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BYU Project to Silence Computer Fans
phunster writes "The New York Times has an article about Scott D. Sommerfeldt and his students at BYU who have created a noise suppression system for computer fans (drop of human blood required to read article). The technology is not new, he uses out of phase sound to substantially cancel out the sound of the fan. What is interesting is his implementation of the technique. While other systems place a microphone and speakers in the center of a room, he places four miniature speakers and microphones around the noise source itself. His results are promising."
BYU Project to Silence Computer Fans
We as /. computer fans have been discriminated for so long, that
you'd think that we, as computer enthousiasts, have had quite enough....
An NOW, these people that have been bullying us all along have invented a system that makes us keep our mouths shut... Just great...
Pills... must... take... pills...
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
We've seen this before here.
A love beyond compare...
If the fans inside your CPU are silent you wouldn't notice if one failed, my machine is fairly quiet but i would notice if it booted without the CPU or PSU fan running.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Can't we just silence BYU and the whole state of Utah? Please, someone? Can you take Orrin Hatch with you when you do this?
Not when you use this
Why wasn't this posted in the Censorship section?
Corporations try to silence some kid's website, Michael is falling over himself to denounce it. Corporations try to silence fans, and where is YRO? Not reporting on this, that's for certain. A clear double standard. Disgusting.
Apart from the discomfort of wearing headphones over long periods, the noise-reduction works well in office environments. Cuts out more than just noisy PCs: also airco, neighbours, and fire sirens.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
This would be well worth it on 90mm tornados. Its pretty shitty having 4 of them right beside your bed trying to sleep while your linux e-penis uptime grows every night ;)
"We love Apple!"
"Go Go Gateway!!!"
"Exidy Sorceror is pure magic!""
"Dude, we got Dell!!!"
(click)
Blessed silence.....
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
well its no news that as closer you get the speaker to the noise you want to cancel you'll get better results. Its like you have a light bulb and if you want to supress the light, the closer you cover it, the better it will do.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
I don't think this industry has come remotely close to making a fan that works. It's sad when people need tubes running to the bathroom just to keep the GPU or CPU cool.
If you create a fan that doesn't need water and guarantees performance of a water cooler, I think it'd be a hit. I have never the gotten blue screen of death from a noisy fan. Look on any forum, people are not complaining about noise. People are whining about overheating...
Blood Donation
I don't know as much about noise cancellation as I would like, but I understand most of the concepts. Although the method described in the article certainly is very cool, I wonder if they couldn't get better results by redesigning the fan. It seems that the fan generates too much random noise. Is it possible to make a fan that has a more predictable noise source? It could even be a fan that is way noisier before noise cancellation...
Another thought on this is that you really shouldn't consider the fan alone. The G5 has a beautiful interior with a ton of fans. Its not terribly loud, however, because the airflow is well designed.
I get how useful it would be to cancel noise in certain situations, but outside of a server (and even my Dell 400SC is sooo quiet I can barely hear it), what is the big deal for the vast majority of applications???
Now if they could just silence the kids that come to my house to tell me about Joseph Smith.
'Same speed C but faster'
i first read the headline and assumed it was a new tactic by the group 'BYU' to forcefully quiet the complaints of geeks and nerds everywhere!
must be one of those days i guess.
Personally its them damn harddisks that piss me off.
If only someone could suppress the disk noise..
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/technology/circu its/27next.html?ex=1086235200&en=8355c13a3b4a8afa& ei=5062&source=GOOGLE
Yeah, this is much simpler than just making the fans quiet in the first place, right?
Wonderful. "Look, instead of paying an extra 50 cents for a higher quality quiet fan, you can use cheap fans and spend $25.00 in additional parts to make the computer quiet!"
*sigh*
And how much electricity does this suck up, exactly?
For a second, I thought that BYU was going to hire big, burly henchmen to "take care" of us Slashdotters...
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Get a computer without a fan. I've had my Apple G4 Cube for a few years now, only now really showing its age and completely silent. Well, except for hard disk access. Of course you can't get them anymore, and Apple's new G5s have 4 or 5 fans in them... So don't think this is just some sort of fanboy rant, I honestly think that good design can get around the need for fans.
Yup...
...would kill for this.
I am forced to conclude you are the master of the obvious. May others take heed of your wisdom.
What benefit does this technology have over putting the case under the desk rather than on top of the desk?
Will the same technology also work on my girlfriend? She is like one of those movies that is just better on mute.
Evolution or ID?
This is bad. The noise from the fans on my machines are the only things that drown out the voices in my head... '...Kill...Userssssss...'
Makes it easy. Unless you have the GOOGLE partner link.
drop of human blood required to read article
Does it have to be mine?
"Hey Bob, come here, I've got something cool to show you. Oh, and bring a thumbtack..."
Yea, I've been using this technology for a long time; I just crank up my radio till I don't hear my computer. Unless Britney Spears comes up, then I prefer the soothing noise of my computer.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
Makes it easier, unless you have the GOOGLE partner link.
While other systems place a microphone and speakers in the center of a room, he places four miniature speakers and microphones around the noise source itself.
Will the wife version require something worn around the next and will it have a remote control?...
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I remember an old episode of Beyond 2000 (http://www.techtv.com/beyond2000/ , but the old Australian version) where they showed an anti-noise system that would fit into a car's exhaust system. Microphones would pick up the noise from the exhaust manifold, a DSP would generate the appropriate "Anti-noise" then subwoofers would inject the Anti-noise sound into a specially designed muffler. The demonstration would drive a big V8 Holden muscle car around, clicking the noise reduction in and out. Without it sounded like, well, a muscle car. With noise cancellation it sounded like a Rolls Royce, that is, you didn't really hear the exhaust at all, just tires rolling on pavement and wind. Really cool, but probably too expensive to implement in most consumer vehicles :(
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595048931,00 .html
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=81082
The fan noise from a serious computer has long been the single bigegst noise problem in the modern digital recording studio. It used to be the most popular solution was putting your tower in a closet somewhere with long extension cords for the keyboard, mouse, and whatever else. I've seen this used in several studios.
I think I speak for audio engineers everywhere when I say HALLELUJAH! This is a seriously practical and useful invention, hopefully it will be affordable!
They will never stop until somebody makes the
"It's going to be a matter of what the consumer will be willing to pay for a quiet computer," he said.
Are these guys not familliar with items like this? Somehow I don't see these fans costing that much.
I just unplug all my computer's fans. Now my computer doesn't make any noise.
At least my fiancee is happy about that.
I wonder if this is really cancelling the noise as opposed to masking it out so you don't notice it. It seems to me that no matter what type of active system you use you are pumping more energy into the system. That means more noise ( or heat :-).
:-).
I remember years ago you used to have noisy offices that had white sound generators in them. The white noise masked the office noise and people thought it was quiet. The only problem was it wasn't. The average noise in the offices were higher and there was a higher incidence of hearing loss because of it. Of course you could claim that that was the "long term" noise abatement solution
I just put 2 small extra fans into my p4 1.8 gzh machine (I went and got a nvidia fx chip and was worried about heat). It sounds like a friggin hair dryer. Although I've managed to tuen it out. I notice it when i turn it one and apaprenlty everyone in my 3 floor house notices the noise of this one computer.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
system for all the crap emanting from George W. Bush - "President" ?
Thanks and have a FOX _News_free weekend.
Regards,
Kilgore Trout
Not a dupe on /.!!!!!
Never happen!!!
The editors are too on the ball for that!!!!
An interesting project, but it certainly seems like a Rube Goldberg (Heath Robinson for UK readers) way to go about it.
The Mac G5 approaches this problem by using lots of big, slow-turning fans. It's probably expensive, but I doubt that it's as expensive as active noise cancellation. And Apple did a very good job. The Mac G5 is not silent, but in normal operation it is quieter than any machine I've used since the fanless 1984 Mac and the Apple ][.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
yay mormons. ;-)
very cool - but the holy grail is to make a _fanless_ computer. fans are moving parts. moving parts are bad.
if you just make the loud moving parts silent, then you are only removing the symptoms - but the real problem is still there: moving parts prone to failure.
its a good idea until they get heat pipes to work with 100W processors.
Every time I read silence and BYU I think of the forced silence BYU forces on its professors. It's good to see a positive article about academics at BYU. Here's to freedom of thought and freedom of speach; even at BYU.(if that's possible.)
I found it amusing to have an add for noise *generators* come up along with the noise reduction article.
[yes, I know it's not quite the same thing]
the computational power needed is roughly equivalent to one computer.
..........FULL STOP.
Why don't case manufacturers do away with the power supply and integrate a UPS into the case? Rather than have AC -> UPS (which converts to DC to charge batteries) -> AC -> Power supply (which converts to DC) why not cut out all the wasteful conversions? I could even see having room in the battery portion so you could upgrade to additional "plug in" batteries. Any thoughts?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Will this same technology work on my girlfriend. She can be like one of those movies that is better on mute.
Evolution or ID?
welcome this new chance to write this annoyingly-repeated joke once again.
1995: My hard disk is just too darned loud!!
2000: I can't stand the hum of the case fan!!
2005: That LED is hurting my ears!
<insert witty linux comment here>
I suggested this awhile ago for another article on silent computing. It got shot down quite handily, mainly because I can't speel verry whell. Anyway the people that did respond with things other than spelling mistakes had good insight into this. It seems this guy has come up with workarounds for problems they noted. -peel
Turn the thing off! Go outside, and get some fresh air!
To Quiet a Whirring Computer, Fight Noise With Noise
By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: May 27, 2004
THE constant drone of a computer cooling fan can be annoying. But a professor at Brigham Young University has taken an unusual step to mute this noise: more noise, produced in just the right quantities from tiny loudspeakers that surround the fan.
"We make anti-noise," said Scott D. Sommerfeldt, a physicist who created a noise suppression system with his students. It is the latest example of a technology called active noise reduction, or noise cancellation, well known from its use in headphones designed to block out the low rumble of jet engines.
The sound waves engineered by Dr. Sommerfeldt are out of phase with sound waves from the fan and thus they cancel each other out, substantially reducing fan noise.
Dr. Sommerfeldt's system has four miniature speakers and four even tinier microphones set in a ring around the computer fan. The microphones and other sensors detect the noise of the fan blades and, with the help of digital signal processing and algorithms, radiate opposing tones from the speakers. The whole system can be tucked into the same space that a conventional computer cooling fan would occupy.
Noise-cancellation technology has been in development for more than 50 years, Dr. Sommerfeldt said. In typical headphones, microphones in the headset detect noise; the speakers in the earcups counter with anti-noise.
Dr. Sommerfeldt's target was not the roar of aircraft, but the hum of office machinery. To counter this noise, some active noise reduction systems place microphones and related gear in the middle of a room to calculate the amount of cancellation needed.
But Dr. Sommerfeldt wanted to put the system within the computer casing itself so that it might one day become a built-in feature of personal computers.
Trying to cancel noise from within the computer turned out to be tricky, though. "You are asking for trouble if you place the mikes right next to the fan," he said. While it may be possible to reduce the sound substantially at the microphone, he said, the noise level could increase farther away, where someone might be sitting.
To solve the problem, Dr. Sommerfeldt built an aluminum enclosure that mimicked a typical computer chassis and put a standard cooling fan within. He and his students placed microphones and speakers around the fan, analyzing the nature of the sounds they would have to suppress and modeling systems to counter this sound.
"The fan is not an easy source of noise to control," said Gerald C. Lauchle, a professor of acoustics at Pennsylvania State University and a colleague of Dr. Sommerfeldt. "Many interacting mechanisms create the noise."
The specific sounds Dr. Sommerfeldt decided to counter were those made by the blades of the fan as they rotate and push air past obstructions like fan supports. The pushing is periodic, dictated by the number and speed of the blades.
In the experiments, sensors mounted near the blades of the fan recorded the motion, and the information was fed to the digital signal processor along with the data from the microphones that were monitoring the overall noise. Then algorithms developed by the group adjusted the amount of canceling sound waves sent to the speakers so that the basic tone of the blades could be suppressed, as well as overtones or harmonics of the basic tone.
"The basic tone is distinct," Dr. Sommerfeldt said. "It sounds like one you could hear if you hit a piano key."
To find the pattern that worked best, the experimenters set up systems with one, two, three and four speakers. "We went with smaller loudspeakers and more of them," Dr. Sommerfeldt said. "The best configuration turned out to be four speakers spaced around the fan."
The group measured the reduction in sound at the fan and at various points at a distance, said Brian B. Monson, a graduate student of Dr. Sommerfeldt.
The experiments used two fan sizes, with b
Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
The grind and vibrations of your harddrive is also a significant factor in computer noise(though with a good drive it becomes secondary to fans). I've set my own computer at a slight angle(the back on a pillow) to reduce this noise, even though it increases my chances of HD failure.
I use my good ol' AK-47 to silence them damn computer-lovin' freaks.
I passed the Turing test.
I love my computer, and I will NOT be silenced.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
If a cpu fan spins in a computer, and there is no one around, does it still make a sound?
In fact, this whole thing won't really succeed because the sound of fans is the sound of turbulent airflow. The sound of turbulent airflow is by definition very similar to white noise.
If they do manage to silence us, what then?
At least I still have other hobbies like...er...um...dammit!
In some instances it's not just the noise from the fan but the vibrations fan induces in surrounding objects.
For example I built a media-center OC using a Silverstone SST-LC03-B case, replaced the 60mm case fan with a Vantec "Stealth" fan, used a Zallman silent power supply and a Zallman copper/alimunum heatsink/fan, with the fan speed controller on it's quietest setting. In an office environment, sitting on the cases' shipping box while being tested and set up, the machine was virtually silent - I had to hold my ear next to it to hear anything.
But as soon as I put it in my oak entertainment wall-unit, the wood resonated at the case fan's frequency and it was unbearable. The only solution was to disconnect the case fan entirely.
drop of human blood required to read article
Christ, what is wrong with you people? Just spend the two minutes it takes to register and you're set for life. Use fake information if you're so egotistical that you think your real name and address actually matters to someone.
What awful thing do you think will happen if you register for the NYT online?
This space intentionally left blank.
Barring cost, why not use the same technique as those filterless air purifiers. They produce directional air flow, which I have always assumed the velocity of the air was a function of the amount of electricity used in the system.
Lecter: Well, Clarice, have the fans stopped screaming?
The makers of speakers and microphones were too busy high-fiving each other to comment.
What is the REALLY sad part here is that the zealots are going to come out and shout/mod you down for being a "luddite" when all you are doing is lending some common sense (it's rather sparse in these parts if you've not noticed yet!)
Cheers, and yes, your idea is hella better.
As others have pointed out, quieting a single fan is only a small part of the battle. Unless that's the only moving part in your computer it seems like a bad idea to need a separate antinoise system for every noise source.
Instead, I would elect to design the case not only for airflow but also for noise "flow". I'd spray panels with some kind of dense material - automotive undercoat might work fine, or barring that, spray-on bedliner. Or, I would use an adhesive panel such as dynamat. This has the significant advantage of being inexpensive. I would have one air inlet and one outlet, and only one of each, and I'd place my sensors and audio elements there. I'd also use baffles coated with a highly efficient sound-damping material which could be more expensive than the case coating.
But, there is an even better way to do this, which is to use heat pipes to carry the system's heat to a large sink on the outside of the case. Or alternatively, use an external water cooling system. I was originally planning to do water cooling inside my PC (as there should be ample room in a 4U rack case) but I am now planning to make it external so I can put it behind some shit for noise purposes.
With all this ranting said, when the technology gets cheaper and we can embed it into disposable fans, this very approach will be practical. Since it usually requires a DSP and some not necessarily inexpensive speaker units, that's a little ways off. I think it would be better to work on ways of not generating that noise than to cancel it, which is by its nature a wasteful process.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This article has the lamest picture ever! Definitely some girl right out of art school that likes the color pink :)
Also from that part of the country, SCOX has filed a lawsuit against all computer fans who use Linux, in an effort to silence them.
I'd be happier if I could cancel the noise coming from the other people on my bus. There are days where I get off the bus ready to kill something.
Eliminates inane chatter! Loud cellphone talkers banished! Never hear the high-frequency noise of other people's headphones! Buy now, only $29.95!
I would sprain my wrist trying to get my wallet out to pay for it fast enough.
HBH"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
Now they've just got to figure out a way to strap one of those noise-reducing speakers to the missionaries that BYU keeps churning out.
To take care of nosy nerds, they send ditzy chaste-yet-teasing BYU coeds. Guaranteed to frustrate and/or bore you to death within hours, unless you're a RM (returned Mormon missionary) in which case you'll end up married to them within two days.
Either way, problem solved.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
I quieted the fan in my power supply by jamming a metal fork into it. As soon as the blades of the fan came into solid contact with the tines of the fork, the fan stopped spinning and my computer has been much quieter ever since.
About the same time, I noticed that my computer began actng strngly though so maybe ths wsnt teh bsts srlstuion aftr ahl....?
** NO CARRIER
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
BYU Project to Silence Computer Fans
For now at least. I'll collect later.
Caution on the 400SC with SATA: it won't boot from 3rd party IDE cards (such as you'd use for mirroring).
Maybe we should look at the fan design first. When Brushless-DC fans were first introduced in the early 1980's I evaluated most of the major brands. Blade shape and contour were major contributors to noise, but by far the worst was mounting the fan up against the panel wall with holes or a grill. Running slow also reduces noise. One company's blade design removed the high pitch wind noise and just left a low pitch rumble that sounded quieter than it was. Centrifugal "squirrel-cage" fans were much quieter than axial fans. Sleeve bearings were a little quieter than ball bearings, but had a much shorter life and will "freeze-up" once the oil dissipates. (I actually had this happen to my old computer.)Ball bearings get louder over time, but you'll replace your computer before then.
Power supplies can reduce airflow requirements considerably by better heatsinks and/or using the chassis for moving the heat away from the hot components. Once the real design issues are tackled, the bell-and-whistles approach could then be used to further reduce sound levels as necessary.
Dell mounts one fan deep inside the computer and the PS fan is quiet but near a wall. Six weeks ago I bought a Systemax and a Dell computer. Systemax sounded normally obnoxiously loud. Dell was so quiet, I thought it was not working, so I opened it to see if I could tell what was wrong. I was fooled by the sudden start of noise and then quiet.
or just buy a SilenX fan...
ok
I pictured a gang of angry Mormons blasting into various LUG meetings with automatic weapons.
The solution is not more noise. I've heard rumours of evil things happening to your brain when the noise coming in one ear is slightly offset (time wise) from the noise in the other ear.
.7 Sonne, 130 CFM fan that is vented from all the cases (5 of them @ 19x19.5x7)
Between the 6-8 desktops and 2 laptops floating around my desk at any time, my noise quotient was pretty damn bad, even when I took most of them down to the bare minimums of fan noise. Yes, I could have replaced all my fans with nice quiet ones, or modded the cases for noise reduction, but then I'd have to do that with every case, every time I changed up.
The solution? I scored a cheap-ass enclosed LAN rack, got some cheap-ass wood cut for me at the store, and build my own LAN cases. The only fan in my entire 6'4" rack is a
My systems have never been cooler, the noise is so freakishly quiet that I'm still getting used to it, I've got more flexibility than I ever did, and with everything KVM'd, I've got a cleaner desk. Total cost? Maybe $200 CDN [insert "so that's $.05 US?" joke here]. And, on the bright side, with so much extra space in my cases, my mod list is getting bigger and bigger with all the nifty things I can do.
Sure, noise cancellation works in the short term, but 8 hours a day or more? I'd be worried that some slight imbalance somewhere might screw with my brain or break my ears.
Plus, my kick-ass blacklighted rack with piles of blinkenlichten is MUCH cooler than some wussy lil speakers.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Conservation of energy?
:)
Or does the air just get hotter? (thereby making the fan rather pointless)
Seems like some physical law is getting violated somewhere
Does the silencer require a cooling fan of its own?
Have you read my blog lately?
I work in a computer music and acoustics research lab and we're always after a quieter PC. We've considered a solutions like this, but we've decided it wouldn't really be necessary for long. Here's why.
Among the many reasons for having a hard drive in every computer, two of the big ones were the Microsoft vision statement, and the fact that the network was much slower than disk. The latter is no longer the case.
The fact that network is now faster than local disk is a MAJOR development.
We've experimented with RedHat 9 with nfs root on older hardware with no disk and no fans, with 100Mb bootable NICs. We found to our surprise that they ran faster than with standard (non UDMA) ide. So, we're trying it now with newer hardware and gigabit, and some BIG heatsinks. So far, so good. We can optimize the central storage for speed, and the systems do, in fact, run noticeably faster in most cases, in addition to being nearly* silent.
We hadn't counted on the added bonuses, but there are many. We can change an entire system disk by moving dirs, reexporting, and booting the machine up. Poof, new system. We can install and uninstall packages on machines while they're off! We no longer have two or three extra gigs on each machine, all our nfsroots are from a single physical filesystem (so far) so they all have the same amount of free space, much more efficient! And if a machine offends you, you can yank the plug out. No local fsck!
*Note that the machine is never truly silent. Without any fans or disks, you can still hear a certain noise that sounds like it's happening when the disk used to seek. It's the toroids in the power supply! The network traffic causes HF noise in the power lines, which is filtered in the power supply and causes the chokes to vibrate slightly. The noise is very low, it would easily be drowned out by the quietest of fans, but in a totally silent room with no other PC sound, it's quite audible. There is also some low and infrequent clicking while the machine is warming up and cooling down, due to the thermal expansion of the heat sinks. This doesn't happen during use, when the temperature is more or less constant.
I'm supposed to document all this and I've been lazy, so if you want the rundown on booting redhat 9 without a hard drive, write to me and I'll finish the page and send you the link.
How can I send the blood? All I seem to get is a smudgy monitor.
I don't need a signature.
As well as silencing your computer fans, you can also silence your hard drive. Guaranteed you won't hear the sound of a whining hard drive ever again, or in fact any noise from your hard drive at all. One step closer to an all-silent computer system.
:-)
already have IP rights to that idea?
That which does not kill her only prolongs my agony.
Unite!!!
They may try to silence us, but they will fail.
We will not go quietly into that dark night, we will go kicking and screaming...
<sound of muffled voice whispering, patiently explaining>
oh, well, carry on then...
Why bother with all this technology when you can reduce noise to a tremendous degree by using a nice quiet Nexus power supply, Nexus CPU fan, and quiet fluid bearing drive hard disk?
Self awareness - try it!
If it's revolutionary to do this by measuring noise at the source rather than from the center of the goddamn room, well, I guess they should've looked at the noise-cancelling-headphones industry, which have been doing this for years. What kind of dumbass measures the noise away from the source and then tries to compensate for all the reflections and distortions that could occur in the path between the source and the reciever?
Software piracy is victimless theft.
Bah i have watercooling what good does this do me? The fans aren't in the case at all. Bastards getting my hopes up like that.
I thought it was, "BYU project to silence Cougar fans." But then I realized that the football team isn't a new project, so I knew I was mistaken.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I have tried the noise reduction headphones, and I can hear the cancellation noise just as loud as the other noise. I am guessing this affects other people too. If noise cancellation is an issue, why not run another fan exactly out of phase, rather than try to generate a noise that is the "opposite"? I think you'd have better results if it was a real fan (despite that the power drain would be 2x).
stuff |
I came across this yesterday:
from Google's cache.
I don't sprechen sie mormon, but the bottom images are telling...
It's been so long since I've been at the U (Mosaic just came out, think The Internet Adaptor (TIA)), do most universities do this now?
Firstly, this is hardly science, this is actually engineering. Where's the theory, the hypotheses, the new knowledge learned? All this is, is a simply refinement of current understanding or technique.
Secondly, what a waste of educational dollars. In the end, I'm not sure what was learned or what was taught. As well, I wonder how much he spent when he "built an [aluminium] enclosure that mimicked a typical computer chassis". Why not just use an old discarded case? This sort of waste is just as evidently rampant there as it is here. Truly, I wonder at the way privileged people play with public money.
This sort of engineering properly belongs in the R&D departments of case and fan manufacturers.
Wouldn't a stack of discs make less noise?
It's never been clear to me how this is supposed to work from the standpoint of conservation of energy (I've read several dissertations on the subject). Is the canceling source (the anti-source) supposed to dissipate the energy in the traveling sound pressure wave (a-la active damper), thereby stopping the sound from propagating, or does the source provide short-term energy storage to reshape the spacial sound pressure field distribution, or is there some non-linear effect that redistributes the sound spectrally (translating peaked spectra to lower-level flat spectra -- a sound whitener)?
This would be great for projectors. My home theater projector's fans, while quiet at somewhere around 30db, can be annoying at times. I'd love to have active noise cancellation, assuming it didn't affect the sound coming out of my speakers.
get nemulator
We must fight the oppressive powers and not let our fans be silenced! It is our duty to protect Fans' Freedom of Speach!
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Now you know why distributed, networked computers are the future (aka blades and terminals). Why complain about computer noise and heat when the machine is down in the basement?
How about being to sleep with a PC on 24/7?
Some people actually like the noise from their fans.
I know that I can't sleep unless my computer is on. I need the white noise produced by my fans in order to sleep. In fact, even if I'm not trying to sleep, I can't stand being in my room if the computer's off (which it rarely is, unless there's a power outage) because I'm so used to the white noise from its fans.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Um, they come in pairs.
Why can't they replace the bearings with magnets? And shape the fan blades to avoid the wasteful noise entirely, at least in the audible band?
--
make install -not war
I bought a few fans from SilenX and I'll tell you they are the quietest fans I have used yet. I usually stuck with the Panaflo's but I am definitely a convert. (not to sound like a salesman).
-----
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I'm glad someone has made the appropriate logical connection, from applying this technology to some giant industrial machine, to applying it to individual computer parts. I was thinking about it last week, but then I didn't _do_ anything about it. It seems so much simpler, in the long run; instead of silent components, just make silence.
I do wonder, however, whether a defective implementation would _increase_ the noise level. Best to be careful, and you'd better be able to disconnect the silencer when it becomes a shrieker.
I am an amateur sound engineer and I have a complete understanding of phase cancellation.
It doesn't take a PhD to figure this out.... Several commonly available sound engineering books cover it in considerable detail.
HSF and exhaust fan running full blast, plus a 24" box fan blowing into the case to keep the drives cool. actually helps me sleep.. if the box fan is off, i find it harder to sleep.
i'm not everyone though.
Couldn't they use instead of a fan an "ionic breeze" system like the one the sharper image uses in its air purifiers?
I've been thinking of those for a long time cause they are really silent and they do move air. But I really do not know if they can work inside a computer cage.
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
How about a fan with more blades, for example 20 or 30 smaller blades?
Using a lower rpm, the fan with more blades could blow the same amount of air as a normal fan, but run MUCH quiter.
My Athlon XP 2600+ needs to dissipate a lot of heat with a good heatsink and fan. I turn my PC off several times per day so that I do not need to listen to the noise all the time. Unfortunately, it is right next to my bed. I use a monster sized heat sink with a larger than usual 80mm fan for the CPU instead of the normal high speed 60mm fans. It uses the extra large CPU fan so that it can be run slower and quiter but, I have not been able to get the fan to go slow enough. When I turn the knob all the way to the left the CPU fan only slows down to about 2700 RPMs. At least that is a heck of a lot quiter than how it sounds at 4500 RPMs. If I remember correctly, the BIOS usually says that the CPU is about 53 degrees Celsius on the die with the fan set to 2700 RPMs.
My heat sink is too heavy to be mounted with clips on the Athlon XP processor. It uses the alternate method of 4 bolts through the 4 holes that already were in the motherboard. I once used a fan that ran at about 1900 RPMs which was nice and the temp was ok. I would like to find a fan which runs at about 2300 RMPs and has the speed controlled by either a thermistor or knob. I know someone who has a newer version of the BIOS on the same motherboard and his BIOS shuts the computer down whenever he tries to run his fan that slowly. If I ever need to upgrade to that version of the BIOS it may think my fan has failed and shut the computer down.
There are over 50 different heat sinks made for most CPS. Most are small heat sinks with 60 mm fans running at high speed. Some are larger heat sinks with slower or occasionally even larger fans. There is at least one heat sink made that uses heat pipes for passive cooling. There are also water cooling kits. I wonder which is best?
Most newer video cards now have fans. A few months ago one computer magazine reviewed a video card that did not need a fan. I wonder if it works with Linux? I would gladly buy the active noise cancellation kit BYU is developing even if it was fairly expensive. I would prefer to not have to shut down my computer repeatedly throught the day and then later reboot just to avoid the noise. Perhaps my trouble is that I have not listened to enough loud music at bars and elsewhere over the decades. My hearing is still reasonably good at the age of 49. To me the noise from many of the new computers is unacceptable. Perhaps I could drastically underclock the CPU and then find a way to slow the fan way down.
IANAE so I am wondering if using out of phase noise cancelling approaches actually reduces the SPL on your ears.... or does it just drown out the original noise with another noise that renders them virtually silent.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
because knowledge of how to shape blades to bring wasteful vibrations to a minimum is controlled as a weapons manufacturing knowledge. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/cong ress/1989_cr/h890413-spy.htm)
Well, to REALLY get the horse before the cart I'd hope that SOMEONE would focus on building computers WITHOUT FANS. Apple has done this, others have. Heat sinks and convection can go a long way, especially when the computers we are used to these days are vertically oriented to begin with. Put the hot stuff at the bottom of a case with a tube over them that allows the hot air to by sucked up to a vent at the top. A slow fan could kick in to assist if things started to overheat. There are fans that operate at a few undred RPM and are almost silent but still move a good amount of air.
Maybe there needs to be a new version of computer hobbiest called "Underclockers" who take a 3G processor designed to fry eggs and runs it at 700Mhz without a fan. Meanwhile I'm sitting here browsing Slashdot with a 3D mega triangle video card with its own fan and 64M of memory. Does anyone make a video card these days that is both (1) really fast, and (2) doesn't have all the horsepower and programming to do 3D rendering? Hardly. I don't MIND the 3D capabilities per-se, but I've known many people already that have had to replace their video cards after they burn out, and often I think the culprit here is accumulation of dust in and around the video cards fan. I get a BIT of dust on my case fan when I open it up from time to time, but the tiny fan on the video card is almost always close to being clogged with what they used to call "dust bunnies". Eventually some of these apparently accumulate to the point where the fan just ejects them onto whatever component is below. Some of these case designs go beyond what I'd call "bad" to downright incompetent. Or could it be deliberate planned obsolescence?
I'm still hanging onto my old Dells, some of which, as mentioned above are designed to be quiet (even with a fan). I'll get my wallet out again when the systems appear to be designed to last and run quietly. My stereo equipment puts out some heat as does my TV and THEY don't have fans. When the most complex thing I use my computer for makes it act a whole lot like a stereo system or TV you have to ask where did we go wrong here. (I know the answer, but I'll get labeled a troll if I say it, so I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader).
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was - screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Fans. The fans were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: They were suppressing the CPU fans?
Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I-I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one fan, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it wasvery cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but - he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Mormon orphanage in Provo. I never saw the ranch again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your fan, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: They killed him.
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
I re-soldered the take-offs for the fan power to the 5V leads (red vs. yellow). The machine stays adequately cool with the (3) fans running at the lower voltage, and I can't hear them at all.
On another note, the hard drive was causing a lot of noise during access. I found that there were two reasons for this: one, the drive was very fragmented from having (ahem) large files constantly copied on to it and then deleted, and the NNTP client was contributing significantly to the fragmentation. Here's what I did:
(1) Installed an old 6GB hard drive just for the NNTP message headers.
(2) Defragmented the main HD with O&O and left it resident.
(3) Established a RAM disk for the browser cache while I was at it.
Now the machine runs as near silent as I can imagine, and much faster.
Incidentally, I painted it black (including the drive faces and bay inserts) with Krylon Fusion, "The no-prep superbond paint for plastic". I have never been a fan of painted computer cases, but the Krylon product does a great job without actually doing a proper prep and spraying with an expensive two-part paint.
ass
I'm thinking of a ring shaped magnet, in a ring shaped track with sides enclosing the magnet. Like a monorail bent into a ring. If the facing sides of the ring and track are the same polarity, the inner ring will hover. Neodymium magnets, like in mobile headphones, have enough force:weight to float the suspended ring and plenty of plastic blades attached within, and shaping the ring can allow magnetic pulses to force the ring to spin. Voila! For my next trick, I seal the ring inside the track, balancing the fan disc magnetically inside a split leaving gaps smaller than O2 molecules, sealing a vacuum inside, for no friction in the "bearing" at all.
--
make install -not war
I wonder if creating a case where it was sealed, and came with a pump to create a vacuum inside the case if would be possible. We know that sound doesn't travel in a vacuum I hope. Just a project someone might want to consider :)
Did they try wrapping the fans in magic underwear?
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
http://www.zalmanusa.com/ (Go to Zalman TNN500A, couldn't get a direct link due to flash menu system)
This thing is a triumph of brute force engineering, but also extreme elegance in design. Basically THE ENTIRE case is made from Aluminium between 5mm and 7mm which is connected using heatpipes to the graphics card and CPU and simply dissipates the heat output passively into the surroundings. You can use the latest parts, the dissipation is rated up to 150W CPU heat output and 50W GPU output. The PSU uses VERY high quality components and is totally fanless. You can get a UPS system built into the bottom as an option as well. I think Athlon64 and Pentium4 CPUs are currently supported.
This idea of using sound to create sound is a no goer in a recording studio where the control room needs to be completely silent and presumably countless scientific and engineering applications. You could have the PC in another room, but this would definetly be prefferable for the majority of users.
Yep, its seriously expensive (not sure, maybe up to GBP1000), but it works flawlessly, looks great, and is ideal for conditions where complete silence is a must, not just noise reduction. Compared to other bits of kit that probably will be sitting in the same area (5000 Vintage Mics or a soundproof room) its a small price to pay really.
His name is my name too!
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
It sounds like you have found the best solution and have quieted everyting down but, here is another alternative. I have two Monitors, keyboards and mice all attached to my tower case through Y-adaptors. A monitor and keyboard is on each side of the wall so that I can use the computer from either room. Noise is only a problem in the room that has the tower. Using the computer from the other room is so much more relaxing and quiet. The computers various cables all go through the wall. In the quiet room all that is heard is the clickety-clackety of my mechanical keyboard.
That would be one possible solution for someone who really wants silence? They could place the tower and all the noisy components on the other side of the wall. Anyone doing that should be sure to not exceed the maximum rated distance for each type of cable that the computer uses. One drawback is that it does result in a messy bundle of cables going through the wall. At least it is hidden behind the furniture in both rooms.
Is your diskless solution a thin-client or is that something different? I don't know much about that.
About 3 years ago, BYU's school newspaper (The Daily Universe) ran a front page story on a University ran service project...
"BYU Helps Rape Victims"
Sorry CmdrTaco, we've had this news before: Cancelling Out CPU Fan Noise, 16-Mar-2004
Aren't you guys tired of finding new ways of saying that you don't like that NYT requires registration now ?
... nah, too simple
"Drop of human blood required"
"Sacrifice of firstborn required"
"Satan worship required"
How about these:
"Burning down neighbours house required"
"Mandatory stripsearch required"
"Left lung donation required"
or just plain old:
"Registration required" ?
"Oh yes, and as for the American Indians with dark skin, if you read the actual text of the Book of Mormon you would know that in the last days they are to be one of the most blessed peoples of earth and that in the days after Christ were among the most righteous on earth."
True, and, in fact, a close examination of the Book of Mormon reveals that some of the most righteous and inspiring people at times were indeed dark skinned (Lamanites): Samuel, King Lamoni and his father and brother, the people of Ammon, the two thousand stripling warriors...etc.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I for one whole-heartedly endorse BYU Coeds :-)
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Custom-built quiet PCs. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I just think it's a good idea and am probably going to buy one.
Twas a joke! Yea verily, much motions with bladder-on-stick.
See? The amusing person posted multiple times to reply to a parent that said the story had been posted before.
Moderators! Geez! And no, I'm not chicken for posting as AC, I'm just posting from a different machine and can't remember my password.
Get yourself one of these. That should be long enough for most houses.
You can see how our friends in Soviet Russia might be confused by this saying.
I wish people would stop trying to silence computer fans. I can't sleep -without- them. A humming computer lets me know the world is right, and good, and that it's safe to close my eyes.
The article talks about canceling the sound from 'the' fan. Some people have lots of fans in their case. There's the powersupply fan, a possible GPU fan, a possible north bridge fan, and possible fans on the case for extra air flow. Also there's the HD and optical drive making noise. These noises should all be eliminated muffled, pc drone gets on my nerves now and my next pc will different.
You can already make a dead silent pc without sacrificing performance or resorting to this complicated gadget. Get big passive heatsinks for the cpu and gpu. They look like this. It works on regular cps and seems to be a much simpler solution than four sensors four speakers and a signal processing unit.
This guy has lots of hints for reducing noise and that's just the first hit on google.
The fan on my video card died and I didn't notice so I lost the card. It was only a geforceMX but I'm a little bitter.
Fans die. Wether I notice in time isn't imortant to me, it's still a pain.
- Non-whites were "less valiant" in the pre-existence, and so their curse is to live in ignorance and slavery in this life (also taught in the Book of Mormon and D&C)
- It's better that a man kill his adultrous wife to save her by "blood atonement" than to let her die with her sins
- Adam was god the father
- Homosexuality and adultry are sins only surpassed by murder
- The Catholic church is the whore of all the world and the church of Satan (also taught in Book of Momon somewhat)
- Man cannot get into the highest degree of heaven (the "celestial" kingdom) without having multiple wives
- Women can't get into the same place without the permission (and proper handshakes "through the veil") without her husband
Go look for yourself if you don't believe me.The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
The G5 is quite possibly the quietest desktop around, except for maybe their quieter fanless iMacs. Considering how well a G5 works, it's simply amazing how little noise it puts out...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Who really cares about noisey fans/hard drives. No big deal. They won't wake me up at night like so 15 year old poser in his tricked out Civic with more bass wattage than horsepower.
Stop that noise and I'll buy 10.
I think it's just my fan readings that are off. My computer is dead quiet when that CPU fan is throttled to 50 (i bought all quiet other components). Still, I'd like to run that fan at full RPM for XviD encoding. I can't do that on a hot summer day without throttling it up.
Photos.
Why not just replace with quieter fans.. They have those available now.
Subzerorz
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"BYU Project to Silence Computer Fans"
Ok, so who else read that and thought some Luddite Mormon Mafia was going around and breaking geeks kneecaps?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
I'm always glad to see fellow members on slashdot. :) Last semester, my sister lived pretty close to you (University Villa). I've been in Springville for a year and a half now, and I love it down here. The singles ward is a little bit older than the BYU wards, which is nice. Definitely agree with what you said - while Utah is far from perfect, it is a refreshing change having friends who believe the same things I do.
Anyway, just wanted to say "hi" and I'm glad to see you guys speaking out.
yes, please.
nusrat
AT
rocketmail
DOT
COM