. I also got a Sonata case, which is nice too - big, slow case fan, very quiet PSU, and it looks pretty good too.

      My graphics card is sufficiently old that it doesn't have a fan, and I've found the Sonata's case fan can cool the CPUs (2xPIIIs) sufficiently now I've put some bloody gigantic heatsinks on them. I'd probably underclock them if I knew how - the computer's more than fast enough for what I use it for.

      You can hear it if you concentrate, but to all intents and purposes it's silent.

    8. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by mnemotronic · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Glue carpet padding all ...over
      The drawback with this solution is that you've traded noise for noxious outgassing fumes from the glue & carpet.
      --
      The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
    9. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congrats -- you've /.'d SilentPCReview via comment.

      Went to surf there as part of my morning scan, then checked this story to see who linked to it.

      Excellent site though.

      For hard drives, the far and ahead winner is the Seagate Barracuda IV which is apparently discontinued.

      IIRC, the newer Seagate and Samsung drives aren't all that bad. And there are notebook drives that are considerably quiter (albeit slower and more expensive).

      Just built a new system myself and one of the fans is emitting a godawful hum. Going to track it down and kill it this weekend.

    10. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      Heh, well I still can't sleep next to the thing when it's on.

      It helps to sleep in a bed, or at least leave the PC under your desk rather than take it to bed with you!

      Seriously, others have made some good solutions. While I wouldn't glue carpet inside a computer, I have used car headliner foam / fabric on as many flat resonating and reflecting surfaces as I could.

      The PSU really is a possible culprit, they usually have an 8cm fan that whirs constantly. The power supply could be replaced with an Enermax Quiet PSU or some other one that uses variable speed fans and / or a 12cm fan like my Compaq workstations do. (SP700 and W8000). They move air, but they do it pretty quietly.

      I like the Seagate Barracuda IV drives.

      I really haven't done much to silence my PC, I just set it on the floor, which has an accoustical wall behind it, and it is on carpet.

    11. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Mr+Smidge · · Score: 1

      Here are the specs for my machine, noise-making components included:

      * Abit AT7-MAX mobo, northbridge fan replaced with heatsink.
      * AMD AthlonXP 2400+.
      * Zalman flower and 92mm fan in "silent" mode.
      * 128MB Gainward Ti4200 card, with a pretty quiet fan.
      * Enermax 350W PSU. Not fan-adjustable.
      * 40GB Maxtor D740X.
      * 160GB Western Digital WD1600JB.
      * 2xYS-Tech 80mm fans reduced to 10V and attached to the case with vibration-reducing spacers.

      I suspect it's a combination of case vibration, graphics card, and PSU. But I'll have to take it all out of the case and play around with it to check..

    12. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by PoisonousPhat · · Score: 2, Informative
      Not true--in fact, there is now a 200gb version.

      No, it IS true--the version you speak of is not the Barracuda IV. Seagate introduced the Barracuda IV in 2001, followed by the Barracuda V in 2002. While the Barracuda V received a stay of execution by becoming an early adopter of the SATA interface this year, the Barracuda IV was discontinued. The current iteration of the Barracuda line, the 7200.7 models, are much different acoustically (since noise is the focus of this article) than that that had gone B-IV (get it, B-IV=before??? groan...). The 7200.7 are so different that Silent PC Review (which seems to be /.ed at the moment) rated it on (I think) a notch lower than the B-IV on their 1-10 scale of quietest HDs.

      --
      Losers choose to abuse the use of "loose".
    13. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by bobbotron · · Score: 0

      Is that really a big problem? Is it that noxious?

      I'd imagine buying the right carpet and glue would solve that problem. You'd have to dust the carpet a lot though, I could just imagine the dust that it would collect.

    14. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Mr+Smidge · · Score: 4, Funny

      I was thinking about doing that with a leopard-skin interior, for that ultimate pimpin' case ;-).

    15. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Informative
      I either shell in the Solaris and Linux boxes or VNC into the Windows box.

      If you're using some version of Windows that supports it (XP, Win2k Server, Win2k3) you'll get _vastly_ better results using Remote Desktop Client instead of that POS VNC.

    16. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by ikeleib · · Score: 1

      Don't use carpet glue. I use hot-glue (second in power only to duct-tape). I have noticed no fumes from the installation. IIRC, it is the adhesives fixing carpet to the floor that outgass, not the padding.

    17. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1

      Heh, well I still can't sleep next to the thing when it's on. There must actually be some phantom device in there making noise.

      Have you considered turning the computer off when you go to sleep?

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    18. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by glueball · · Score: 1

      95% of my remote time is spend on the Solaris system--which has 24 7445 PPC Mercury nodes under it interconnected by RapidIO to make it interesting.

      Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it. VNC seems to work just fine for Outlook (which connects to my company office via a VPN that does not have a Mac version) which is the only reason I use the Window box.

    19. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps some kind of acoustic nullifing system, like the silent helicopters have.

    20. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could also check out some of the Fibre Channel stuff on eBay, and move the enclosure to somewhere sound dosen't matter so much perhaps (another room).

    21. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Try stopping your fans one at a time and see which are making noise. Not all fans are created equal... even fans of the same model can produce different noise levels.

      2. Don't forget the fan(s) in your PSU.

      3. Cutting the voltage on your fans will reduce airflow and by extension will reduce cooling. This will reduce the life/reliability of your system components. If your computer isn't in an air-conditioned environment, this is a great way to kill a PSU or worse.

      4. I have noticed that even with all of your system's fans removed or stopped (not suggested), most PSUs still make some noise.

      5. Even "silent" Hard Disks make noise.

      Good Luck

    22. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by troon · · Score: 1

      I put my Athlon box and my old P100 server in the loft (attic). A bevy of long cables, and I have a totally silent workstation area.

      Just don't bring any floppies round to my house...

      --
      Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
    23. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you ever installed or watch anyone else install carpet? They do not use adhesive to bond the carpet to the floor. It's stretched, and tucked..

      They do, however, use tape with what is essentially hot glue to join the edges of the carpet (seams in your nice carpet suck).

      Carpet and carpet padding do out gas. It would be far better solution to get the high density acoustical foam they use to line lowrider cars (so everything dosen't vibrate when they crank the stereo). It's not that expensive either.

    24. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Cthefuture · · Score: 4, Informative

      hmmm... Yeah, you've got a lot of noise makers there.

      Replace the power supply with a Zalman unit (check Newegg for "noise-free" versions). The Zalman isn't completely silent but it's a very high quality supply (heavy though!) and it adjusts the fan speed automatically. There may be more quiet units out there, I don't know. That Enermax is loud though.

      You've got to get rid of your video card's fan. It will be loud when everything else is quieted down. I would seriously consider a fanless video card. This can make a huge difference even when you think it's fairly quiet.

      Those hard-drives you're using are loud as hell (and you've got 2 of them!). Go with a single "quiet" drive. I use Seagate but you'll have to look around for what you need (maybe the quiet Maxtor). Last I checked, Western Digital drives are the loudest out there.

      2 80mm case fans?? You might try taking one or both out and see how your system does. Improve air-flow through your case and let the power supply do most of the work. This is harder to do and takes lots of experimentation. It is a black art of sorts. You could also try a much larger fan running at low RPM (larger as in at least 160mm+).

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    25. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by gooberguy · · Score: 0, Redundant

      * Enermax 350W PSU. Not fan-adjustable.
      * 40GB Maxtor D740X.
      * 160GB Western Digital WD1600JB.
      * 2xYS-Tech 80mm fans reduced to 10V and attached to the case with vibration-reducing spacers.

      --


      Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
    26. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by GoofyBoy · · Score: 1

      It could be your DVD/CD drives.

      To find what it is just start unplugging devices (Turn off computer, unplug, turn on, repeat as needed).

      Thats how I found that my CRT monitor makes more sound than my computer.

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
    27. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by MagerValp · · Score: 1

      The phantom device is probably your hard disk, it's easily as loud as the CPU or PSU fan. And here's my affordable solution:

      Ghetto HD silencer

      A bit too affordable maybe :P But so far the HD doesn't feel exceptionally hot and it hasn't been complaining.

      For my graphics card I used a Zalman ZM80A-HP, a passive heatsink with no fan at all. Works like a charm on my 9700.

      --

      READY.
      #
    28. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by markz · · Score: 1
      Heh, well I still can't sleep next to the thing when it's on.

      That's funny, it took me months to be able to sleep without the PC noise once we bought a house and my computers had to be in another room. I had a hard time sleeping with the machine off when I was in school.

    29. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by gooberguy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Err... man I'm tired. That post should be:
      * Enermax 350W PSU. Not fan-adjustable.
      * 40GB Maxtor D740X.
      * 160GB Western Digital WD1600JB.
      * 2xYS-Tech 80mm fans reduced to 10V and attached to the case with vibration-reducing spacers.

      Anyway, these are probably your culprits. I'd be mostly suspicious of the hard drives, as ball bearing drives (which both of yours are) put out an insane amount of high pitched noise. I also went for a silent system similar to yours, but I cared more about noise than performance. I used a Celeron 1.2Ghz (Tualatin core, they are based on Intel's 130nm process and put out very little heat.), an ATI Radeon 7500 PCI, Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB (This is the quietest hard drive ever, I can't hear it seek.), and a 200W PSU salvaged from an old system made by Micron (It was really quiet.) to cool the CPU, I used a Zalman CNPS-6000 (AKA Flower cooler) with it's fan turned all the way down. I threw the whole shebang into a homemade clear case, and have been happy with it ever since. It's just barely powerful enough to play Battlefield 1942 and UT2K3 (at 1024x768, lowest graphics settings), but still quiet enough to leave on all the time. I've overclocked the CPU to a little over 1.5Ghz with no problems at all. I also have pictures of it here. They were taken during the winter when I took the heatsink off and tried to run it. It worked fine, in fact the CPU ran a cool 4C, with no heatsink and no cooling fan. Of course, it was -16F that night.

      --


      Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
    30. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. Here. I have one. Combined with a quiet CPU cooler the only way I can be sure the machine is on is to ping it.

    31. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They do not use adhesive to bond the carpet to the floor.

      Actually, on concrete floors they often do use glue, since they can't nail tack strips into the concrete. And it's a MESS to remove that carpet!

    32. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by HRH+King+Lerxst · · Score: 1

      Well you can nail tack strips to concrete, but they do use glue to stick the pad down to the concrete. The carpet is then stretched and tucked over the pad.

      I just had new carpet installed about a month ago.

      --
      No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
    33. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by figa · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I got a second machine to use as a server. I have a fast, noisy machine I use for development, and a quiet, slow machine I use as a webserver. The quiet machine is built on the mini ITX VIA Eden fanless CPU/mainboard combo, it has a Seagate Barracuda IV HD, and an external brick power supply. It makes absolutely no noise, and it's powerful enough to handle as my mail, file, and printserver. I could probably spin the drive down when it's inactive, and it really wouldn't make any noise at all. The mini-ITX setup cost me around $350, total.

    34. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by chaotica1974 · · Score: 1

      Carpet padding is a cheap alternative to Dynomat (usually put in cars to silence road noise). Dynomat has a stick back.

      Works a lot better than carpet padding however does smell like tar

    35. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Seekerofknowledge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Newer version of VNC have starting using video driver hooks for up performance. I was always a fan of VNC for my windows boxes (free!), but always hated how slow it was. With this new driver hook stuff, it works just as well as Remote Desktop, I think. It's about 90% the speed of sitting at the real machine.

      Anyways, because the driver hook is part of the base VNC code, all of the VNC derivatives have it (TightVNC, Ultr@VNC, etc).

      I'd check it out.

    36. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by JamieKitson · · Score: 0

      My mission to create a silent server is documented here

    37. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by ACPosterChild · · Score: 1

      The first time I turned on my new HTPC box after installing a passive heatsink on the CPU, I was estatic; there was NO noise at all! Then I realized that, since I had also changed cases, I had forgotten to plug in my hard drives. Turns out that all of the noise I thought was coming from the CPU cooler was actually my loud-ass hard drives.

    38. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by caswelmo · · Score: 1

      I'm the same way. I had to get a small fan to turn on at night just so I had some white noise.

      The wife says she's a fan of the fan but not a fan of the computer......???

    39. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by F34nor · · Score: 1

      I'd get 120mm YSTech fans 130cfm @ 45 db. Drop the voltage on those and they will move more air than anything and still be quite.

      Also get some cork board from a hobbies sore and double sided tape it to every piece of metal. Remeber that differnet materials absorb different pitches. Cork, foam, sponges, wood, and fat girls thighs all work well.

    40. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by F34nor · · Score: 1

      Use wood, cork, then carpet pad, each one absorbs different frequencies. Only problem is that it makes the plastic windows on the side of you case look even worse.

    41. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



      > The drawback with this solution is that you've traded noise for noxious outgassing fumes from the glue & carpet.

      If he's an average slashdotter, he'll never smell it over the smell of old Taco Bell, jizzed socks, and ass.

    42. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by js3 · · Score: 1

      if you want silent don't use fans. I went to the shop the other day to get a new harddrive and they had an athlon 64 with water cooling and the thing made zero noise. It was one of the very few times I would have bought something (if I had the money) without thinking about it first

      --
      did you forget to take your meds?
    43. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Ratbert42 · · Score: 1
      You've got to get rid of your video card's fan. It will be loud...

      My video card fan must have shot a bearing or something because it started whining hard. It took me a while to diagnose what was making the noise because I refused to believe such a loud sound could be coming from so far inside my case. Ripping the fan off stopped the noise and I've had no stability problems (no overclocking though, but good case cooling).

    44. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by mweier · · Score: 1

      Yeah - I use Dynamat acoustical matting inside my Dual Athlon box case walls& it helped considerably. However, when I still had hardwood floors in my office, the vibration of the box itsaelf seemed to resonate with the floor & make things noisy. Maybe setting the box on some sort of acoustically padded mat would help that?

      Maybe I should try putting my computer in a vacuum where sound doesn't have a medium with which to travel ;)

      --
      digital artist, 3D animator, web designer, and otherwise technological creative type....
    45. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by GoRK · · Score: 1

      I guess you haven't seen a concrete nailer then... It's a gun that uses .22 caliber blanks to drive nails into concrete slabs. Makes a hell of a noise but it gets the job done.

      They also have pneumatic ones, but they are a fortune in initial cost vs explosive ones due to the very high air pressures needed (tons more than a regular air nailer).

    46. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by shadowbearer · · Score: 1


      I used to install carpet for a living, both techniques are used. A lot of commercial carpet installs (the really thin stuff you see in high traffic areas in some businesses) don't use pad nor do they stretch the carpet, simply glue carpet to floor.

      Most home installations use padding even over concrete.

      Back to lunch...

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    47. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by HyperCash · · Score: 1

      Actually, that changed just recently. The new winners are Samsung HDs. Check it out.

      --
      So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
    48. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by zrobotics · · Score: 1

      i agree, the noise is probably the psu. you could take it apart and use a quiet 80mm case fan. or use a psu for a nano-atx board, although it might not have enough power. on the graphics card-if you arent gaming or doing image editing, there is no way you need a card that has a fan. i use an old radeon 7200 on mine, and haven't had any problems

    49. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Fjord · · Score: 1

      My carpets were afixed to wood strips that had been nailed into the concrete in the corners. I guess it depends on who is doing it.

      --
      -no broken link
    50. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Maybe setting the box on some sort of acoustically padded mat would help that?"

      I set my computers on old mouse pads. Two mouse pads per computer, front and back part of computer. Reduces vibration and static from floor to computer. I haven't had the chance to have a quiet enough computer to see if it makes a noise difference though.

    51. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by jesup · · Score: 2, Interesting

      rdesktop on Linux/BSD works _really_ well. I pretty much no longer turn on the monitor on my XP machine. I can also bounce the X window over a tunnel to my machine at home, and control the XP machine at work from home.

      tightVNC, while useful, has a tendency to crash.

    52. Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 1
      Cork, foam, sponges, wood, and fat girls thighs all work well.


      That is eigther too much information or not enough, and I'm affraid to find out eigther way.

      Mycroft
      --
      https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
  5. Buy a laptop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Get yourself a Pentium-M laptop and be done with noise.

    1. Re:Buy a laptop by AmNotAScript · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...or a Mac.

    2. Re:Buy a laptop by timeOday · · Score: 2, Interesting
      ...or a Mac.
      Ha! I have a dual G4 at work that I normally leave OFF only because it's so noisy - maybe the loudest personal computer I've ever heard.

      Reports on G5 noise are mixed; apparently it varies alot between machines, or they built some early noisy ones and then fixed it.

    3. Re:Buy a laptop by AmNotAScript · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True, I should have excluded the latter model G4s. Personally, my dual 1.8 G5 (under an open bench) is not really noticeable. Especially with some ambient music from iTunes.

    4. Re:Buy a laptop by Mr.+Jackson · · Score: 1

      Our shop is fond of Dell dual Pentium Precision 650s. I have to put my ear against the tower to tell it's on.

    5. Re:Buy a laptop by vjmurphy · · Score: 1

      And swap the noise for lap burns.

      --
      Vincent J. Murphy
      Spandex Justice
    6. Re:Buy a laptop by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      My 12" iBook G4 makes NO noise at all unless it gets too hot or the Combo Drive is spinning (the Combo Drive is really loud, the fan is pretty quiet, and I haven't heard the hard drive yet!)

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  6. Get a Mac by travellingnovice · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Get a MAC!

    1. Re:Get a Mac by mirko · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is this a Flamebait if the previous post was interesting ?
      Sounds like we have some Pentiumn M-oderator...

      Nope, sincerely, if you want a quiet machine, you can go with most laptops, especially mac ones, but also with RiscOS machines (an Iyonix)... With a remotely stored one...

      Now, if you want to play Doom3 or Duke Nukem Forever, you'll need a silent video board...

      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    2. Re:Get a Mac by IceFox · · Score: 5, Informative

      The parent may be flamebate, but sense bringing my Apple laptop to meeting I have noticed how just much noise everyone's else's wintel laptop makes while the Apple doesn't. No small external fans in the back and what is even more surprising/pleasent is the lack of hd seeking back and forth which occurs all the times in windows. Taking this to your main computer box, if you have to get fans, buy large slow fans and not fast small fans. They are a lot quieter. And spending $20 more on a good quite hd might surprise you. :)

      -Benjamin Meyer

      -Benjamin Meyer

      --
      Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
    3. Re:Get a Mac by cedmond · · Score: 1

      Apple laptops are quiet/silent and so are the iMacs. I don't have first hand experice with the newer LCD monitor models but my wife's older CRT model is basically silent(no fans whatsoever). Also, I checked out the newer G5 tower at my buddy's job and I didn't really notice any excessive noise. They have a lot of fans but they all run really slowly most of the time.

      --
      ----------------------------------
      I'd rather not take sides until I hear the monkey's version - PHB
    4. Re:Get a Mac by lpontiac · · Score: 1

      iBooks do have fans in them - they're just not spun up most of the time. I can tell if something's started chewing up all the CPU it can get its hands on, because after a few minutes of this the fans kick in.

    5. Re:Get a Mac by rjung2k · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No kidding. Ever since I got addicted to the near-total silence of my fanless G3 iMac, I can't even stand to have any noisy peripherals nearby to shatter the tranquility. When I went shopping for an external Firewire hard drive, I couldn't use one of the fan-based drives for more than ten minutes because of the noise. I end up looking specifically for a fanless enclosure and the quietest drive I could find just to have something I could tolerate.

      Like the Mac itself, once you tried silent computing, you won't go back.

      --

      --R.J.
      Electric-Escape.net

    6. Re:Get a Mac by dave-tx · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Well, maybe you could elaborate on that. I recently bought a G4 PowerMac, and it's at least as loud as my home-built AMD machine (which isn't too quiet either). And both are louder than the P4 I use at work.

      Not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with your statement, but a blanket statement like "Get a MAC" isn't too helpful.

      --

      >> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"

    7. Re:Get a Mac by ioErr · · Score: 1

      Hey, I can hear my eMac from the other end of the house.

    8. Re:Get a Mac by deepsky · · Score: 1

      I don't know about desktop Macs, but powebooks in my experience are not silent at all. My 1GHz Titanium has a rather noisy fan. It emits about as much noise as my Dell inspiron 8200 notebook (that is, quite a lot in my opinion).

    9. Re:Get a Mac by jasenj1 · · Score: 1

      I believe the G4 PowerMacs are/were notoriously noisy (There are several different models of G4 using PMacs, so YMMV). There was even a recall/swap of some sort where Apple would replace your noisy power supply.

      That said, Apple seems to value quiet machines. It's part of that "attention to detail" that costs so much more than a home-built $300 AMD box that folks like to compare Macs with when whining about how expensive Macs are.

      "Innovative, quiet design." is number 9 on Apple's Ten reasons to buy a PowerMac G5.

      - Jasen.

    10. Re:Get a Mac by dead+sun · · Score: 1
      My Dell Inspiron 8100 is practically silent when it isn't attached to wall power. The processor drops speed and the fans absolutely will not come on when running on battery. The hard drive is pretty quiet too, since I opted for the slower one.

      The only time there's really any noise is when it's attached to the wall, but even then the fan only runs every now and then, and allowing speedstep while on the wall would pretty much kill that too if I wanted. The CD drive is a real noise maker, but really, which CD drives don't make whirring noises?

      As for silent PCs, I'm looking at the Hush Mini-ITX PC. It uses one of Via's little chips which requires little cooling. The Hush actually uses one that would normally require a fan and heatpipe's it to the chassis. Also, the power supply is a brick like laptops and such use, no fans at all. The only noise that could come from the machine would be the drives, but I've been considering getting an adapter that lets you use Compact Flash as an IDE drive and fetch all data but the OS from over a network. Then there really would be no moving parts.

      --
      If not now, when?
    11. Re:Get a Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you'll tend to find that's more of a side effect of people buying cheap crap laptops when they buy wintel.

    12. Re:Get a Mac by Carnildo · · Score: 1

      I can tell because the keyboard gets too hot to touch.

      --
      "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
    13. Re:Get a Mac by twistedcubic · · Score: 1

      But alas, does it cost and extra $1500 to get that $300 AMD box quiet?

  7. Thermoacoustic Cooling System by osullish · · Score: 2, Funny

    You Can now use that pesky noise to cool all your over clocked athlons!

    --
    It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..
  8. It's easy by BoomerSooner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just buy a laptop, run it in powersaving mode all the time, plug it into a monitor, keyboard and mouse. You'll never know the difference. I got sick of transferring files between locations (work, second office, home, laptop) so I just have gone laptop only and only fire up my home PC for video games.

    1. Re:It's easy by platos_beard · · Score: 1

      Better yet, build your own desktop using a Pentium M or Athlon Mobile motherboard.

      Oh wait. you can't get them. Never mind.

      --
      What's a sig?
    2. Re:It's easy by jabuzz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Of course you can get motherboards which take Pentium M processors. It just requires you to know where to look. Try the Commell LV-671, which is
      one of several mini-ITX boards which take Pentium M
      processorts. Try Googling on LV-671 for the above board.

    3. Re:It's easy by Elbows · · Score: 1

      The mobile athlon is pin-compatible with a normal athlon, and there are motherboards which support it.
      I'm running one in my Shuttle SK41, and it's basically inaudible.

    4. Re:It's easy by platos_beard · · Score: 1
      Ok, so I exagerrated a bit, you can get mini-ITX, (I didn't know there was more than one). But I can choose oodles of motherboards in various form factors if I'm willing to use a CPU that can also serve as a heater for a small room.

      I did read recently that AMD processors can give you decent performance with low heat output if underclocked and undervolted, which I might try in the future.

      --
      What's a sig?
    5. Re:It's easy by delus10n0 · · Score: 1

      Unless you've got a Dell Inspiron, which likes to make a nice high-pitch noise constantly while running. (Maybe the hard drive?)

      --
      Not All Who Wander Are Lost
    6. Re:It's easy by Ratbert42 · · Score: 1
      Just buy a laptop...

      I have a Pentium M / Centrino BS laptop from Dell and it's louder than a quiet desktop. But it is a lot quieter than my older P3 laptop, mostly because they went to a large (40mm?) horizontal fan instead of a tiny (15mm?) vertical fan.

    7. Re:It's easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i've been looking for a motherboard that supports the mobile athlon's powernow feature. any suggestions? are there any web sites that list the desktop motherboards that support it? i've found some of the via chipsets support powernow but they don't seem to be on the current motherboards.

    8. Re:It's easy by Fjord · · Score: 1

      Park the drive when not in use, it should be under your power settings. But that might not be the whine. My sager would make such a whine, which would get worse when touching the mousepad. It's like an electrical kind of whine, hard to figure out.

      --
      -no broken link
    9. Re:It's easy by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 1
      Anyone know where to get them for less than this? A motherboard with more slots would also be nice.

      While I had considered a Pentium M for my quiet system, I ended up getting a nice Socket 370 motherboard with AGP on sale and putting a 1.3GHz Celeron in it for much, much less money.

  9. Dynamic site by akjacob · · Score: 5, Insightful
    here is the contents.. It goes without saying that even a moderately fast CPU these days requires a fast-spinning (read noisy) fan to avoid the risk of overheating. Combine that with a PSU fan, GPU fan, chipset fan and one or more case fans and your average PC can so easily become a major distraction. And it's not just the sound from fans that can cause annoyance. A high proportion of the noise created by PCs can also emanate from the hard disk(s), particularly while 'seeking', or from any optical drives that have been installed. Just imagine then trying to follow the dialogue in your favourite DVD movie with the constant din of your computer in the background.

    It doesn't even have to be a particularly loud sound to be distracting - a relatively quiet noise containing a strong tonal component such as a high frequency whine or a low frequency hum can be just as irritating to some people. Fortunately, there are now numerous noise elimination products available to purchase, either as add-on components or devices that replace the existing cooling fans in your system - these components are designed to reduce the sound of a noisy PC to barely a whisper.

    Sounds too good to be true? Well, specialist component supplier QuietPC certainly doesn't think so and has provided us with a range of silencing products for testing. The effectiveness of each noise-reducing component has been assessed subjectively based on the different acoustic features in each instance, and also from noise measurements taken using a high-quality sound level meter.

    So, if you fancy the idea of creating your own near-silent PC but are unsure of the best place to start, or are just keen to learn what the latest IT noise control technology has to offer, you should find this feature interesting.

    1. Re:Dynamic site by chegosaurus · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just imagine then trying to follow the dialogue in your favourite DVD movie with the constant din of your computer in the background.

      Most of my favourite movies don't have a lot of dialogue.

    2. Re:Dynamic site by Buffo · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Did you see the price on that Zalman no noise case on the Quiet PC site? I mean, sure heat pipes are expensive an all, but who in the hell is going to pay nearly $1200 just for a CASE?

      Sheesh - you'd think active noise cancellation hardware would be cheaper... (Not to mention way, way, cooler!) Er - as in "gadget-like cool", not temperature cool.

    3. Re:Dynamic site by mcpkaaos · · Score: 2, Interesting

      but who in the hell is going to pay nearly $1200 just for a CASE?

      Vocalists and musicians who mic their instruments (or who play acoustic instruments with pickups sensitive to background noise).

      When you are recording a track and you don't have the luxury of a vocal booth, you will go to great lengths to cut back on background noise, even if said lengths include $1200 cases.

      Of course, this opens the debate on why anyone would be recording on a PC, but that's probably best left for another day... ;)

      --
      It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
    4. Re:Dynamic site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It goes without saying that even a moderately fast CPU these days requires a fast-spinning (read noisy) fan to avoid the risk of overheating.

      No, it doesn't go without saying. It requires efficient transfer of heat away from the CPU. When you go with fans (there are other options, like water cooling), you can increase heat transfer by increasing the air flow. This can be done in two ways: by speeding up the fan, or by increasing the size of the fan. You can actually cool a CPU more by replacing it with a slower spinning, yet larger fan.

    5. Re:Dynamic site by Christopher+Bibbs · · Score: 1

      Ok, can you enjoy the moaning and light slapping sounds with your computer whining in the background?

    6. Re:Dynamic site by Buffo · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd think that $1200 would be better spent on some long cables for the microphones, the mouse, and the monitor so you could put the computer in another room! (And take the leftover money and rent some studio time, or use it to buy some acoustic foam and make your own sound booth.)

      I've got a friend that uses his machine to record tracks for local bands. He set up a spare bedroom in his house as a recording room (think lots of acoustic foam) and ran the cables through the wall to the next room where his computers were. (The large RAID-5 array was way too noisy to be in the same room with the musicians.) Works well enough that he can charge about 1/4 of what the local recording studio does.

      Anyway, I really think $1200 for a case is over the top. Sure, there are a few people who will buy it for the coolness factor, but those are also the people for whom money is usually not a serious issue. I simply can't see this unit selling in any serious quantity when there are far cheaper means of achieving close to the same sound reduction performance.

    7. Re:Dynamic site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the right hardware and software, pc's can be excellent all in one recording studios. Digidesign makes an 8 track 96k/24bit recording deck that requires firewire (hence a PC...) and tools such as ProTools are designed for professional recording

    8. Re:Dynamic site by pohl · · Score: 1

      That's only a good idea if you have the space in your home and you have another person around to operate the PC while you're in the other room playing your instrument, and the small amout of studio time that you rent with the remainder is enough to capture your entire range of musical creativity. For everyone else, a 1200 case is probably a better option.

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    9. Re:Dynamic site by Buffo · · Score: 1

      Um... No. You don't need another person. The purpose of the longer cables is so that you can click the mouse to start recording while you are in the room, then start playing.

      That's what my friend does. He sits in the room with the musicians. (Well, the desk is actually in the closet, but the doors have been removed.) He has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse on the desk, connected to the CPU via long cables and a KVM switch. The CPU case (with the noisy fans and hard drives) is in the next room. When the band is ready to start, he clicks on the "record" button and away they go.

      It does't take up any more space to do it this way. You still have to have a spare room to set up for recording. All you need to do is put the CPU in a different room. It can sit on the floor, or up on a shelf. No need to dedicate the entire room to just the CPU! (In fact, my friend's CPU is sitting on the floor in his master bedroom.)

      Bottom line: I doubt that it cost him more than $150 (cost of the cables & KVM switch) to set up his recording room like this. That's a far cry from $1200.

    10. Re:Dynamic site by ACPosterChild · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and they then to already have rythmic high-frequency whines in them. So, really, what's the point?

    11. Re:Dynamic site by Penguin2212 · · Score: 1

      Just imagine then trying to follow the dialogue in your favourite DVD movie with the constant din of your computer in the background.

      When you live in a small college dorm room, hearing your computer while watching your favorite movie is just part of how it is.

      --

      --
      Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
    12. Re:Dynamic site by Blimey85 · · Score: 1

      It looks really great but I agree with you about the price tag. That's outrageous... however it is for more then just the case... you get the cooling system... so figure $200 maybe for the case itself... and a grand for the cooling system... nuts. If I had that kinda money to burn I sure wouldn't waste it on a case and cooling system.

      --
      How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
    13. Re:Dynamic site by pohl · · Score: 1

      Interesting. I can see that working if the distances are not too large. If you have an audio capture device that uses firewire 400, you're going to have a 4.5 meter limit, unless you're willing to daisy chain the up to 16 cables allowed by the spec, in which case you can get up to 72 meters, but I wonder what effect that is going to have on your latency. A less capable (and more common) audio capture device that uses USB is going to be limited to 5 meters. I suppose these limitations could work out for some people, (depending on how negotiations with the spouse work out) but in my case the nearest available closet is further than that...Did you friend have a workaround for that problem too?

      --

      The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...

    14. Re:Dynamic site by darkwhite · · Score: 1

      You just never heard it because of the noise.

      --

      [an error occurred while processing this directive]
    15. Re:Dynamic site by foobar77 · · Score: 1

      Here are some other sites: Yahoo Silent-PC group http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Silent-PC/ EndNoise.com http://www.endpcnoise.com/ SilenX http://www.silenx.com

  10. Whoa this is /. by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 5, Funny

    We don't take to kindly to peoplewith an actual knowledge of acoustics AND backs it up with measurements! in these here parts. You best just move along College Boy...

    --
    500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
    1. Re:Whoa this is /. by squaretorus · · Score: 1

      ... and your friend can leave too. YES Im talking to YOU ... MR SCIENTIIIST

    2. Re:Whoa this is /. by Eastree · · Score: 1

      We don't take kindly to people who don't take kindly ...

  11. What sound does a slashdotted PC make? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're about to find out.

  12. Re:Slashdotted by skaffen42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah... to paraphrase some Zen dude: If a server bursts into a flame where nobody can hear it, does it matter if it is silent or not?

    --
    People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
  13. Re:slashdoted by CowboyMeal · · Score: 3, Funny

    And no one will hear it scream...

    --
    Your credit card information wants to be free.
  14. Not cheap.... by noelmarkham · · Score: 3, Informative

    Interesting article...
    I'm looking forward to when I'm not a student and have a proper job so that I can afford to do something remotely like this!

    1. Re:Not cheap.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably best to save your money by staying single and celibate too, then.

      (Oh, wait - what am I saying? This is Slashdot...)

  15. Cheapest Option.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Put socks in your ears and a pencil up each nostril..

    1. Re:Cheapest Option.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      While that is a cunning plan, I'm afraid it's no good. You'll still have to lead your men over the top, Blackadder.

    2. Re:Cheapest Option.. by ledow · · Score: 1

      Only a madman would try this! Wibble!

  16. Keeping the quiet by edwardog · · Score: 1

    You mean when it's plugged in and stuff right? I had this one machine with an experimental power supply involving mice on a wheel that I couldn't muffle for the longest time ... till I learned how NOT to use heatsinks.

  17. tough choice by andih8u · · Score: 2, Funny

    Listen to incessant droning of multiple case fans, or incessant droning of neighbor screaming at his kids...tough choice indeed.

    --


    slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
    1. Re:tough choice by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

      I see we share a similar problem.

      After I silenced my computer by putting the case in an adjacent room with extension cables, I found I had to crank up the volume of my Harman Kardon speaker/subwoofer set to drown out my downstairs neighbour's combined kid/newborn/dog/parasitic-boyfriend racket.

      Sometimes, I feel I have to put the subwoofer face down on the floor, and play some hardcore basstastic gansta rap full blast.

  18. noise.. by k-hell · · Score: 1

    I reckon slashdotting trusted review's server isn't helping silencing it...

  19. Not easy if you've got lots of gear. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately my 0.5TB raid array won't fit in a laptop.

    1. Re:Not easy if you've got lots of gear. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh... There's Firewire, USB 2.0, gigabit ethernet, and external SATA hookups for your laptop.

      I use my laptop as my main machine and have everything else hanging off on Firewire and SATA drives.

      SATA is probably my favorite. It's faster than the internal UDMA hard-drive!

  20. Quiet PC is GOOD by isolvesystems · · Score: 0

    Yes, I found the desktop PC noise extremely annoying. I was going to replace the desktop PC with laptop, but the cost for laptop is still far above desktop.

    --
    http://www.isolvesystems.com - Technology Marketplace
  21. Cheapest Option? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hah! This is only cheap for someone who owns socks and pencils.

  22. Dosen't bother me... by Jaysyn · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... that low buzz & the hum of the air cleaner helps me sleep at night.

    Now if I could get it to act a little less like a space heater.....

    Jaysyn

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
  23. Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by ethelred · · Score: 2, Informative

    Even if you were able to create a completely silent PC, as in fanless, you would be facing another problem. Air circulation. No fans means no air means ambient temperatures rise, and the the PC isn't so cool anymore. Perhaps the best would be a compromise with, say, lownoise fans, or volt modding existing fans.

    --

    Remember: If you buy anything from spammers, you have a small penis.
    1. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by noelmarkham · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's the whole point of the article!!!
      Obviously, air needs to be circulated, and fans do this rather well. Getting the fans to do an efficient job as quietly as possible (including volt modding, which was the most sucessful addition to the system) is the whole idea for a "silent PC".

    2. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by kid-noodle · · Score: 1

      So.. Like the passively cooled Hush systems?

      --
      fortune -o
    3. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by steevo.com · · Score: 1

      ...Air circulation. No fans means no air means ambient temperatures rise

      Not exactly true.

      Fans are not the only technology that can assist in circulating air. A chimney could be integrated into a case design that would provide decent air circulation.

      Heck, on a hot summer's day they used to cool the Parliment building with a fire to draw air through the building and up a chimney.

    4. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by ethelred · · Score: 1

      Gee, it sure sounds nice, so to speak, but at 431.00 pounds, i'd rather build a real PC, and then get to work on quiting it down.
      Mind you, i have no problem with the mini itx PCs, but i would rather have something with a bit more "bang for buck". I doubt the Hush would run Far Cry very well.

      --

      Remember: If you buy anything from spammers, you have a small penis.
    5. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by Chirs · · Score: 2, Informative

      For about 2K USD you can get a fanless Hush ATX system with a 2.8GHz P4.

    6. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by ethelred · · Score: 1

      This is slashdot. How many here have 2K USD? I think i'd rather just add a resistor to my CPU fan or ground it on the 5V rail. Or something like that.

      --

      Remember: If you buy anything from spammers, you have a small penis.
    7. Re:Maybe silent isn't the best solution anyway. by leinhos · · Score: 1

      I recall a This Old House project (in Georgia) that had a sort-of coupala structure with a ring of gas burners inside it. The flames heat the air in the coupala, causing it to rise out of the house and drawing cooler air into the house.

  24. Put your computer(s) in the closet by Sarojin · · Score: 2, Funny

    And run the wires over to your desk. It's not like the typical geek has a huge wardrobe ;O

    --
    HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
    1. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by kfg · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yes, this works quite well, but then I'm stuck listening to the high frequency whine of the monitor.

      Putting the monitor in the closet as well worked, but presented some problems with usability, so I moved my chair into the closet.

      Then all I had to do was move the computer back to where it was in the first place. . .

      And then the monitor.

      Ahhhhh, west and welaxation at last.

      KFG

    2. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hmmm ... let's see ...

      Four pairs jeans, check. 38 t-shirts, check. 3 sweatshirts, check. socks, underwear, 3 pairs shorts. What else do I need?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by pubjames · · Score: 1

      Put your computer(s) in the closet

      This has been modded as funny but I think it is an interesting solution.

      A have a small office with five boxes, which sit under peoples desks. I would like to put these in a cupboard. My problem is I don't think there is a practical solition for the cabling. You have to have of course the keyboard, monitor and mouse plugged into the boxes. That calls for a lot of wires from the desks to the boxes. Furthermore, you can't have VGA cables longer than a few meters, because the signal degrades.

      Does anyone have a soultion to these problems?

    4. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by Sarojin · · Score: 1

      There's also generally an audio cable requirement, but you can use a single USB cable for keyboard/mouse/other peripherals. I wonder if DVI would offer an improrvement in video signal integrity over VGA?

      --
      HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
    5. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by kfg · · Score: 1

      What else do I need?

      I throw in a Canadian flag umbrella hat.

      KFG

    6. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by pubjames · · Score: 1

      There's also generally an audio cable requirement, but you can use a single USB cable for keyboard/mouse/other peripherals.

      As yes, stupid of me not to think of that.

      However, the video cable is the real stumbling block that I've never found a solution to.

      It always amazes me in big offices where everyone has a computer under or on their desk. Why should cupboards/racks only be for servers?

    7. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 1

      My problem is I don't think there is a practical solition for the cabling.

      Is 35 feet long enough?

      I've been looking into this for a month or two now. The only draw back is the CD-Drive. If someone made an External, Wireless, CD-Drive that I could just sit on my desk, in the closet my machines go.

      --
      I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
      I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
    8. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i think you can run keyboards over cat5 cant you?

    9. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by troon · · Score: 1

      I run 1024x768 at 85Hz on a 15" monitor over a 10m cable with no problems or obvious degradation. PC is in the loft, monitor and other bits are in the lounge.

      --
      Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
    10. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by Igmuth · · Score: 1

      This what you need?
      Some have small fans on their PSUs, which may go against what we are trying to accomplish, but i've seen some with external brick PSUs that are fanless.

      Though if you wanted to save on cableing you might want to get one that has USB2.0 so you can hook you keyboard/mouse to the same cable. (many of the cases support both)

    11. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by xaoslaad · · Score: 1

      $300 personal burial money

    12. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Expect major heat problems if you do this...

      There's like no airflow in a closet.

    13. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by BrainInAJar · · Score: 1

      "If someone made an External, Wireless, CD-Drive that I could just sit on my desk, in the closet my machines go."

      Well, what you could do is take an old computer, or just buy a new one, install it on all the desks, and install linux on them, use samba or nfs, hook them up to 802.11, and use them as CDROM servers... one for each desk

    14. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by pqdave · · Score: 1

      5 very small cupboards? I build my own computer desks, and a reasonably well thought-out enclosure does a lot for sound, and at least with the antique systems I use doesn't cause overheating problems. Have lots of ventilation, but avoid direct sound paths and make sure reflected paths hit at least one soft surface.

    15. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by ducman · · Score: 1

      I put my file server in under the house, and my office is quiet. Unfortunately, now you can hear it quite well in the master bathroom. Something about the heater vents I guess. (BTW, it's an old, rackmount Compaq 5000.)

      --
      "We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
    16. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by toddestan · · Score: 1

      I put a computer in the closet myself. The desk was right next to the closet door. My monitor cable was long enough that I only ended up needing to buy a keyboard extension cable. The only problem was the heat will slowly build up in the closet - my solution was to just open the door when I wasn't going to be around.

    17. Re:Put your computer(s) in the closet by shfted! · · Score: 1

      Why was this modded funny? I known more than one person who has done this.

      --
      He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
  25. Re:Slashdotted by Molina+the+Bofh · · Score: 1

    But then again, how would the server be slashdotted it no slashdotter tries to access it ?

    I suggest we put the whole server and a cat inside a box.

    --

    -
    Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
  26. How about the Noisy Ice Cream Truck solution? by Vexler · · Score: 2, Funny

    The same song over and over and over again...

    1. Re:How about the Noisy Ice Cream Truck solution? by LouCifer · · Score: 0

      One word: "Howitzer"

      Problem solved.

      --
      Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
  27. CD drives! by Paul+Townend · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nevermind the noise from the actual PC - that's bareable! It's my CD drive that drives me insane! It's like there's some kind of acid-fuelled lawnmower-driving madman in my machine, whenever I so much as access F:!!!

    A while ago, I'm sure I read a review for a "quiet" CD drive, but I haven't found it since.... Old quad-speed drives were never like that!

    1. Re:CD drives! by richie2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I recently bought an ASUS DVD-ROM, the DVD-E616 which is very, very quiet, even at full speed.

      I used to read games and stuff into image files and mount them using Alcohol 120%, partly for the speed increase, but mostly to get rid of the noise from my old CD-ROM. With the new one, I don't really need to do that anymore.

      Other tips include finding a quiet hard drive (Seagate Barracuda, Samsung Spinpoint), a silent CPU fan (Arctic Cooling, most newer Zalmans, basically anything with a large, relatively slow fan), quiet case fans if they are needed (Papst, preferably if you have a case that takes 12cm fans as the larger ones can spin slower and still move the same amount of air, reducing both fan noise and air noise) but the biggest problem IMHO is the graphics card fan. Small, fast and irritating. Zalman has a few solutions, both with and without fans, but they don't fit all cards. The fan in the PSU is normally a regular 8cm fan which can be replaced with a quiet Papst. I regularly build office-style machines for clients using these components and the cheap low-end stuff have gotten a lot quieter just in the last year or so.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    2. Re:CD drives! by CoolGopher · · Score: 1
      Nevermind the noise from the actual PC - that's bareable! It's my CD drive that drives me insane!

      I couldn't agree more! The noise is the reason I rip every single CD I get (and why I get pissed off with the latest and greatest copy protection that makes it a pain to rip - mind you, it hasn't actually prevented me from copying anything yet). Once ripped, I use Daemon Tools to mount the image on a virtual drive. Works like a charm, and reduces noise by heaps.

      I might lose a bit in access speed since I put the CD image on my fileserver, but on the other hand I gain in noiselevels since the server is at the other end of the house, and I don't care how much noise the disks make over there :)

    3. Re:CD drives! by meringuoid · · Score: 1
      I recently bought an ASUS DVD-ROM, the DVD-E616 which is very, very quiet, even at full speed.

      I wonder if that's the cause? When I built my computer in early 2003, I bought a cheap Sony DVD drive and CD burner. The CD burner sounds like it's about to try to take off, but the DVD drive is damn near silent. Perhaps they worked harder on quieting the DVD drive because they knew people would be trying to use it to watch films?

      I also got a Seagate Barracuda hard disk - dead quiet for a while, but lately it's been making awful rattling noises like something from 1994. It's screwed in tightly, which makes me worry something's horribly wrong, but SMART reports nothing looks like it's dying... any suggestions, o wise /.?

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    4. Re:CD drives! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I dismantled an old Lite-On DVD drive the other day. In the process, I worked out what this annoying noise was that occurred during spin up and spin down...

      In the hub, there is a radial track. In this track there are a bunch of ballbearings. When the disk spins up/down, these bb's take time to reach the same sped as the hub. When they are moving in relation to the hub they make noise.

      I dont know what these are for. I had to destructively dismantle the drive to see them so I guess there wont be much about them. My guess is they have some kind of vibration dampening effect, or they dampen speed changes from the pulsing motor. One effect I do know they have.. they are bloody noisy!

      Anyone know anything about this?

      Tom...

    5. Re:CD drives! by richie2000 · · Score: 1
      Backup, backup, backup. Done the backup yet? Good. Now replace it on warranty. All 'cudas I own (including a LVM'd JBOD of 8 'cudas in a 19" rack case) and have sold are still quiet. They're not supposed to make noise. I've never heard one make any kind of noise.

      Well, actually, sometimes, when the kids are sleeping and the house is quiet, I can hear the one at home (80 gig, 'bout a year old) seek. A very soft tic, tic, tic sound. If I bend down and really try to listen for it, that is. No rattling. I don't tolerate rattling in my hard drives and neither should you.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    6. Re:CD drives! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      wtf.. funny???

      can someone point my joke out to me please lol

      Tom...

    7. Re:CD drives! by hankwang · · Score: 2, Informative
      It's my CD drive that drives me insane! It's like there's some kind of acid- fuelled lawnmower-driving madman ...

      Try one of these:

      bash# mount /mnt/cdrom
      bash# hdparm -E 20 /dev/cdrom

      or

      #include <sys/ioctl.h>
      #include <fcntl.h>
      #include <linux/cdrom.h>
      main () {
      int fd=open("/dev/cdrom", O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK);
      ioctl(fd, CDROM_SELECT_SPEED, 20);
      }
      This will temporarily degrade your CDROM to a quiet 20-speed model, if you run the correct OS, that is.
      --
      Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
    8. Re:CD drives! by oferic · · Score: 1

      Your first guess is right, they are for balance and vibration. From the Lite-On website:

      Why is my CD-ROM drive so noisy?

      Swishing noises when CD-ROM drive starts to spin: LITE-ON IT has designed high speed CD-ROM drives with ABS (Auto-Balancing System) which uses tiny steel balls in enclosed ring to minimize vibrations during operations. Between the time the disc starts to spin, and the time it attains prefect balance, the steel balls will continue moving until they have found the ideal "resting" location.

      Loose parts when moving the CD-ROM drive: In the application of the ABS system, the steel balls are allowed to move around in the ring shaped encasings with little or no friction to ensure the proper placement. However, this means they are free to move when the drive is shook, tilted, or moved in such a way that changes in the plane of the CD-ROM drive has changed direction.

    9. Re:CD drives! by manavendra · · Score: 1

      I have found that most things that start with "F" and that too in caps, tend to make a lot of noise.

      Change your driveletter, for fast results! :-

      --
      http://efil.blogspot.com/
    10. Re:CD drives! by meringuoid · · Score: 1
      Backup, backup, backup. Done the backup yet? Good. Now replace it on warranty.

      Over a year old, alas. Probably the same model as the one you've got, as well - the 80 gig job. I'll probably get a nice new disk - couple of hundred gig - for the serious stuff, and use the rattly one for all those games on the other side of the dual boot, the ones I can just reinstall anyway should the worst happen :-)

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    11. Re:CD drives! by noidentity · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Nevermind the noise from the actual PC - that's bareable! It's my CD drive that drives me insane!...A while ago, I'm sure I read a review for a "quiet" CD drive, but I haven't found it since.... Old quad-speed drives were never like that!"

      I use an old Mac and wrote an app that slows the 4x CD drive down to 1x for mp3 CDs as 150KB/sec is plenty of bandwidth. Since a 128kbps mp3 uses under 15KB/sec bandwidth, the CD could theoretically spin at 0.1x.

    12. Re:CD drives! by yuri+benjamin · · Score: 1

      This will temporarily degrade your CDROM to a quiet 20-speed model, if you run the correct OS, that is.

      You gave some hdparm command for the OP to try, but you may have missed his reference to F: which suggests he might be using the other OS. Thanks for the hint though, I'll try it since I use the "correct" OS :-)

      As an aside - just to stir a little - what's more intuitive? F: or /mnt/cdrom?

      --
      You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
  28. Not fed up here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Fed up with the monotonous whirring emanating from your PC?"

    No, not really. Get a name brand PC instead of a generic piece of crap. Believe it or not, name brand PC cases are actually designed to be quiet.

    1. Re:Not fed up here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nyuck nyuck
      Good one Michael. I can't believe all the big names in tech posting here these days. I was having a blast in that BASIC thread.
      BG

    2. Re:Not fed up here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously dude... I remember when I used to assemble my own PC. Those were always loud and overall unreliable. I had to crack open the case often (although i was interested in the parts so I didnt mind).

      Eventually you get bored with building your own PCs though and buy a brand name. The initial extra $50 saves worlds more time over the long haul. And the power supply fan is actually QUIET.

    3. Re:Not fed up here by ewilts · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Let me get my 2 cents in and state that my Dell PowerEdge Server 400SC is *VERY* quiet. One morning I walked over to it to turn it on and accidentaly turned it off, forgetting that I left it on overnight. You really have to stick your ear near to it to see if it's on or not. The CD isn't silent, but the rest of the system sure is. I've been buying PCs since 1981 and this is by far the quietest system I've ever had. When my next system gets replaced, it will also be a Dell. My office Dell dekstop is quiet too.

      --
      .../Ed
    4. Re:Not fed up here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ditto. I've got a 400SC too, and yes it really is that quiet. (and yes, I've turned mine off by accident too).

      With my ear next to the box, I can't hear it over the house ventilation running -- and the vent's about 20 feet away.

    5. Re:Not fed up here by Glonoinha · · Score: 1

      And they're cheap too! I just checked, baseline model is running $399 minus a $100 rebate (God I hate fscking rebates, but ...) for a grand total of $299 delivered to your house, one year on-site warranty.

      P4/2.4GHz with HT
      128M DDR pc3200 (I recommend add more)
      40G IDE
      No OS, has drivers for Windows and/or RedHat
      Gigabit NIC
      Keyboard/Mouse/48x CD

      Evidently has an AGP slot for upgrading the video, but expect no support for this.

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  29. Think Cheap by stecoop · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The goal of silencing a PC is thinking like the cheapest man you have ever known.

    Start with the Case - Aluminum is the best but really expensive a cheapo person would make a case out of wood (im sure your going to do this one).

    Next the Case Fans - yeah you can buy those fancy isolators, better yet use silicon to "glue" the fans to the outlets.

    Hard Drive - Noisy little beast you can actually have it free hanging in the pc or use zip ties to isolate it from the case. Or you can sandwich it in between two thick sheets of copper or aluminum (wouldn't use wood here) and put bolts at the corners and tighten lightly.

    CPU cooler - hmm can't use the fans from a hair drier, any other ideas?

    The Actual Fans - ball bearing last longer and are a little more expensive, better go with the sleeve bearings because they are quieter. Also if the fan gets noisy peel the off sticker (half way so you can re-stick it) on back and drop some 3n1 oil in the hole.

    Placement - get the computer off of the desktop and put it into a ventilated box. I have been thinking about building a small box with a regular household box fan on the back having a solenoid start the fan when the computer is on.

    1. Re:Think Cheap by kfg · · Score: 1

      Hard Drive

      Velcro "Dots."

      KFG

    2. Re:Think Cheap by Enry · · Score: 2, Informative

      Aluminum is the best but really expensive a cheapo person would make a case out of wood

      Not this again.

      Fer crying out loud. There's a number of reasons to build a case out of aluminum. The most important one is it's conductive. Any radiation coming off the motherboard/CPU/PCI cards gets blocked by the case and then goes to ground, preventing it from interfering with other devices around it. Open up any standard PC (or Apple or Sun or...) and you'll see the inside full of metal.

      If you use something that's nonconductive (plastic or wood), then the radiation just blasts out and makes your TV/radio fuzzy. Wonder not why your 2.4Ghz phone or WiFi isn't working.

      If you want to line the outside with wood, that's fine. But leave the metal case!

      (not an RF engineer, but worked with them and took many products for FCC testing - all made of metal)

    3. Re:Think Cheap by FireFury03 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hard Drive - Noisy little beast you can actually have it free hanging in the pc

      In my experience, hard drives don't take well to being free-hanging. One of my drives died very soon after I tried suspending it from rubber to keep the noise down and I've heard other people say that rubber mountings can impact the seek times of the drive.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    4. Re:Think Cheap by SubtleNuance · · Score: 1

      never mind aluminum, use this cardboard case. Simple, cheap and easy.

      Aluminum requires a TONNE of energy to produce -- have a read about Embodied Energy. Do a search on embodied energy -- it will change the way you think about consumption, pollution and the solution to sustainability.

    5. Re:Think Cheap by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      I agree, but this also tends to shoot down the dumb cases with case windows. Oh no, the "true geek" must have windows on his computer case. Sure.

    6. Re:Think Cheap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah i have alot of my harddrive fail cause i move so many parts around. i had about 4 drive fail this last year cause i kept laying them on the carpet, unplugging them while runnging, hot starting them, bounce testing them while running. im much more careful with the drive when they go out of warranty.

    7. Re:Think Cheap by Suidae · · Score: 1

      CPU cooler - hmm can't use the fans from a hair drier, any other ideas?

      Big-ass passive heatsink, cardboard ducting, and a small squirrel-cage fan from a photocopier. Run it at low voltage and it will be quiet and still move far more air than those puny CPU fans.

      I can't hear anything over my HEPA filter anyway, and I could sleep in a sawmill, so I don't worry much about computer noise.

    8. Re:Think Cheap by dpilot · · Score: 1

      Or keep the wood case, and find some way to line it with metal. Two thoughts come to mind:
      Easiest, get a conductive paint and spray the inside, and use a washer/bolt for electrical contact. Finding the paint might be the easiest, though aluminum paint (contains real aluminum dust as the pigment) is fairly easy to find, and should be sufficiently conductive.
      Slightly harder, paint the inside with some form of adhesive, and fit aluminum foil to it, electrically contact with same washer/bolt/

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    9. Re:Think Cheap by stecoop · · Score: 1

      I keep forgetting about the RF stuff. I too don't have a Plexiglas port to see inside because of the RF. I was actually thinking about the total Plexiglas cases from Lubic and replacing the clear stuff with wood. The frames aren't very expensive - got keep cheap in min, ya know.

    10. Re:Think Cheap by Enry · · Score: 1

      For that to work, you'd need to make the equivalent of a faraday cage. Take a look at the old case and make any airholes the same size.

      Also be sure you have metal overlapping, as gaps beween sheets of metal will allow it to radiate out. Take a look at the existing case and all the metal bits sticking out all over the place on panels for ideas.

      And remember, as the CPU speeds increase, the wavelenghts get shorter, and the holes that they can radiate out of get smaller. It would stink if Moore's Law gets stopped not by IBM but by the FCC.

    11. Re:Think Cheap by xSauronx · · Score: 1
      wheni moved out and got married, i needed a pc desk...so i bought one - one that had a cabinet to put the pc tower in. great noise reduction; but the solid door, and the backing that covered too much of the back of the tower didnt allow any airflow; and for an overclocker i needed air.

      solution? i borrowed a drill and a hole-saw; hole in front cabinet door, lower, lined up with a cheap and quiet intake fan; and a hole in the back panel so the psu could exhaust the hot air out of the cabinet. cool, and quiet. im so glad i got the one with the cabinet.

      --
      By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
    12. Re:Think Cheap by Angst+Badger · · Score: 1

      Start with the Case - Aluminum is the best but really expensive a cheapo person would make a case out of wood (im sure your going to do this one).

      This isn't cheap, it's smart. I've often wondered why no one seems to try building the case out of a relatively soft wood like pine or even particle board. Sure, it would be ugly, but it would also dampen the vibrations, especially from the hard drives. Now, mind you, I have seen wooden cases before, but they've mostly been fancy hardwood cases, which will only make things worse -- there's a reason that guitars and violins are made from hardwoods: they transmit vibrations better.

      --
      Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
    13. Re:Think Cheap by stecoop · · Score: 1

      Here you go, not cheap but not ugly either: Exoticwoodcrafts

    14. Re:Think Cheap by aonifer · · Score: 1

      Aluminum cases suck for sound damping. It's true that an aluminum case of the same mass as a steel case would damp sound better, but most aluminum cases are built to be lighter, hence less massive, hence less intertia and less ability to damp sound waves.

    15. Re:Think Cheap by ACPosterChild · · Score: 1

      Actually, gluing aluminum foil to the sides is fine. Copper foil would be best. Might be able to find it at a hobby shop (I remember doing copper punch-outs as a kid). But you'll either want a large single sheet per side or very well connected pieces (along the lines of soldering); which is another reason that you'll probably have to settle for Al foil, and most likely will want to buy a roll of wide stuff.

      On the edges of removable sides, roll the Al a few times to make it "puffy" so that the metal edges have good connection with eachother. Make sure to ground as many of the non-removable sides as possible (a wire soldered to the chassis of the power supply should be fine).

  30. Or /. it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's probably faster. :-)

  31. Cool and quiet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Only use Seagate drives
    2. Only use Pabst fans (replace all of them)
    3. (optional) Thermaltake Hardcano12

    I run a rack-mount digital audio rig with 4 hard drives and 2 processors, and the loudest thing on the system is when the mirrored audio drives start crunching.

  32. Wonder how it scales by grahamlee · · Score: 1

    My PCs and workstations are generally quite quiet (apart from the black slab, which has one of the loudest Seagate disks I've ever heard) and I can get to sleep with all of them on. But then I work at silly times and often just drop off anyway :-). I'd like to see a silent cooling mechanism for a Sun Enterprise 450 though; those bleeders ARE loud! And I can't justify turning off the mail/NFS/apps server whenever I want a bit of shuteye...

    1. Re:Wonder how it scales by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see a silent cooling mechanism for a Sun Enterprise 450 though

      It's called a door. You put one between the e450 and everybody else - instant silent computing.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    2. Re:Wonder how it scales by grahamlee · · Score: 1

      That won't work in my building, but it's a nice idea. We used to have a separate server room but it was converted into an office, so now the servers sit in the systems office.

    3. Re:Wonder how it scales by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      We used to have a separate server room but it was converted into an office

      That'll be fun when the janitor unplugs the servers ao he can vacuum.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    4. Re:Wonder how it scales by grahamlee · · Score: 1

      It was actually the flooding that did us in a few years ago.

  33. How about an Epia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps I'm being a luddite here, but it seems to me most anything can be done with a single 1Ghz CPU that has to be done on a single CPU such as viewing a movie. Other things like 3D rendering or even video compression can usually be easily adapted to a group of lower powered machines.

  34. keep it away by CrystalChronicles · · Score: 1

    Keep the computer case in the basement... no wait, keep it upstairs!

    1. Re:keep it away by Dok+Fenderson · · Score: 1

      But won't your parents get pissed off at it then?

      --
      "You can't screw the system, but you can give it a good fondling." -- Too lazy to look it up
    2. Re:keep it away by CrystalChronicles · · Score: 1

      Better them than me!

  35. Mine Doubles As A Space Heater by reallocate · · Score: 1

    Not only is my machine too noisy, it sees double duty as a very expensive space heater. All the heat those noisy fans are removing has gotta go somewhere.

    --
    -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    1. Re:Mine Doubles As A Space Heater by Naffer · · Score: 1

      I can attest to that. My small room's temperature rises noticeably when I'm playing games or rendering video. I've recently given up, pulled the side of my case off and aimed a tabletop fan at it.

    2. Re:Mine Doubles As A Space Heater by anti-trojan · · Score: 1

      The more fans you add, the more your room's temperature will rise. Conservation of energy.

      --
      Virus infects both Windows and Linux!
  36. Imagine... by manavendra · · Score: 1

    If Dell (or any other vendor) started selling such "silent" PCs, a large number of calls would be "My computer does not work!" and the customer support establishing that it works, but just doesn't make any noise indicating it works!

    Heck, my granny thought the new fridge was b0rked when it didn make a noise (as opposed to her quaint old one that made "comforting" noises every few minutes)

    --
    http://efil.blogspot.com/
    1. Re:Imagine... by zippity8 · · Score: 1


      Dell PCs are pretty quiet -- not as quiet as some others, but they do a good job.

      The ones that I've seen have a large exhaust fan and a pretty solid case.

  37. Noise reduction per dollar by hankwang · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The article shows how the noise level goes down by taking more and more measures, with the biggest noise reduction at the last step. However, this is deceptive since the noise is on a dB (i.e., logaritmic) scale. If his test computer produced 100 units of noise to start with, then the reductions were:

    73 units (low-noise case fans, 40 pounds)
    5.5 units (low-noise power supply, 90 pounds)
    9.6 units (CPU/GPU cooling, 75 pounds)
    5.2 units (acoustic materials and HD enclosure, 128 pounds)
    5.8 units (resistors on case fans, 0 pounds)
    1.3 units (remaining)

    So, by far the most bang for the bucks is in the case fans (with resistors), accounting for 79% of the noise. The worst deal is the acoustic materials and HD enclosure, which cost a whopping 128 pounds for only 5% of the total noise.

    --
    Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
    1. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by MrIrwin · · Score: 5, Informative
      "However, this is deceptive since the noise is on a dB scale"

      It's not deceptive as noise is also perceived on a logarithmic scale by humans.

      --

      And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)

    2. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by The+Fun+Guy · · Score: 1

      Getting rid of the biggest noisemakers obviously has the biggest absolute impact. That's the cheapest and most effective first step. However, once you've removed the fans and made a regular PC quiet, going from quiet to *very* quiet gets trickier, and more expensive. The costs start to rise exponentially, and the 90/10 rule comes into play... getting rid of the last 10% of the noise costs as much as the first 90% did.

      Is it worth all that extra money to go from a 91% quiet machine to a 96% quiet machine? In a newly quiet room, that soft little whine of the disk drive (which was masked by the loud case/CPU fans) is suddenly an issue; you certainly notice its absence when you switch to a Barracuda. The *percieved* improvement in the noise environment is subjective.

      --
      The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 4, Funny

      73 units (low-noise case fans, 40 pounds)
      5.5 units (low-noise power supply, 90 pounds)
      9.6 units (CPU/GPU cooling, 75 pounds)
      5.2 units (acoustic materials and HD enclosure, 128 pounds)

      Were any other Americans, like myself, sitting there thinking "damn, that's one heavy computer!"

      --
      $8.95/mo web hosting
    4. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by hankwang · · Score: 4, Informative
      It's not deceptive as noise is also perceived on a logarithmic scale by humans.

      Certainly the human ear works like that, but if you want to make a decision how to spend your money, it's hard to compare numbers in dB. In the original test, you might have read something like:

      case fans: 5 dB
      PSU:1 dB
      GPU/CPU: 2.5 dB
      Materials/enclosure: 2 dB
      low-voltage resistor:7.5 dB.

      This may lead you to believing that replacing the fans AND adding the resistor together will give you 12.5 dB noise reduction, while the rest gives you only 5.5 dB extra for . It is not meaningful to use dB in this situation, where you take out one noise source after the other. It would be meaningful to use dB if one were discussing an isolating enclosure for the whole computer.

      --
      Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
    5. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by noidentity · · Score: 1


      73 units (low-noise case fans, 40 pounds)
      5.5 units (low-noise power supply, 90 pounds)
      9.6 units (CPU/GPU cooling, 75 pounds)
      5.2 units (acoustic materials and HD enclosure, 128 pounds)
      5.8 units (resistors on case fans, 0 pounds)

      Man I'd hate to buy these things mail-order and pay the shipping cost!

    6. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by KUHurdler · · Score: 1

      no, I was still trying to figure out why he had 73 case fans.

      --
      Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
    7. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      It is not meaningful to use dB in this situation, where you take out one noise source after the other.

      Or rather, if you use measurments in decibels, you have to use the correct mathematics.

      5 dB + 7.5 dB != 12.5 dB.

    8. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by lezerno · · Score: 1

      The following rules may be used to combine dB levels of two sources.

      When the differnce between two sources is 1 dB or less add 3 dB to the higher level to obtain the total.
      When the difference is 2 to 3, add 2 dB
      When the difference is 4 to 8, add 1 dB
      When the difference is 9 dB or more, ignore the lower source.

    9. Re:Noise reduction per dollar by maximilln · · Score: 1

      Well, human hearing is modelled to be on a logarithmic scale because the logarithmic scale best fits the empirical data. Nature doesn't conform to models but models can describe nature. Human hearing is actually much more complex than logarithmic.

      All in all, though, you're right. For all practical purposes human hearing is on a logarithmic scale. There are outlying factors and special cases but, for hte most part, it doesn't make any difference.

      --
      +++ATHZ 99:5:80
  38. mini-itx by sshtome · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I didn't read the article cos it was already trodden on by the time I got there.

    but I built a fanless PC for less than $300 using a Mini-itx mother board, it's quite good.

    I installed the 17cmx17cm mainboard in the cardboard box it came in. It's small and quiet... I should've bought a quieter hard drive though.

    Useful links:
    linitx.com /linitx.org
    mini-itx.com
    via.com.tw

    I think I must've missed why this is news.

  39. Nvidia Card Noise by JSkills · · Score: 1
    I'm pretty happy with my rig at home, but every now any then it would start to hum pretty loudly. After a little investigation, it turned out to be the fan on my nvidia GForce 4200 card.

    A lot of posts online said the solution was to buy and install a new fan for the card. I simply tried taking the fan apart and squirting a little WD40 (no kidding) into the bottom of the where the fan connects to the base. Seems to work each time.

    But let's face it, most PCs (or even my Tivos) are (almost) a little too loud for ubiquitous use in the home. I still have them all set up, but wish they were a bit quieter ...

    1. Re:Nvidia Card Noise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WD-40 is a very bad choice as it contains compounds that canbreak down plastic... you are slowly destroying your fan. A much better choice is 3-n-1 or sewing machine oil, neither of which are harmful to plastic.

    2. Re:Nvidia Card Noise by JSkills · · Score: 1

      Thank you very much for that. Clearly, I didn't know exactly what I was doing ...

  40. Silence is bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a silent PC I can't tell if its on.. so i have to sit on the keyboard till it beeps to check if its on.

  41. Pick two by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    out of the following:

    Cool running, Fast, Silent

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    1. Re:Pick two by jubei · · Score: 1

      Fast, Quiet, Cheap: pick two.

    2. Re:Pick two by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      Cool running, Fast, Silent

      I picked the first and the third. I just leave my computer off all the time.

    3. Re:Pick two by Laebshade · · Score: 1

      Cool running, Fast, Silent

      Picking two of these options are only necessary in a less-than-optimal fan-based cooling system. Perhaps you should add some other options to it:

      cool running, fast, silent, big/small.

      I remember reading on overclockers.com about a guy who used a lot of copper pipes to achieve great passive heat dissipation. He had no fans in his system except the PSU. The copper tubing setup sat in his garage. It was as long as a common compact car and roughly 2/3's as wide. Very cool.

    4. Re:Pick two by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      You can have all three if you sacrifice "cheap"

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  42. Poor silent server by Comatose51 · · Score: 1

    Poor thing never even made a whimper before it died by Slashdotting.

    --
    EvilCON - Made Famous by /.
    1. Re:Poor silent server by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's probably using the silent fans it's purporting.

  43. What I use by The_Quinn · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use Thermaltake's volcano, which has this little knob that I can turn the fan up or down, depending on if the CPU temp is going up or not. Also, on my other computer, I hooked the Volcano fan up to a hardcano hard drive case. It sits in one of your 5 1/4 bays, and via a probe, monitors your CPU temp so you can see it on the front of your PC. Plus Hardcano hooks up to Volano, providing a fan speed/volume adjustment on the face of hardcano.

    --
    Mine is Good
  44. HA! bet this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet even his quiet cooling methods are shot now as the server's cooling fan is set to overdrive for this /.ing

  45. Here's a Totally Silent PC. by gregarican · · Score: 4, Informative

    Get a VIA EPIA system (see here for details). They have a fanless CPU and power supply. Plus the boards are small enough that you can build a PC that's the size of a Gamecube (or smaller). Their mainboards run as small as 12cm x 12 cm!

    1. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by deranged+unix+nut · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have the fanless EPIA mini-itx board, I am posting from a computer running on it in fact, and overall, it works pretty well but there are a few drawbacks:

      1) It isn't 100% silent when you add in the hard drives.
      2) If you want a fanless system, you are limiting the speed at which you can run.

      That said, I traded a dual celeron 400mhz setup for a single proc 600mhz fanless setup and I don't notice the speed difference.

      One other up-side is that I was able to mount it all in a set-top box case and it sits in my stereo cabinet right next to my audio equipment and the only noise is from the hard drives. It is so quiet that I am highly considering swapping my other 4 systems over to mini-itx fan-less boards.

    2. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by gregarican · · Score: 1
      I use mine in my home entertainment center. Use the TV out and a wireless kb/trackball combo from the couch. Works fine.

      As for the hard drive noise I went for a laptop HDD and use a 44-to-40 pin adapter to plug it into the mainboard. It cuts down on the noise significantly. Now the CD drive is the loudest thing. But that noise is sporadic and minimal.

    3. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by bukharin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Get a VIA EPIA system

      This is what I've done for my home entertainment system. The entire box (which is nice and small and pure black) is fanless, and in fact has no moving parts at all. It boots into freevix over the network, and accesses my server's music via NFS. I control it with a LIRC remote control, so it's basically just like another component in the stereo system - except with about 40 gigs of music. Very cool!

    4. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      That said, I traded a dual celeron 400mhz setup for a single proc 600mhz fanless setup and I don't notice the speed difference.

      How can that be? From the benchmarks I've seen, a 400MHz Celeron kicks the shit out of VIA's 600Mhz chip. What are you running on this machine? I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I've always been afraid of the performance loss.

    5. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      What case are you using?

    6. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, you must be running windows XP, it doesn't make a difference if you add another 32 cpus, you'll see slight performance increase as compared to linux-2.6.
      uncompressing large archives while doing other things is much faster, even a slower system will be more RESPONSIVE (not necesary faster, but less delay to START running a command).

      ~omi

    7. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by bukharin · · Score: 1

      One of these

      I could have got a smaller one, but I wanted space for a HD just in case the network booting did. In fact, it works like a dream. :)

    8. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by bukharin · · Score: 1

      In case the network booting didn't work, that is!

    9. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by deranged+unix+nut · · Score: 1

      I am not doing anything high-intensity on these boxes, just email, web surfing, MP3s, word processing, light software development, etc.

      My dual 400 mhz celeron system was a very early one with a cheap motherboard, so it may have had abnormally slow performance.

    10. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by jhunsake · · Score: 1

      What case are using? Is it totally fanless?

      Thanks for the info...

    11. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC. by deranged+unix+nut · · Score: 1

      I am using a gutted set-top-box case. It has no fan and is about the same footprint and half as tall as a series 1 TiVo box.

  46. Water cooling is not just for overclockers by (H)elix1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've built a couple audio work stations where I was stuck constructing a machine where the PC and disk were in the recording booth. Bloody propriety card/connectors would not let me move the machines out of the room.

    Anyhow.. I watercooled the disk, CPU, chipset, and power supply. No fans and the SCSI drives were enclosed well enough the 'audiophile' found the ambient noise acceptable. (I did not hear anything) Since I was not using any of the overclocking peltier kits, the coolant ran just above room temperature so I did not have any condensation issues a lot of people have. The copper tubing piped to another room where it dumped the heat. Worked great, though you did not move it around.

    --
    +++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
    1. Re:Water cooling is not just for overclockers by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      My friend has a Koolance water-cooled case. It's nice - one of the quietest cases I've seen, and keeps the hardware cool too. Once you include all the water blocks and such it's about $400 though.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  47. Or... by mbbac · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or you could always get an iMac. It has a fan that only comes on when the machine needs assistence for its chimney effect for removing heat.

    --

    mbbac

    1. Re:Or... by mbbac · · Score: 1

      It's sad that even in this thread of conversation you can't see that there is one company striving to give people quiet computers. Instead you have to go off topic and flippantly bash them based off of incorrect notions formed years ago by you or someone you know.

      --

      mbbac

  48. Undervolting by w00d00 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    search google for "undervolting". it worked for me - i undervolted an old amd t-bird 1.3ghz to 1.3 volts at 1ghz. i have no fan on the cpu or on the bridge. check "athcool" for linux, my computer stays under 70 centigrade and is _may_ more silent :-)

    1. Re:Undervolting by monkeyfinger · · Score: 1

      Google for Undervolting

  49. No, I'm not. by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 1

    Because my PC boots off the LAN and does little more than start an X server. No hard disk, no PSU fan, no CPU fan. It's eerily silent.

    HTH

    --
    Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
  50. Do what I do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and take your hearing aids out at night. If you don't have hearing aids, try going to a few of the Metallica and Grateful Dead concerts mentioned recently.

  51. A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by Emor+dNilapasi · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) Antec Sonata case with Antec Tru-Power 330W power supply and low-noise 92mm case fan. Essentially silent. $90 at provantage.com

    2) CoolerMaster DP5-7JD1B CPU cooler. Barely audible. $10 at directron.com

    3) Any Maxtor hard drive with an FDB (fluid dynamic bearing) motor. Essentially silent. ~$100 at your favorite cheapo online store.

    I built this with an XP2600+ CPU, and it's quieter than the fan in my TFT display (don't ask). It makes just enough noise that I can tell that it's running, and I can still hear the quiet ticking of the clock behind me.

    1. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by slide-rule · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'll definitely attest to the FDB hard drives for near-silent operation. All my main drives are now FDB. Second to this, some manufacturers do make nice/quiet optical drives... I recently bought a Sony combo drive (it was just under $100 at the neighborhood store) and I have to check the drive light to make sure it's doing anything. My biggest noise source right now with three PC's all running is the cheapo power supply on one of them (which I can't change since, thanks to the cheapo case, I can't seem to extricate).

    2. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by bhima · · Score: 1

      Why, on earth, would you have a fan in your TFT display?

      --
      Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    3. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by Emor+dNilapasi · · Score: 1

      You were TOLD not to ask! :)

      It's a Sony 20" LCD monitor; my guess is the fan keeps the fluorescent tubes cool.

    4. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by c_oflynn · · Score: 1

      Could also be for the power supply that the TFT display uses.

    5. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What video card (and cooler for it) are you using?

    6. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by Thag · · Score: 1

      I have 2 Antec Sonata cases now. They're silent, and pretty, and very nice to work with. Accept no substitute.

      For a CPU cooler, I'm using one of the Zalman copper flowers. It comes with a fan on a metal arm that you're supposed to install to blow air over the cooler. Don't install the fan: with a Sonata case your CPU heat sink is directly in front of a 120mm exhaust fan, so you don't need it.

      Jon Acheson

      --
      All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
    7. Re:A quiet PC for ~$200 (US) by ilsie · · Score: 3, Informative

      1) Antec Sonata case with Antec Tru-Power 330W power supply and low-noise 92mm case fan. Essentially silent. $90 at provantage.com

      2) CoolerMaster DP5-7JD1B CPU cooler. Barely audible. $10 at directron.com

      3) Any Maxtor hard drive with an FDB (fluid dynamic bearing) motor. Essentially silent. ~$100 at your favorite cheapo online store.

      Unfortunately, Essentially silent + Barely Audible + Essentially silent = Sorta Loud. After months of messing with low speed panaflos, vibration damping mat, custom power supplies, etc. I bought a sonata with great anticipation and was dismayed when I turned it on and it was louder than my custom job. By a lot.

  52. It's called a "machine room". by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 1

    "I'd like to see a silent cooling mechanism for a Sun Enterprise 450 though"

    All of mine are completely silenced by Machine Room 2000. Sure, it's a couple of years old now but it still keeps all of my machines cold and silent.

    --
    Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
  53. Everything is relative, said Einstein by saunabad · · Score: 2, Funny

    If my PC's noise starts to annoy me, I'll just switch on my SPARCstation for a while. After that it feels somehow very silent and comfortable over here.

  54. Silent PC webserver by spoodie · · Score: 1

    Simply post it's URL on slashdot, it will soon go quiet but possibly start smoldering too.

    --
    I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines.
  55. My Method by kpogoda · · Score: 1

    I always preferred just shutting it off. :)

  56. Whoa by Paulrothrock · · Score: 1

    That must be one quiet server... piles of ashes are usually really quiet.

    --
    I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
  57. Silent web sites? by Woogiemonger · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Well, I don't know about quiet computers, but the best way to silence a web site seems to be to post it on /.

  58. Move it further away from you .. by Jon_E · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While I don't hold an advanced degree in acoustics, I've typically found that sound tends to decrease with distance (separated by walls, floors, doors, etc) - so why not simply put it in the basement and do an IC based terminal server (no fan) and a CRT display .. used effectively you could put in a grid and have enough compute power for the whole family .. hmmm

    1. Re:Move it further away from you .. by evilviper · · Score: 2, Insightful
      why not simply put it in the basement and do an IC based terminal server (no fan) and a CRT display

      Maybe because people don't like having to go into another room, just to swap CDs/DVDs...
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  59. Shut up by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 2, Funny

    My computer has voice reckognition software installed. So to start my Shut Down script I've recorded this phrase:
    "Shut the fuck up!"
    Cool.

  60. And that's exactly what I did by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 1

    My solution was to put my web server and main computer in an old sauna that we since turned into a closet (I don't have many sauna/fondue parties these days). It's completely quiet, the sauna being well insulated.

    I run a bunch of wires through the wall for my monitor, speakers, and such, though I'm using wireless where possible. I even went as far as creating a "control panel" in the wall for my web server. It's an LCD monitor set in a metal panel, with some buttons and LEDs for turning on the two computers.

    The only reason I have to run back into the sauna is to switch CDs, which is fairly rare these days. Now I just need to replace my CRT monitor with a flat screen as it has now become the loudest piece of equipment. Well, except for typing on the keyboard. I think I have to wait for brain interfaces before I can replace that.

  61. Re:Slashdot Effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do you spell /.? The website told me straight up that it spells it "Service Unavailable".

  62. I was considering doing this: by xaoslaad · · Score: 3, Informative

    $145 Fanless 600 MHz motherboard and processor
    $55 12V Power converter
    $25 12V Power adapter
    Free (own one), otherwise ~$42 or ~$80 for 512MB, or $178 for 2.2GB if you really want to go nuts.
    $20 Compact Flash to IDE adapter
    $216 1GB PC2100 RAM for VIA EPIA-M
    $60 Aluminium Micro-ATX case; rip out the PSU
    $62 80GB Seagate Barracuda IVOptional cause if your like me you store lots of junk... (quietest 5,400/7,200 RPM disk they make), set to aggressively spin down when not accessing your p*rn, mp3, software, etc. Collection:

    Total: $583
    Completely silent PC: Priceless

    Not the fastest server on earth, but faster than my p166 POS running Linux just fine; would completely silent (no fans) or at least it is when you're not accessing your p*rn, mp3, software, etc., collection if you go with the HDD. Only pain in the *** would be using syslinux to boot... and of course I don't know about using a RAM disk to run the system, and CF might take all the writes and rerwites over lord only knows how much use... but it's the start of an idea I've been kicking around...

    Would be an interesting project though..

  63. Quick Question... by 2names · · Score: 1

    Why hasn't someone put a Sonic Breeze type device in for cooling? It is absolutely silent and moves lots of air.

    --
    "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
  64. ultimate silence by WormholeFiend · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I put my pc case in another room using extension cables. Door closed. I dont hear a thing!

    1. Re:ultimate silence by bloody · · Score: 1

      What then of media? CDs, Jaz drive, whatever.. or do you just use a USB extension cable and those keychain memory sticks?

    2. Re:ultimate silence by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

      That's my main problem... loading and changing CDs.

      And occasionally transferring video from my MiniDV, but once firewired, I can control everything from within Premiere.

      but those are trivial issues compared to the benefit of noise elimination.

      Right now I only have an internal CDR burner, but I've been thinking about getting an external DVD burner just so I can have it on my desk instead of in that other room with the case.

    3. Re:ultimate silence by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2, Informative

      seriously, same here.

      I've been preaching the wonders of VNC and remote thin computing for a while now.

      my development box (7/24 always up) is a dual xeon in the far bedroom; and its quite noisy to be sure (raid, 2 cpus, 24pin style server power supply, etc).

      in the living room, where my 'terminal' is, and where I want quiet, I have either XP or freebsd or linux (any/all; its a tri-boot system) and all can run vnc client just fine.

      the 2 systems are connected with a single point-point gig-E cable and both systems run gig-E. since there's no router (cheap one) or switch, I can set the MTU to 9000 for jumbo frames and really get remote computing feeling like local computing.

      when I run the vnc client, my window moves (I still use a very old fvwm desktop) in opaque mode STILL seem like its a local machine that is doing the desktop; when in fact, its the remote dual cpu system in the noisyroom doing the real work.

      another benefit is that I can turn off my vnc viewer any/every day and when I power it up again and re-launch vncviewer, my desktop is STILL WHERE I LEFT IT and in the same state. I can get uptimes in the MONTHS and vnc holds my state just nicely (at the server side).

      and while I'm a staunch unix supporter, for vnc CLIENT (mind you) vncviewer over xp or win2k is faster than running the viewer on unix. (probably due to not having to go thru as many layers when run on unix vs. windows). for server, since I do all my devel work on freebsd, that dual cpu box is a freebsd 4.9-stable system.

      I'll tell ya, vncviewer on windows (very thin client) and vncserver on freebsd is a VERY VERY usable setup. and it helps keep my local box quiet (the whole point of this rant) since I don't need my disk farm next to me in the quiet room, I don't need a super fast cpu or lots of fans. and in fact, if I run linux as my viewer, I can boot diskless from a cdrom, run vncclient entirely from ram and there will be NO spinning disk noise from my quiet room system.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    4. Re:ultimate silence by JRManuel · · Score: 1

      Mine goes in the closet and uses a good video card (e.g. ATI Radeon 9600 XT) to drive a digital video signal through a 30-foot DVI cable to an LCD screen. Adding a wireless keyboard/mouse lets me run only one cable to my desk.

      Almost completely quiet AND almost cable-free!

    5. Re:ultimate silence by L1nuxGuy · · Score: 1

      I put my workstations in the server closet and ssh -X to them.

  65. Sorry by 2names · · Score: 1

    I meant Ionic Breeze.

    --
    "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
    1. Re:Sorry by throughthewire · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Ionic Breeze

      You really want to pump ion-laden air through the guts of your computer? I'm thinking your delicate CMOS-based computer doodads won't like that very much.

  66. Just go buy a Mac by aurumaeus · · Score: 1

    You want quiet? Get an iMac, they're pretty, and make very little noise.

    1. Re:Just go buy a Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truthfully, Macs range from super quiet (my iMac has no fan in it) to medium (my iMac flat panel turns the fan on only when needed) to super loud (my dual 1Ghz G4 Quicksilver fans roar louder than my HP 3.0Ghz)

  67. a box for the box by snugge · · Score: 1

    there are plenty soundproof-cases with doors that opens in the front and big noiseless fans for the ventilation. just put your pc in one of those and voila, you have a quiet pc. this solution have worked for me for many years. and i dont have to buy _expensive_ special "quiet" parts for my computers.

  68. My suggestions... by slagish666 · · Score: 2, Informative
    I have a few PCs that are housed in an Antec Sonata Silent case, which is well-constructed and has a quiet power supply and case fan.

    My home rig has an AMD Athlon 2500+ processor, stock CPU fan, but I replaced the heat sink on my video card with a Zalman sandwich-type heatsink (covers front and back of the video card) and a quiet fan that blows on it. I also used an ASUS board, which comes with "Q-Fan" technology, which keeps the CPU fan rotating at a quiet speed unless the CPU is being hit hard. The noise produced is still audible, but it only a quiet 'whoosh' which I find I can live with. Oh, and definitely get Seagate Barracuda hard drives as they are near-slient and the 8MB cache ones are fast, too.

    So, when we needed a few machines at work, I went the same route, and Antec Quiet case, AMD Athlon 64 3400+ processor, Zalman CPU heatsink (flower-type with fan in the middle), Q-Fan turned on in the ASUS board (K8V SE), and Seagate Barracuda drives. These machines are even more quiet than my one at home. AND, what is a miracle is that the CPU fan turns right off until the CPU temp hits 50, then it sturns slowly until the CPU temp is about 40 degrees C. I thought it was broken at first.

    So, it is possible to have a very fast machine that is quiet as well.

    --
    "Consider the lillies of the goddamn field."
  69. Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by imtheguru · · Score: 5, Informative
    I havent had the need to apply any spin down times to my primary drive (Quantum Fireball) as it is very silent even during heavy data transfers. Here is a snippet from my personal HowTo on keeping harddisks quiet.

    Windows solution: Use Multiple Power Profiles

    - Control Panel > Display > Screensaver > Power. Turn off hard disks after x mins. [I have x set to 21 mins]
    - Save As "SLEEP Mode".
    - Set x to "Never", Save As "AWAKE Mode".
    - Under Advanced, check "Always show icon on taskbar".

    Icon appears in System Tray. When awake, use AWAKE Mode power profile and before sleeping, set to SLEEP Mode power profile.

    Linux solution: Use hdparm
    > /path/to/hdparm -y /dev/hdb
    From the hdparm man page: -y
    Force an IDE drive to immediately enter the low power consumption standby mode, usually causing it to spin down.

    Write a little script to include the command for all secondary harddrives.

    Sometimes the secondary drives are woken up for housekeeping jobs and refuse to spin down again... so it might be necessary to include some spindown times in script.
    > /path/to/hdparm -S255 /dev/hdb
    From the hdparm man page: -Svalue
    Set the standby (spindown) timeout for the drive. This value is used by the drive to determine how long to wait (with no disk activity) before turning off the spindle motor to save power. Under such circumstances, the drive may take as long as 30 seconds to respond to a subsequent disk access, though most drives are much quicker. The encoding of the timeout value is somewhat peculiar.

    - Value 0 (zero) means no spindown will occour.
    - Values from 1 to 240 specify multiples of 5 seconds, for timeouts from 5 seconds to 20 minutes.
    - Values from 241 to 251 specify from 1 to 11 units of 30 minutes, for timeouts from 30 minutes to 5.5 hours.
    - Value of 252 signifies a timeout of 21 minutes.
    - Value of 253 sets a vendor-defined timeout.
    - Value of 255 is interpreted as 21 minutes plus 15 seconds.

    NOTE: Spinning down drives may cause it not to spin again, so backup data often. NOTE: Defragment windows partition often. Boosts speed and keeps drive relatively quiet.
    --
    Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
    A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
    1. Re:Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by njh · · Score: 1

      The problem with this, at least on my Debian system, is that 5 seconds later something touches the disk again, and everything spins up. I've turned off atime, and suspended mozilla, to no effect. Something really likes to check the disk.

    2. Re:Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      The virtual memory subsystem is probably one of the culprits. It seems to love checking on the disk every few seconds.

      I once tried building a Linux PVR (will try again sometime) and wanted the HDD to sleep most of the day and wake up on command (for example, for timed VCR-style TV recordings. I experienced the frustrations you did :) -- I started by turning off all the daemons that could possibly hit disk. IIRC, I eventually got the time between the disk wakeups to be a few minutes when I turned off swap (swapon/swapoff commands). However, the computer (a Via passively cooled MB with brick power supply) would _still_ hit disk after a few minutes.

      I eventually gave up and bought a USB flash memory key (the BIOS lets the computer boot off a USB disk). I hope to try that with one of the distros mentioned in this thread. Got some nice tips from it:
      - mount with noatime option (UNIX acceess times not updated)
      - mount /var/ as a ram disk
      (important since flash has a limit on the number of writes per sector)

    3. Re:Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by njh · · Score: 1

      In my case it's on a laptop. I've set noatime on all the partitions, and I don't have a swap partition. Yet it still randomly wakes up. Any other ideas?

    4. Re:Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by Crazy+Eight · · Score: 1

      Check out noflushd.

    5. Re:Put noisy harddrives to sleep. by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      I wish I knew - I could only succeed in keeping it from hitting the HDD for a few minutes.

      I eventually gave up and will be taking another track: the USB key based distros. These setup RAM drives with a nice side-effect - they don't touch the HDD. So if somehow the HDD is still hit, one can simply unmount it without compromising system stability. (Or a program could mount it read-only, and simply remount it in read/write mode when it anticipates a large amount of data)

      I wish there was some command that would tell what was writing to disk. ... or reading from disk.

      Hmmm... maybe here's what you can do: remount with access time enabled. Then when you see the HDD being hit, run find with the approrpriate flags to see which files (-ctime, -atime ... not sure???) were accessed in the last few minutes. stat gives similar information.

      Also, maybe the 'lsof' command? ("list open files") could show programs keeping files open.
      And maybe (blue-sky) an strace -follow of 'init' and grepping for the 'sync' system call would work:
      strace -p1 -f

      Gee, why didn't I think of this before? :)

  70. Re:Slashdot Effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The new fangled BSOD, there is no escape even if your entire organisation has switched to linux. How about a bsod.css for these fashionable exception.shitty.OS.detected[asp.net] error pages.

  71. The Mac thing... by Simon+Carr · · Score: 1

    Actually has anyone studied their design to figure out how they keep most of their hardware so quiet?

    From my perspective that's part of what I paid for as an eMac owner. It's not 100% silent, but the noise it does make is more of a low hum and isn't disturbing in the least.

    By contrast my self-built AMD sounds like a dragster. There are four fans in total, one on the power, one on the vid card, one big mutha Thermaltake on the CPU (which runs hotter than the sun if it was being microwaved by God) and another fan just to keep ambient heat down. Even then, the box is warm.

    So does anyone have a detailed analisys of how Apple does it? The specs on both boxes are about the same, in fact the eMac has the monitor -built in- and it's still cooler and quieter.

    --
    -- The unsig...
    1. Re:The Mac thing... by mbbac · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, this post obviously isn't well researched (and definitely isn't detailed), but here is why I think Apple is able to make quieter computers.

      Apple starts off with a CPU that produces less heat than others. That's a real good starting point. Then, they select and design components with the goal of a quiet computer in mind. The Cube and iMac were both designed for a chimney effect (the Cube didn't have any fan). The eMac is designed to be well ventilated. The PowerMac G5 is designed with many slower fans and wind channels so that they can get better cooling with less noise.

      Other companies pretty much take a chip from Intel or AMD (which already run pretty hot) and then they take a bunch of other components built by someone else and put them into a case that was designed and built by someone else.

      If I'm incorrect, please point me out to currently shipping computers from other vendors where care and attention was paid to the noise generated.

      --

      mbbac

    2. Re:The Mac thing... by Snover · · Score: 1

      From what I've noticed, Compaq is trying to reduce noise on their latest models, and Dell systems continue to be quite quiet, especially their large clamshell models.

      --

      [insert witty comment here]
  72. Opposite by X-Nc · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I've commented before when this topic has come up but am I the only one who doesn't want a silent system? The general hum is whitenoise and does a great job of helping me stay focused when at work and sleep when at home. A friend of mine recently put together a system for me and he made it as quiet as possible. I had to buy an extra case fan to get it to produce some noise.

    --
    --
    If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
    1. Re:Opposite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup I had a friend who could not sleep without putting a hair dryer under his duvet. He used to go through hair dryers at some rate, they would burn out after a week or so, dangerous! Some people really do have more money than sense.

      I love my 1u racks because I can't hear next doors dogs when I'm trying to work. Thing is I bought these tornado fans for an overheating athlon, one front and one rear. This box now sounds like a jet engine, granted the cpu no longer overheats. I also fitted a tornado fan to a machine downstairs at home, I replaced it with a silent fan recently and there is no way I'm going back. Silence is golden, I need a noise floor when working, but sleep better without it (boxen run 24/7).

  73. Want a completely silent PC? by MikeHunt69 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Zalman have brought out a computer case that is completely silent - no fans or moving parts of any kind, which means no dust. Has support for P4 and Athlon64 (but no Athlon XP sadly).

    1. Re:Want a completely silent PC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. That thing is a quiet as you are *ever* likely to get. Still needs a HD though! (so it's not completely silent..)

    2. Re:Want a completely silent PC? by stecoop · · Score: 1

      This case looks like one of those power distributors outside some office buildings. I wonder where I could buy some surplus power transformers and build my own case simmilar to this. The Zalman TNN 500A is $1,195.95 - not on any of my buy lists.

  74. You are all just unlucky I guess by acidrain69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I grew up with a BBS in my room (high school, middle school age), I'm used to the sound of a PC in my room. I have even gotten my girlfriend used to it. I have an alpha server and I can even sleep with that thing pumping away. It has 2 massive fans on the back to cool the swap bays and 2 PSU's, plus the 2 alpha CPU fans. I almost find it soothing.

    --
    -- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
  75. I like the HUSH machines by matdavis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was tired of all the noise from my machine and bought one of the HUSH ATX machines from Hush Technologies (from Logic Supply) and I'm very happy with it. It's extremely quiet; the only noise I can ever hear is a very slight one from the hard drive occasionaly. No fans at all.

    1. Re:I like the HUSH machines by Schugy · · Score: 1

      I really like that concept and the high efficiency power supply but I only want AMD64-processors.......

  76. UK Silent PC? by bjelkeman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Has any of our European readers managed to check out this supposedly silent machine which was written about at The Register?

    --
    Akvo.org - the open source for water and sanitation
  77. Their Server Must Be British.... by bfg9000 · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    ... I find their Slashdotted error message slightly snooty. As a connoisseur of the fine error messages I sample daily thanks to my friends at Slashdot, I find their error message
    The Server Is Too Busy
    to be a bit obnoxious for someone who's about to crumble like the British Empire.... it sounds as if they've got more *important* things to do than get Slashdotted, or they're too *good* to host visits from the likes of me... All stuck up and self-important, this prissy little server thinks I'm too much of an uncultured *brute* to enjoy her wares. Well, I'll show her who's boss right now.

    ReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReload /
    ReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReloadReloa d

    Oh, man, we're really *hammering* this server. We're unmerciful in our angry onslaught.

    Oh, joy! I take it all back; that was just an interim snooty message. When they finally *did* collapse in submission, thanks in part to my incessant pounding of the reload button, I was blessed and treated with this little gem:
    Server Error in '/' Application.
    Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'.
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'.

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [SqlException: Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'.]
    System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(Co mmandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream) +723
    System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery( ) +194
    System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.Set AsyncWorker(String id, SessionStateItem item, Byte[] buf, Int32 length, Boolean inStorage) +404

    [HttpException (0x80004005): Unable to connect to SQL Server session database.]
    System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.Set AsyncWorker(String id, SessionStateItem item, Byte[] buf, Int32 length, Boolean inStorage) +523
    System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.Sys tem.Web.SessionState.IStateClientManager.Set(Strin g id, SessionStateItem item, Boolean inStorage) +147
    System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule.OnRele aseState(Object source, EventArgs eventArgs) +465
    System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.Http Application+IExecutionStep.Execute() +60
    System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecution Step step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +87

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573
    Ahhh.... complete with .NET message at the bottom. Lovely. So beautiful, and yet so very conquerable. So proud and firm at first, but after a good slapping from the entire Nerds-R-Us football team here at Slashdot, she gave in and admitted her darker inner self.

    Ahhh, that's just like the British; they're all prim and proper until you get them in the bedroom, then they spout off dirty talk like "System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule. OnReleaseState(Object source, EventArgs eventArgs) +465" until you're done with 'em and, satiated, we Slashdotters are praised with this glorious whimper:
    Service Unavailable
    Jeezus. I need a smoke.
    --

    I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."

    1. Re:Their Server Must Be British.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL! Funny stuff. I've never seen a slashdotting personified as a sexual conquest before. Witty.

  78. My idea - loose parts,cool compartment using water by jago25_98 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    - couldn't figure out why all my silentPC sites had all gone down :D

    My idea is to have two layers of glass (or something else waterproof) with damp sand in between, possibily using water or homebrew alcohol

    ^ this liquid then evaporates

    Picture of the idea:
    pic
    Prose and links:
    txt

    More:
    directory

    --
    A blog I run for the wealth
  79. Dells by dokebi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've tried a lot of things and spent a lot of money to quiet my older computers. But when I bought a Dell, (Poweredge 400SC), boy, were they *quiet*! The fans are low-speed, the drives are mounted on rubber mounts, and the power supplies are quiet. All for $250 including tax and shipping. That's a complete system for a price of a barebone. Even their cheapest (2400) models are very quiet. (I've got one). So I don't notice my computers anymore, even sleeping in the same room.

    It goes to show, a little thought in case design can pay off handsomely, and without costing a lot of money.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
    1. Re:Dells by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dell, Poweredge 400SC, starts at $1250. Did you miss a digit in yor post? Boy, this is NOT "for the price of a barebone".

    2. Re:Dells by dokebi · · Score: 1

      And sometimes they have rebate deals (typically $100). That's how mine got to $250 including tax/shipping.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
    3. Re:Dells by dokebi · · Score: 1

      Right now, Dell sells "stripped down" 400SC for $350. I bought mine when they were having a sale, where it dropped to $300 plus a $100 mail-in-rebate. So I got one of those, and it ended up costing me slightly less than $250 for the computer after tax with free shipping. Oh, and it came with RAM, HDD, keyboard, mouse, and CD-ROM.

      And I also like the fact that besides a quiet case, Dell uses decent components--Intel Mobo, Crucial RAM-- so I don't have to worry about stability issues. Sure, I can build a system for $250 using cheap components, but why bother?

      --
      In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
    4. Re:Dells by subterranean · · Score: 1

      Amen brother. I haven't completely transitioned to the 400SC yet, so it's not on all the time. I reached down to turn it on yesterday and realized that it had been on for two days without me noticing. Forget all the silencing crap and just get a case that is well engineered.

  80. d'oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i built a fanless mini-itx with a fanless psu for my living room and a week later my wife bought the worlds noisiest air filter...

  81. its the heat that kills by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I have had a long running battle with PCs and heat vs noise.
    At one point it got so bad that I had a desk fan permenanty setup behind that machine when it was on just to keep the temprature down, of course this was quite noisey!
    I currently have a water cooled system (waterchill) with the pump and radiator/fan outside of the case futhest from me and I plan on building an enclosure for them, (I still have anti accostic foam left over from when i tried that, made hardly any difference).

  82. No way by fstanchina · · Score: 1

    While I agree that getting a PC to be silent is a good idea, I find it mostly useful in situations where there are several of them in the same room and you just can't go away or use big headphones all the time. Think office -- I have two PCs in front of me and another on my side and I am having a hard time convincing the powers that be that it *really* gets on my nerves when I'm trying to concentrate and that making them more silent would be well worth the money.

    However, there's no chance that someone could build a PC silent enough for me to sleep in the same room while it's turned on. Even the most silent drives are unbearable. I can hear the humming noise of the UPS, dammit! (Aaah, silence... That's the advantage of living in a 400 people village, with a 900m mountain between you and the city nearby.) If you don't want to hear your PC, you'll have to put it in another room, period.

  83. It's been done... by Cyno01 · · Score: 1

    linky

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
    1. Re:It's been done... by value_added · · Score: 1

      Elvis would have proud.

  84. My friend said by AviLazar · · Score: 1

    that my computer sounds like a 747 getting ready to take off...

    -A

    --

    I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    1. Re:My friend said by Herz · · Score: 1

      Sounds like my last PC then.. I even put a Pratt & Whitney sticker on it.

      --
      In vino vici
  85. Re:Slashdotted by whiteranger99x · · Score: 1

    I suggest we put the whole server and a cat inside a box.

    Or even better, put the cat inside one of those G4 Cubes and it can double as a bonsai kitten display :)

    --
    Join the TWIT army now!
  86. My Favorite Noise Reduction Technique by Compulawyer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I use a Macintosh G5. Except for all the fans whirring on start-up (which makes it sound like a Ferrari revving up for about 2 seconds) it is almost completely silent.

    --

    Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

    1. Re:My Favorite Noise Reduction Technique by evilviper · · Score: 1

      I you think a G5 is silent, either you live in a very cold house (fans are variable speed, based on current tempurature) or you are hard of hearing. It's less noisy than a PC, but it's far from silent.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    2. Re:My Favorite Noise Reduction Technique by Compulawyer · · Score: 1

      Or maybe it is strategically placed so that whatever sound does eminante from it is easily overwhelmed by the music I am usually playing at the time. If I can't hear it, it is silent to me. Cheating with a definition? Perhaps - but at least you know I am cheating.

      --

      Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.

  87. You can do it, but it's not cheap. (~$150) by oneiros27 · · Score: 1
    My neighbor did some wiring at a dentist's office, and they were using video converters to push the signal over Cat5. [they didn't need it so much for the distance, but because the wrong sized conduit was put in the floor. It was cheaper to shell out an extra US$150 per computer than to have the floor jackhammered and repoured]

    You also require an extra power tap at each end for most models, from the research that I did about a year ago.

    Here's a few links, but you'll probably want to do some searching on your own, find some customer feedback, etc -- ... You get the idea. search for 'cat5 VGA' on google for more. Anyway, look 'em over, as they have different ranges, max. resolutions, prices, and some of 'em will also do your PS/2 ports and such.

    I've seen a few computer classrooms set up (Oracle coms to mind), where they keep all of the machines away from the students, so you can't put a disk in... and they had some sort of multiplexor, so the teacher could push her screen down to everyone at once.
    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
    1. Re:You can do it, but it's not cheap. (~$150) by pubjames · · Score: 1

      Thanks. That's very helpful.

  88. What kind of seagates? by beavis88 · · Score: 1

    I seem to remember working on some old Barracudas (probably 10k RPM, UW-SCSI era or so) that sounded about like a huge prop-driven military cargo plane...

  89. Fanboy? by friendscallmelenny · · Score: 1
    I have a 17" lcd imac at home. I would have preferred a more powerful machine but silence is golden if you live in a rathole apartment like mine. It has a fan (variable speed I think) but I have never noticed it before. As I sit here typing on my silent Titanium Powerbook, my work provided PIII is whining away like lawnmower in the background.

    Gives a whole new meaning to "Fanboy" doesn't it.

  90. MacChimney by name_already_taken · · Score: 1
    It was a long cardboard tube that sat on top of the original Mac and created enough draft to increase airflow through the case.

    The original Macs were fanless, but after the analog board heatsink debacle everyone and his brother was selling a cooling gadget for them.

    --
    Putting moderation advice in your .sig lowers your karma!
  91. Missing items -- by oneiros27 · · Score: 1

    A shirt with a collar for when your management gets obsessed with 'people looking professional'.

    [As much as I tried to explain to them, they just wouldn't accept that your average t-shirt has a "crew neck collar", and I was in compliance with their dress code -- they also didn't like that I got an embroidery machine and put 'A COLLAR']

    And don't forget, a club shirt has a collar, even when they're getting picky about the definition of 'collar'.

    And then, you might want to get a nice dress shirt and tie, just in case you have to start looking for a new job. [however, my new work likes my wardrobe...although they told me after the first week that if I wore another tie in, they'd string me up by it.... even by Dogbert or Taz ties]

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  92. Why does XP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    use the disk so much? Like, constantly. I've got gobs of free RAM, so it's not thrashing or anything. When the machine is in an idle state some program called svchost does ~25000 i/o write bytes every second according to task manager. What gives?

    1. Re:Why does XP by NerveGas · · Score: 1


      Why does XP do half of the stuff it does?

      One of my cousins bought an AthlonXP 2000 with a half gig of RAM, and put Windows XP on it. My P3/650 runs faster with Windows 2000, I'm really being honest.

      steve

      --
      Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
  93. Remote PSU ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As the PSU generates much of the noise (and heat) associated with a PC, why not move it outside the computer case? Build a DC power extension cord and place the PSU in the closet.
    In order to minumize the voltage drop you would have to pay attention to the wire guage of such a cable (short fat wires are better than long skinny ones). If this works an added advantage would be the ability to use a PSU that is too large to fit in your case.

  94. case mods by friendscallmelenny · · Score: 1
    I built my case out of chicken wire and straw which gives me that Faraday cage effect and dampens sound. My friends have tried wood and brick with less success.

    Oink.

  95. DriveSpeed & CDBremse by Kulilin · · Score: 1

    If you are running Windows, have you tried Ahead's DriveSpeed and Jörn Fiebelkorn's CD Bremse? These programs allow you to set the read speed of your CD and DVD drives.

    Sometimes they are troublesome (disc change getting sluggish, etc.), but they usually work fine.

    1. Re:DriveSpeed & CDBremse by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1
      If you are running Windows, have you tried Ahead's DriveSpeed and Jörn Fiebelkorn's CD Bremse?
      I'm trying it right now.

      One thing that I noticed is that it is somewhat difficult to test for the proper speed of the CD-ROM. There appears to be some sort of cache that keeps information and uses it from memory. Looks like I need a practical test to determine the optimal speed - any suggestions there?

      It's worth using anyway - I noticed that some applications aren't copying files from the CD at their optimal speed either, as if there is some form if inefficiency.
  96. I built my PC inside a .... by tsmithnj · · Score: 2, Funny

    college dorm refrigerator. Kills two birds with one stone.....

  97. A simpleton's solution... by anopres · · Score: 1

    Get really long video, keyboard and mouse cables and put the box in the basement.

    --
    Strong Mad - 2008: "I PRESIDENT!"
  98. true silence! by curiouser · · Score: 1

    i've made a couple systems that are *completely* silent - via fanless mobo/cpu, flash hard disk. under $850 for two different systems - peacefulpc.com

    i've also got a p4 system with passive cpu cooling (heatpipe sink with no fan, good to 2.8) passive cooled power supply (massive heat sink), quiet hd in dampened enclosure to reduce hd noise by 90%, and the whole case has sound dampening material inside. with one 12 db case fan, this is about as quiet as a p4 can get. again, peacefulpc.com.

    i'd love feedback, send me a note!
    jef

  99. This works for me... by phunster · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some time ago my GPU fan started making more noise than usual. I took it apart, remounted it, etc. etc. nothing seemed to work. Then in desperation I thought to clean it, there was a lot of dust on the blades, I wiped it all off with a q-tip, washed the blades with a damp q-tip, put it all back together and booted up. The GPU fan was/is silent, I cleaned all of the other fans in the same way and it definitely quieted down my PC.

    Just my 2

  100. Silent cooling systems by buford_tannen · · Score: 1

    Artificial blood pumped through with silent hydrostatic pumps.

    (With credit given to Seymour Cray for the idea of using blood as a coolant.)

    Who wouldn't want a sweet looking system from "Vampire Computing"?

    Just a few ideas I'm kicking around... gotta find a job now that I'm graduating with my BS CS degree. Maybe I shouldn't attempt 'artistic' computer design...

    --
    Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
  101. OK now help me with the frigde by asterism · · Score: 1

    Okay, so the PC is much quieter now, how do I do the same to the fridge?

  102. Solid State by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 1

    Why not just build a solid state PC? Use a board like the VIA EPIA MII, with a big CompactFlash card for your hard drive. If you need extra space, get a quiet hard drive, and attach it as a secondary storage device that's only read when in use, and it'll be silent the rest of the time. Here's a link, scroll just shy of half way down the page, and you'll see some photo's of the board. In addition to being silent, you can make some pretty cool custom cases for it ;).

    --
    This space for rent, inquire within.
    1. Re:Solid State by tacocat · · Score: 1

      This would almost work except the the CF cards can't deliver hard drive reliability at rate.

      If you tried to set up something that did a lot of file IO (mail server, webserver, database), you would be melting the CF cards

      But with a Seagate Barracude hard drive, you get much better noise levels than anything else I've seen to date

  103. seriously, Power Macs *are* real quiet by teeker · · Score: 2, Informative

    Our company was the first one on our block to get one of the 2ghz dual G5 Power Macs and it is BY FAR the quietest fan-cooled machine I've ever seen. You can barely hear the hard drive spin up, but other than that, it's virtually dead-silent. It's not ideal if you need wintel, but they're real quiet out of the box, and they're dead sexy.

    --
    teeker
    1. Re:seriously, Power Macs *are* real quiet by omnifunctional · · Score: 2, Informative

      Amen to that. I bought a Dual 1.8 G5 a couple moths ago, and I can't believe how quiet this thing is. When the DVD drive isn't running, the machine is quieter than the level of ambient noise in my office. Even with the DVD running, the noise is barely noticable. Say what you want about Apple, but the level of attention to deatil that went into designing these machines amazes me.

  104. Three words: by Robber+Baron · · Score: 1

    Antec Sonata case.

    --

    You're using her as bait, Master!

    1. Re:Three words: by tuffy · · Score: 1
      I'm using one for my home box. Everything about it is built for quiet and one can really hear the difference - especially compared to my old jet engine box. The only trouble is, I've gotten accustomed to the new level of quiet and I find myself wishing for something quieter yet. I have a feeling I won't be satisfied until I switch to a diskless, fanless box - like my old Apple ][ was.

      It's a vicious circle :)

      --

      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

  105. I found it!! Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by swschrad · · Score: 1

    my eMac has heatpipe cooling with a tiny overload fan if needed. I haven't heard it come on, period. so, if you need silence, and even if you would rather have BSD or Linux instead of OSX, switch!

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re:I found it!! Re:SIlence is a pipe dream for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      News Flash: Macs can run Linux and BSD. More at 11.

  106. The new Maxtor FDB line by Distortions · · Score: 1

    I have a 120gb 7200 rpm Maxtor drive in my fanless iMac.

    Maxtor has a new line of HDS with something called fluid dynamic bearings ( FDB ).
    The means the bearing basically floats on the spinning fluid ( correct me if I am wrong ).

    Very very quiet. iMacs are full of vents and are mostly made of plastic.
    Before even the quiet HD in it was quite audible once inside the case.
    I dont even have it mounted with rubber rings or anything.

    I also have an ancient AT box with an AMD 300mhz in it.
    No CPU fan.
    And I replaced the PSU fan with a stealth fan (automatically adjusts its speed to air temperature ).
    I also put foam-rubber around the ( somewhat quiet ) HD.
    I sleep with both computers ON or sometimes with the iMac in sleep mode.

    --
    Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
  107. Its Easy! by THESuperShawn · · Score: 1

    Just buy a Michaels PC. I think he has a beta now running at -4 decibles while still scoring 23k on benchmarking tests. Why the rest of the industry has not caught up with him I just don't know!

    --
    Repant. Thy end is sheer.
    1. Re:Its Easy! by fishnuts · · Score: 1

      -4dB compared to what?

      Absolute sound pressure level measurements start at 0dB and go up from there.

    2. Re:Its Easy! by THESuperShawn · · Score: 1

      Dude, It's a joke. crawl out from under rock, then..... Please see previous (ridiculous)claims about Micheals PC's or just check out his website micheals pcs dot com.

      --
      Repant. Thy end is sheer.
  108. Quieter cases by walt-sjc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I built my latest desktop box, I went for a Antec Sonata which is MUCH quieter than my old system. In fact, even with it sitting on my desk next to my monitors, I hardly hear it - just a little drive whine.

    Unfortunately my house is in the middle of major renovation, so my office is temporarily located in the basement. Now I have all the noise from the water heater (power vent) and boiler. My new office design has the systems in a back-open cubbie under the desk with a smoked-glass door (kinda like a stereo cabinet.) That should all but eliminate the remaining noise. It's too bad most periphereals have such short cables.

    My noisy servers are in another basement room - one with 4' thick granite walls so it stays nice and cool year round (and a higher humidity level for less static.) I don't hear them at all :-)

    1. Re:Quieter cases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Your drive just whines? Mine bitches.

    2. Re:Quieter cases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's odd. I bought into the Sonata hype myself, and I would say it's somewhat quieter than a regular non-quiet-tuned machine. But it still makes quite a bit of noise (the case fan and the non-stock AMD fan as the main culprits), and it is still annoying as hell. Especially since I paid extra for a "lifestyle" case.

    3. Re:Quieter cases by jesup · · Score: 1

      I replaced both my and my wife's cases with Antec Sonatas a few weeks ago (we have both of them in the "office" section of our master bedroom at the moment). Quick summary: Nice Case! and quiet too!

      In a bedroom in the woods, my machine is almost silent; the remaining noise it almost totally due to a slightly whiney WD 120GB 8-mb-cache drive. My video card (an NVidia GeForce 3 Ti-200) fan is either dead (possible) or is temp-aware. In any case I don't have a problem with it. My chipset fan is dead. After switching to the Sonata case, I found my old CPU fan was (a) hitting it's cage, and (b) noisy as a vacuum. I switched to a ThermalTake Volcano II+ (rebadged as Mad something, bought at CompUsa for ~$35) and that did the trick; I could barely tell the system was on other than the drive whine.

      My wife's had a quieter CPU fan to start, but it's now the loudest thing in her system. Her motherboard/CPU are due for replacement, so we'll be rebuilding her machine with an ear to noise.

      Even without that, we find the ReplayTV in the bedroom louder than both our PC's - and it's meant for use in A/V racks. Of course, on AVSForum there are a number of threads on how to quiet a ReplayTV even more....

    4. Re:Quieter cases by CMECC · · Score: 1

      with 4' thick granite walls

      I'm not sure even bank vaults have walls four feet thick. Your basement might have room for a beowolf cluster of noisy servers if your walls weren't so thick.

  109. Re: MPI calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry dude, you're a bit off base. During the evildoer's 23 year rule he killed approximately 220,000 of his citizens, or around 9600 per year. The last numbers I saw for the civilian casualties during the current conflict were 10,700 for the year. Sorry man, your MPI is as low as its ever been...

  110. Yeah, you could buy a million silencing products by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

    But I found a much more satisfying solution: 1. Buy a few loud, fast case fans (I actually made new holes in my case to bolt on more fans). 2. Buy a well-shielded 25ft monitor cable, and mouse/keyboard extension wires, and stick the loud box into the closet. I actually drilled my wall, a hole big enough for a VGA plug. It's easy to patch if you move, so don't freak out. 3. If you wanna be cute, extend the power/reset button wires and install new buttons in your bedroom. Also, get a firewire DVD drive and put that on your desk. I did neither of these things yet - I find myself swapping CDs very rarely, and I never power down. The result is absolute silence, minimal cost, more space in my bedroom, and all the heat the computer puts out no longer bugs me in my bedroom.

  111. Easy solution by phorm · · Score: 0

    Hmmmm. I would just attach these to my PC... you won't hear the noise from your fans/drives at all afterwards.

    Seriously, many people don't realize how much "complete silence" is actually more annoying than a little background noise. My CPU gets hot quite often (very hot apartment) and the volcano fan on it gets *very* noisy when cranked, but with some decent tunes I work better than silence anyways.

    Are people really so bothered by a little fan noise, or it like the casemod fanclub where less noise=bragging rights (not that some casemods aren't very cool).

    1. Re:Easy solution by slickwillie · · Score: 3, Funny

      Here's my solution:

      Get yerself born in the 1950's. Go to concerts(1) by the Who, Led Zeppelin, Cream, etc. Buy headphones, get stoned, and listen to the headphones with the volume cranked up all the way. Head banging might help.

      Nowadays, I don't hear my PC at all. I don't hear much of anything, come to think of it.

    2. Re:Easy solution by slickwillie · · Score: 1
      Oops, I left out the footnote.

      (1) I never went to a Blue Cheer concert, even though they were billed as the world's loudest band.

    3. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dad?

    4. Re:Easy solution by slickwillie · · Score: 1

      No, you are looking for a guy in a funny helmet with a deep voice, who answers to the name "Vader".

    5. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ofcourse when you are dutch everyones dad responds to that name :P

  112. Re: MPI calculations by strictnein · · Score: 0, Troll

    220,000?

    Sorry "dude".

    Interesting number since they've already found mass graves holding 400,000 or more, and that was last November. And those don't include the hundreds of thousands that were killed by Saddam attacking Iran in 1980.

    Take a look here

    Interesting quotes:
    "We've already discovered just so far the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair on November 20 in London.

    Some graves hold a few dozen bodies--their arms lashed together and the bullet holes in the backs of skulls testimony to their execution

    --
    Casual Games/Downloads
  113. New powerbooks are dead silent. by xtal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... but powebooks in my experience are not silent at all. My 1GHz Titanium has a rather noisy fan. It emits about as much noise as my Dell inspiron 8200 notebook (that is, quite a lot in my opinion).

    I had a Tibook, it was very loud. It wasn't so loud after I physically disconnected the fan, heh heh. Didn't seem to hurt anything.

    I have a new Albook - it is absolutely dead silent. I think I've heard the fan click on once when running a simulation, and even then it was barely perceptible. Suffice it to say Apple has done their homework. If you put in a gb of ram, you won't ever even see a hard drive access.

    --
    ..don't panic
  114. Server Error in '/' Application. by HalliS · · Score: 1

    Fed up with the monotonous whirring emanating from your server? Well for once, someone with an actual knowledge has come up with the idea to post a link to his server on /.

    Watch as the server whirls to a halt under the slasdotting, dying a slow but silent death.

    --


    My other UID is 1337
    1. Re:Server Error in '/' Application. by mrjb · · Score: 1

      More specifically: Server error in '/.' Application.

      --
      Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
  115. Silent PC "next big thing" for 10 years by robberbarron · · Score: 1

    The "Silent PC" was in the WinHEC Keynote 9 years ago! (1995)

  116. Silent Ha! by mustangsal66 · · Score: 1

    Here's pic of my Silent beowolf cluster...
    Here
    Ok so it doesn't process much, or even generate a lot of heat.

    Oh yeah... some assembly required to boot it.

    --
    Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
    Sig changed for readability by G.W.
  117. foo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Server Error in '/' Application.

    Server Too Busy
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: Server Too Busy

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [HttpException (0x80004005): Server Too Busy]
    System.Web.HttpRuntime.RejectRequestInternal(HttpW orkerRequest wr) +146

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573

  118. Server Too Busy by craXORjack · · Score: 1

    Notice that it isn't a bandwidth problem as it usually is when a server is slashdotted. The problem here is the software running on the server:

    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: Server Too Busy

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [HttpException (0x80004005): Server Too Busy]
    System.Web.HttpRuntime.RejectRequestInternal(HttpW orkerRequest wr) +146

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
    1. Re:Server Too Busy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Server Error in '/' Application. Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [SqlException: Invalid object name 'tempdb..ASPStateTempSessions'.] System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(Com mandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream) +723 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader() +42 System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.DoGe t(String id, SqlCommand cmd) +380 [HttpException (0x80004005): Unable to connect to SQL Server session database.] System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.DoGe t(String id, SqlCommand cmd) +535 System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.GetE xclusive(String id) +80 System.Web.SessionState.SqlStateClientManager.Syst em.Web.SessionState.IStateClientManager.BeginGetEx clusive(String id, AsyncCallback cb, Object state) +6 System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule.GetSess ionStateItem() +67 System.Web.SessionState.SessionStateModule.BeginAc quireState(Object source, EventArgs e, AsyncCallback cb, Object extraData) +275 System.Web.AsyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.Http Application+IExecutionStep.Execute() +66 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionS tep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +173 Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573

  119. Sun Ray by mediumgreen · · Score: 1

    My solution is a simple one.... all the servers are in the basement and I use Sun Ray's everywhere else in the house. It's nice to just slip the smart card into the reader and have my session, complete with any open files, etc., restored to exactly as it was when I was using it before. They're pretty much X terminals, but the X server doesn't even run locally on them. I love them - they have no fans, no disks.. completley silent unless I have some MP3's playing ;)

  120. Re:Here's a Totally Silent PC - much better. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You can do much better, Use an underclocked Athlon XP. Runs circles around the C3. No fan required, similar power consumption as the C3. See this:

    http://www.pcsilencieux.com/article-27-5.html

  121. I'm lazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there anyone that sells these as barebones systems? Thanks for the link.

    1. Re:I'm lazy by gregarican · · Score: 1

      There are. Monarch Computer Systems is the name of one company that I know of. CheckerCube is another one. The systems should run between $500-$600 if I am not mistaken.

  122. iMac versus "commodity" PC's by mariox19 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For all the snide comments the original iMac got when it came out ("gumdrop," "Volkswagen Beetle") there is no denying the thought that went behind its design when it came to cooling. It worked entirely on convection, and, having no fan, was silent (but for the occassional whir of the hard drive).

    The top of the case (where the heat vented) was hot as hell, but if you felt down on the bottom by the motherboard, it was cool to the touch.

    No doubt this wasn't possible with the G4 (the iMac was a G3 chip), as it runs much hotter. If Apple gets some cooler running chips from IBM, we may see fanless Macs again.

    My new iMac (G4) runs very quiet. The fan does not run constantly, nor at one speed only.

    I think there's plenty to be done to reduce noise; but the manufacturers who ship out PC "commodity boxes" couldn't be bothered.

    --

    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    1. Re:iMac versus "commodity" PC's by cabazorro · · Score: 1

      not only that but my super quite G3 imac plays iTunes and browses the web just as well as my HP 1.7 GHZ Pavillion notebook whose fan turns on in 3 minutes drilling my ears and turning hotter than a 4 of July in Luckenbach Texas.
      "Laptop? what a misnomer!

      --
      - these are not the droids you are looking for -
    2. Re:iMac versus "commodity" PC's by aardvarko · · Score: 1
      Revision A through D of the iMac had an internal fan, albeit a quiet one.

      info:
      Available in the same five colors as the Revision C and Revision D iMacs, the DV is a bit smaller and has more transparent plastics. The new case allows the iMac to air cool (just like the old Volkswagen Beetle), eliminating the need for a cooling fan.
    3. Re:iMac versus "commodity" PC's by mariox19 · · Score: 1

      Son of a gun!

      I used to own a Summer 2000 Ruby iMac. I was totally unaware that earlier ones had a fan.

      Good call!

      --

      quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

  123. Noisy PC's? by CBDSteve · · Score: 1

    Not mine.

    Carillon make PC's that are designed to sit in the same room as you record in, so they have to have very quiet components, and little or no vibration noise.

  124. padding by da2 · · Score: 0

    my solution was to order lots of free stuff from the microsoft technet service (order a lot to make sure you get big envelopes) cut up said large padded envelopes and line your pc case, it's ugly but it works

  125. Theories by autechre · · Score: 1

    When I was quite young, my parents had difficulty getting me to sleep. I would fall asleep far more readily when they turned on the vacuum cleaner. I always thought that this was very odd until I heard that the noise from a vacuum cleaner is supposedly similar to the noise heard inside the womb. Thus, it may be comforting to us on some level (though not when we're on the phone).

    I have always had trouble falling asleep without some sort of white noise; AC, computer fan, window fan, etc. But lately, I've been wondering whether this is a good thing. I used to sleep less and have more energy. Current attempts to reduce the quantity of sleep (even gradually) have met with dismal results. I know that my metabolism has slowed down a bit (I'm 26), but I wonder if the computer noise isn't a contributing factor? Is it making me want to sleep too much?

    (There are also studies showing a possible link between high CRT use and depression, so that's another thing to investigate.)

    The other thing is that if you constantly hear a noise, you can develop a notch in your hearing response at that frequency. It sounds like a joke, but a music teacher of mine had his hearing tested and found a drop in frequency response in one spot: the frequency of his wife's voice. Apparently, this is common.

    Additionally, I've just been noticing computer fan noise more of late. I'm not sure what the reason is; possibly because I've been seeing /. articles about it :) But I'm finally taking out some of the noisiest bits of my computer: that old 2GB hard disk (I never booted into Windows anyway) and the horrible 30mm northbridge fan (giant heatsink).

    As a final note, sometimes there's just nothing you can do about noise. I built a relatively quiet MythTV machine for the living room; even the DVD writer is quiet (Lite-on, newegg.com, cheap and shorter than most). Samsung drive with fluid dynamic bearings, etc. But now that I have FFXI for the PS2, the PS2 (with hard drive) is louder than the machine. Even before that, the central air was WAY louder, and if you sit on the sofa there's a 125 gallon aquarium right behind your head with fans and bubbling pipes (so hard to get the last bit of air out of those).

    --
    WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
    1. Re:Theories by X-Nc · · Score: 1
      > I know that my metabolism has slowed down a bit (I'm 26), but I wonder if the
      > computer noise isn't a contributing factor? Is it making me want to sleep too much?

      It's worth looking into but I don't think that is the problem. I'm 41 and my metabolism is definitely much slower now than when I was younger (as seen by the extra 30 pounds around my mid-section). My sleep patterns are not much different than when I was your age, though. I can't pull all-nighters anymore but I can still do the occational 3am hacking session. Most of my working life I've spent in server rooms and the whitenoise there is nearily defening. The only time I get grogy, though, is if I eat a very big lunch.

      --
      --
      If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
  126. Easy Peasy! by bplipschitz · · Score: 1

    Take your loud, obnoxious computer, and immerse the entire thing in mineral oil

    Noise gone, computer still working. . .

  127. Re: MPI calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    According to the anti-war site www.iraqbodycount.net
    your number of 10,700 over the past year is inaccurate. There have been an estimated 8900 - 10,800 since Jan 1, 2003 (so over a year).
    That includes "up to 7,350 deaths which resulted from coalition military action during the "major-combat" phase prior to May 1st 2003

    Now... don't let facts cloud your mind.

  128. Fan noise is good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My college roommates and I all had high-powered, super-loud machines in our bedrooms. The drone of the fans put us to sleep. We all sat bolt-upright in our beds every time the power went out.

  129. peliers? by Eil · · Score: 1


    Quick question. I recall a few years back that peltier coolers were all the rage because they kept the CPU really cool and were totally silent. They were rather expensive but everyone predicted that they would be the next big phase in CPU cooling once they came down in price.

    Now you have these guargantuan active heat sinks that are so heavy they require their own bracket. Oh, and they're noisy as hell. Meanwhile, you don't hear *any* talk of peliers anymore. What happened?

    1. Re:peliers? by NerveGas · · Score: 1


      Power usage is the main reason.

      Let's say that you have a 70-watt chip, you throw a 160-watt Peltier on it to keep it chilly.

      First, you have to power the peltier. They usually require more than 12 volts, so your PSU doesn't do a whole lot for you, you need to go out and buy a higher-voltage power supply that can pump out at least 10 amps. Then you need a relay to tie that into your PC's PSU.

      Now, instead of having to remove 70 watts of heat from your PSU, you need to remove 230 watts of heat (70 CPU + 160 peltier). Water cooling is the only way to do that - and if you want to move 230 watts of heat, you're not talking about some tiny radiator and a silent fan, you need something much more substantial.

      When chips drew 25 or 35 watts, using a Peltier was a lot more practical than it is now. With the hottest chips putting out up to 100 watts, it's much more simple to scale compressive cooling to those levels than peltiers.

      I did, however, just read an article yesterday about a fellow using dual 160-watt peltiers to cool his chip, with another couple to cool the memory. By the time he was done, it looked like an EXTREMELY expensive investment, and with the 6 or 7 radiators, it was just a bit ugly to boot!

      steve

      --
      Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
  130. I have a silent PC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my office I have a Fujitsu-Siemens scenic w600
    with p4 2.4Ghz.

    It makes _absolutely_ no noise. people just don't believe my PC is on.

    It is due to a clean and smart configuration of the ventilation. no need of weird fans nor heatpipe.

  131. My solution by fihzy · · Score: 1

    Get a laptop and stash it in a desk drawer. I do this and I hear no sound at all even in the dead of the night.

  132. Re: MPI calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well if Tony Blair says so then it must be true.

  133. Hole in the Wall by n2rjt · · Score: 1

    I keep my PC in my closet. I installed a 2" pipe through the wall for the cables. The monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse are in the bedroom. It is almost annoyingly quiet. The only problem is that I have to go into the closet to change media.

  134. silent water cooled, by Evoluder · · Score: 1

    i am just waiting for this : http://www.cooligy.com/electrokinetic_pump.html

  135. So's my precision workstation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Despite the 15K RPM RAID array and the beefy PSU, when it isn't attached to wall power, it's absolutely silent, and I've never had even the slightest heat issues with it when it's in that "silent" mode. ;-)

    1. Re:So's my precision workstation by dead+sun · · Score: 1
      I'd imagine. Luckily I can still compute on battery power from my laptop.

      Coincidentally I can compute with my desktop out of the wall as long as it's still plugged into the UPS. It's nowhere near silent though and that damned beeping from the UPS makes it a little louder than when it's getting wall power, so I tend to run it that way. =D

      --
      If not now, when?
  136. Technical Excellence: Microsoft .NET Framework by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=415
    Server Error in '/' Application.
    Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.

    Source Error:

    An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

    Stack Trace:

    [OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.]

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.573; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.573
  137. Re: MPI calculations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am "dude", to whom you responded. The numbers I quoted originated here: http://www.washingtondispatch.com/opinion/article_ 8756.shtml. I note that Mr Blair's numbers, in the article you reference, have not been confirmed (see last paragraph).

    In any case, I stand by my original point, which is that MPI really, really sucks right now. Maybe once this mis-founded 'war on terrorism' is over, the cost of oil, in lives, will drop to only include those of the poor sods who work at the wells.

  138. My Way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Buy the four inch square, 1 inch thick cooling fans. They tend to run quieter because they don't need to spin as fast. A very flat, low profile fan looks cool but needs to spin like mad to move air.

    CPU: Screw the new fan to your old heat sink. It is best if you can make the fan hover a half inch from the heatsink. less {noisy)turbulence that way.

    Side Port Fan: Remove fan, make a flap out of a cereal box, place flap in front of the hole so that you can no longer "SEE" your CPU cooling fan through the hole. air must travel up and around the flap.

    Power Supply: The power supply is a box with ports at each end. The fan is at the external port on the back of the PC. there are louvers internal to pass air to the PC case. Cut a fan hole at the opposite side of the power supply so the fan can be mounted near the center of the PC case seal the fan and any unused louvers with Duct Tape (duck tape? :). Now the PSU becomes a muffler for the fan and the old hole is just a port. Cover the port with a wire fan guard.

    I'll try to link some photos later tonight or tommorow.

    I was amazed at how noisy my house seems now that my PC is quiet. I hear noises I never heard before.

    Ken Wood
    Downingtown, PA.

  139. Slashdotted by c0d3h4x0r · · Score: 3, Funny

    A Slashdotted server is always quiet :-)

    --
    Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
  140. Audio Studio? by scosol · · Score: 1

    Uhm- surely you must know something about the concept of isolation :)

    It's not that difficult to build the silent terminal (no fans at all) and have it netboot back to the hard drives living out site of the booth-

    That's really the easiest way to achieve total silence in an audio setting.

    (obviously, you can't use cutting-edge stuff for the silent terminal- CPU choices are limited to the Vias and Transmetas of the world, and no GeForce 6800s either :) )

    --
    I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
  141. Re: MPI calculations by strictnein · · Score: 1

    Maybe once this mis-founded 'war on terrorism' is over, the cost of oil, in lives, will drop to only include those of the poor sods who work at the wells

    and therefore be worth it, right? if we can get it down from 7000 or so a year (by your numbers, 15-16k a year by my numbers) to say, 500-1000 a year, or even less, then is this "mis-founded" war on terror worth it?

    --
    Casual Games/Downloads
  142. Yeah, by 2names · · Score: 1

    it was supposed to be funny, but I screwed it up. My delivery was baaaaad.

    --
    "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
  143. So much for that theory by hacksoncode · · Score: 1

    Apparently their servers need louder fans.

  144. A new ATX design is needed !! by fred666 · · Score: 1

    Definitely not !!
    The solution is a new design for power supplies and case.

    The overall size of the PSU stayed the same for years, but the power capabilities of those beasts nowadays are muth greater than what we had ten years ago, resulting in components having much more heat to evacuate, and to evacuate the heat, we cannot extend more the heatsinks size (because of the size of the PSU housing): we extend the airflow with the associated noise.

    My solution is, for a tower case, make the PSU size as big as the base, with heavy apparent external heatsinks or, better yet, a big and heavy heatsink as the base of the case.

    Pros:
    - Any decent designer is able to make it look neat, cool and desirable with those heavy heatsinks
    - Since the base is heavy, your computer will be harder to tip -> better case stability
    - Since there is much more room for the PSU components, they can be more spread on the PCB, resulting in better heat dissipation and increased reliability
    - external heatsinks -> fanless PSU :-)

    Cons:
    - Weight !!
    - Will be quite expensive !! :-(
    - Watercooling will be more hazardous and/or dangerous (water leak)

  145. Silence the Drives... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like many people, I was annoyed by the hum created by my computer. I tried a bunch of stuff that didn't seem to help much. I too had a "phantom" source of hum.

    Turns out the biggest cause of hum was the two 7200rpm hard drives resonating through the case into the desk. I had seen ads for expensive drive isolation units, but decided to try a cheaper approach.

    The drives I have are the standard 3.5" hard drives. So what I did was buy a bunch of thin bungee cord at the local hardware store, and suspended each drive in a 5" drive bay. I fed the bungee back and forth through the screw slots, and tied it off tight. Then I slipped the drives between the bungee criss-crossing the drive bay, mechanically isolating them from the case.

    And voila! Most of the hum disappeared. Hard to tell now that the darn thing is on. And it's downright creepy during boot... I was so used to the sounds of the drives humming and clicking and whirring that the first time I powered up with this setup, I thought I had forgotten to plug the power connectors back into the drive!

    As an added side benefit, the drives stay a lot cooler now due to the large air space all around them.

  146. First try - retrofit a noisy system by foobar77 · · Score: 1

    I built a PC for my son about a year ago with no pre-thought given to noise - ASUS mbo w/Northbridge fan, AMD XP2400+ w/stock fan, GeForce4 Ti4200 w/fan, vanilla Enlight case/ps, WD disk, etc. Good components, and it was FAST (for the time), but boy was it noisy! So, 6 months ago I did a retrofit to a Nexus power supply, Zalman cpu and case fans and melamine foam sound proofing. Major Improvement! - but still a nasty high pitch whine from the Ti4200 and some disk noise. I added buffering around the outside which helped the the disk, but the video fan still cuts through. Lesson learned - design it to be quiet from the start, and pick all parts to be low noise.

    1. Re:First try - retrofit a noisy system by foobar77 · · Score: 1
      Second try - build it right from the start.

      Being fed up with noise, and needing a new PC, I set an objective to build a quiet, well-performing, cost effective machine. After previous experience with attempting to retrofit an existing machine, I use quiet as an upfront criteria in selecting all parts for this machine:
      - Antec Sonata case w/quiet pw + 120 mm fan
      - P4 3.0 GHz with Zalman cpu fan
      - Seagate Baracuda disk
      - Radeon 9600 fanless video card

      This machine is QUIET! (mostly) There is a little low frequency, but it is easily dampened by stinking the machine under a desk. I can't tell it is there. After this, the fan noise on my HP laser stood out like a sore thumb and now gets turned off when not in use. Worst problem is now the DVD drive when it is active - probably should have shopped a little harder for quiet here.

  147. Fans are so 18th century. by f8l_0e · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for Optical Molasses effect lasers beamed off the surface of the CPU, GPU, and power transistor of the power supply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling

  148. Re:My idea - loose parts,cool compartment using wa by Ubi_NL · · Score: 1

    THe glass has to high an insulating capacity for this to work. Furthermore the evaporation of the ater will not siffiuce to cool this until the evaporating surface is very big, which in your case it isn't

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
  149. Arrgh, no by ilsie · · Score: 1

    Even at 5V these volcanos have a very annoying buzz. And they dont cool very well. A much better quiet CPU cooling solution is a Thermalright heatsink with an 80mm Panaflo L1A or Papst fan attached.

  150. Wow. that's a lot of money by Quila · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Almost $600 to get a single-processor PC almost down to the sound level of a dual-processor Mac. Kind of puts that "Mac is more expensive" mantra into perspective if you like your computer quiet.

  151. Good suggestions.. I have a few more. by -tji · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've spent a lot of time and money trying to quiet my system, so I'll toss in a few things I have learned. I liked most of his suggestions in the article. I was surprised he didn't go some different routes though. Such as:

    - CPU: Athlon 64. It has a feature they call "Cool n Quiet" where it will run at a slower clock speed when the CPU is not under heavy load. So, as you're browsing the web, typing in the word processor, playing MP3's, etc. it will run at 800MHz. When you play a game, process video, etc. It will run at full speed. This saves a lot of heat in the system, and actually lets the fan on the CPU heat sink stop much of the time.

    - Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda (Samsung, and maybe Fujitsu also make some very quiet drives.. check spec's before buying). The Seagate drives are very quiet. In most cases, if you mount it well (rubber grommets, or suspending the drive to avoid vibration transfer) it is quiet enough to not require the drive silencer thing.

    - 120mm Fans. He replaces the 80mm fans with super-quiet 80mm fans. Why not use high quality quiet 120mm fans for better airflow and lower noise?

    - Power Supply. Zalman makes great products, so I assume their PSU is very quiet (but I have not used it). I have found almost every other PSU with small fans to be the loudest component in the system. There are several manufacturers that make PSU's with 120mm fans in the base. These big fans can run slower/quieter. They also give the system a fan right next to the CPU, which helps a lot. There are also expensive PSU's that have huge heat sinks, and cun run completely fanless. I plan on trying one of these next.. But, this puts more burden on the case fans.

    Or, if you want it as quiet as possible, and cheaper.. go with lower-end components.

    - VIA C3 CPU - Plenty of power for normal business tasks, and can be run fanless if the heat sink is large.

    - Passively cooled video card - GeForce FX 5200 is not a speed demon, but it's fanless. Or, if 3D is not a concern, go for embedded video. (the 5200 will still kick up the heat inside the system.. fit the video card to your needs.)

    - 2.5" Laptop hard drives. If you don't need buttloads of storage, a 20/40/80GB 2.5" drive could help a lot. Check spec's before buying, some 2.5" drives are loud. But, they run MUCH cooler than 3.5" drives (2.5W vs 15W). They are also smller, offering better airflow, and have less vibration.

    And, lastly: S3 Sleep mode is your friend. The computer noise mostly bothers me when I'm not using it. I want to be able to hear the movie over the humm of my computer. So, use S3 sleep, with aggressive timeouts, to shut the thing down when not in use. It wakes up from this mode in a few seconds, and is completely silent while sleeping - saving noise, heat, power, and money.

  152. And that's supposed to be a good solution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Getting a "silenced" case like a Silentmaxx ST-11 (silentmaxx.de) is a much better deal. The big tower case costs around 120 EUR, their almost inaudible 420w PSU costs 75. You won't need any "HD silencers" either because the case already swallows so much of the noise that you will hardly hear a normal IDE harddrive. Even the unbearable high-pitched sound of 7200 RPM-drives does not get out - otherwise, I could not use these drives as this really gives me headaches. This includes so-called silent drives like the latest from Samsung.
    As a CPU cooler, I used an Arctic Cooling Supersilent 4L for just 14.50, it's hard to hear on the lowest setting with the case closed. All in all, I just spent 100 EUR more for this solution than I would have spent for a normal case, and it's almost perfect.

  153. YHBT...HAND...(NT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok, I lied, there really is text here.

  154. In the SF area: Immaculate Computers by doom · · Score: 1

    In the San Francisco area, you might look into Immaculate Computers as a place to buy a quiet machine. Here's an Annalee Newitz write-up from the SF Bay Guardian about them. They're a small San Francisco business doing custom computers with low lead components and noiseless power supplies.

  155. inspiration by jago25_98 · · Score: 1

    Well, the idea was inspired from something a nobel peace prize winner invented;

    a refrigerator that works without electricity - two clay pots with sand and water between the two that evaporates

    but I can't seem to find it anywhere:
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=U TF-8&oe=UTF -8&q=nobel+prize+food+cold+evaporation&spell=1

    I only suggested glass because it might look better. Is there that much difference in heat properties between glass and clay? I guess glass is a supercooled liquid so...

    --
    A blog I run for the wealth
    1. Re:inspiration by Ubi_NL · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I only suggested glass because it might look better. Is there that much difference in heat properties between glass and clay? I guess glass is a supercooled liquid so...

      It seems like you truely do not understand what you are working with.

      First of all, clay is porous, so water can evaporate from the entire surface of the clay pot. This is an essential element of the cooling method.
      Second, glass is not a supercooled liquid. It is merely a substance that does not solidify well.

      sheez

      --

      If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
  156. St. Petersburg Linux by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

    This was not mentioned in the thread above, but seems to be a very interesting contender: "St. Petersburg Linux" (SPB Linux) -- a USB Key based Linux distribution (the latest beta uses Kernel 2.6).

    Another distro I have seen mentioned - flonix - has done from a non-commercial to a commercial one: http://www.flonix.com - with it's USB key based solution not available freely.