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A Silent PC Solution?
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!"
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Get a MAC!
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.
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. 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.
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".
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.
out of the following:
Cool running, Fast, Silent
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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
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.
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.
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.
... 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
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.