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5 Simple Steps to a Quieter PC

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the do-you-hear-what-i-hear dept.

~*77*~ writes "Silencing a computer can be a costly endeavor, but taking a few relatively inexpensive steps can have a drastic impact on the noise produced by the common computer system. Before starting on any sound reduction upgrades, analyzing a system to pinpoint the areas in need of the most attention will help determine the best course of action and the best way to spend any money."

6 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. Cool, but... by nicc777 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    how do I silence a noisy UPS. There is this humming sound, and it's especially bad when the PC is turned off. Any ideas?

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    1. Re:Cool, but... by glesga_kiss · · Score: 5, Interesting
      how do I silence a noisy UPS?

      Can you put it in another room and run a cable, maybe even install a dedicated wall plug? You could even put in a two-socket wall plug, put a blanking plate on the second and mount a serial port on it to hook up to the UPS. If you wanted to go nuts that is!

  2. Re:Ummm... what about the HDs? by arkhan_jg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you're having multiple drive failures in one or two cases, I'd really recommend looking at the power supplies.

    I have a case that killed a drive every few months until I twigged and replaced the PSU with an antec 350W. If the power rails are 'dirty' with fluctuating voltage, they can slowly kill a drive. This is a known problem with cheap PSU's, and it can be cheaper to spend a bit more on a quality supply than keep swapping drives.

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  3. Re:There is no step 2 by jargoone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My Dell 400SC has a single 120mm fan in the back. Most of the time, I can't even tell the machine is powered on. It get a little louder when it's doing something CPU intensive. It's the quietest PC I've ever owned.

    BTW, you didn't even have to RTFA, you just had to RTF summary. I can't get to the article, but the summary says the steps are inexpensive, which leads me to believe that you don't have to spend loads of money.

    One more thing: I am not a Dell fanboy, but Macs are expensive.

  4. Re:There is no step 2 by legirons · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "My Dell 400SC has a single 120mm fan in the back. Most of the time, I can't even tell the machine is powered on. It get a little louder when it's doing something CPU intensive. It's the quietest PC I've ever owned."

    We have various racks of Dell desktop machines at work. When you turn the whole lot on at the power supply, it creates a gale that blows papers in adjacent rooms, as all 16 computers startup with their fans set to maximum.

    At another building, we have 16 server-style (big, lockable, etc.) dell machines. It's only marginally below the legal limits for noise that people are allowed to work in.

    Another similar installation (PCs, not Dells) was found to be "okay if you stood at least 4 meters away" in terms of harmful volume of noise.

    My home PC (zalman flower-CPU, new PSU, etc.) ranges from "annoying" (most of the time) to "people think you've left the hoover on" when it detects that it's too hot.

    So yeah, if Macs are better than that, I might get one. Dell sure as hell isn't the answer.

    Why do you say "Macs are expensive" when they supply not only the cheapest decent computer around, but the iMac which (after all the initial PC puffery) was found to be cheaper than building a similarly-specc'd PC, and the G4 which is so much cheaper than equivalent PCs that they built a cluster supercomputer out of them. And this is comparing them to the price of Dells, of all computers?!?

  5. I've looked into the "silent PC" issue . . . by raresilk · · Score: 4, Interesting
    extensively over the past few years. I'm taking the trouble to rant a bit about what others have said, as well as post a summary of my own research and experimentation, because every time I read a thread anywhere about this subject, I see the same ol' same ol', most of it misinformed or plain wrong. (For background, my household has a G4 silver MAC, a parts-built PC running Windows, a parts-built PC running Linux, and a G4 Titanium powerbook.)

    RANTS:

    1. "Silent PC" Is Not a Fetish.
    There are practical reasons why some of us demand silence from a computer. The one that drives me is the fact that I use my computer(s) to record audio. Short of building a separate room to house the computer (which causes insane problems with ventilation, video/kb/mouse cables, etc.), you simply have to get it silent for a professional-quality recording. Another reason is home theater, which I believe was mentioned in the article. I really don't understand why people who couldn't care less how much noise their computer emits (like people who run server rooms) continually post in these threads. We silent freaks are aware there are lots of people who have no reason to care about dBs. That's why it's so hard to find parts to build a truly silent PC. I don't give a flip about overclocking - do I go around posting "you overclockers are kooky" in every thread on overclocking on Ars or Tom's or Anand's? Jeez.

    2. Fans Equal Noise. Period.
    There is no way around this. If you have fans anywhere in your computer, your computer will not be silent. It may be marginally quieter with some fans than others, but fans move air around and turn on a shaft, and both of those things are impossible to silence. Quieten, yes. Silence, no. And I have tried a number of supposedly "quiet PC" fans, including CPU fans. Rheostats are commonly put forward as a solution to the noise problem. They're not, at least for me, because turning fans down with a rheostat is only feasible when the computer is not working hard. But even single-channel audio recording is processor-intensive, and when you add effects processing or additional channels, booyah! Turn down the fans to the point where they are quiet enough for audio recording and you will lock up due to heat, and I am speaking from experience here. Moreover, turned-down fans are still not silent, and quiet enough is still not professional-quality. The same would be true for a home theater installation - encoding/decoding makes heat. The same is true for mobo-automated fan turndown. It turns straight up right when the computer needs to be quiet, for the same reason. (One post mentioned that the Mac iServe has three virtually-silent fans. If this is true, I would love to get ahold of such fans without paying $4K for an iServe. But every other product I've heard described as "virtually silent" -- e.g., power supplies -- always made noise. Fan noise. Because fans equal noise. So I'm skeptical. The Mac Mini was mentioned also, but is insufficient in processing power/ram to run my studio.) Also, contrary to the article, more fans at a slower speed are not quieter. Theoretically, perhaps, but not to the real human ear.

    3. "Quiet Cases" Are Useless.
    This applies both to cases made of heavy material specifically designed to be quiet, and insulation foam that you paste inside the case. Tried em, dumped em. I should have recognized in advance that heavier and/or insulated cases substantially decrease heat dissipation through the case, which means -- that's right -- more and faster FANS, and fans equal noise. Anything you gain by putting your computer guts in an insulated fortress, you will lose by the whining RPMs tacked onto your CPU and vidcard fans, and incidentally, your kewl mobo-controlled or power-supply controlled fans will crank up to high RPMs as well. It's worse than a wash - it's actually noisier. Learned it the hard way.

    4. Most Water-cooling Is Probably Useless.
    I say "probably" because I h

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