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Beginning Of the End For PC Noise
An anonymous reader writes "If you work around computers a lot you are probably pretty tired of the noise they produce. The cutting down on computer noise has grown from the pet-peeve of a few people to a major segment of the hardware industry. If you are looking to cut down on noise there are a lot of ways to go, but one of the easiest and most effect is to upgrade to a silent power supply. This guide goes over and tests the four most popular ones on the market right now." A few years back, I had also written a piece about making silent machine as well. Any other hints from people?
If you work around computers a lot you are probably pretty tired of the noise they produce.
Are you kidding? That noise helps me go to sleep.
Make sure you don't use/need a DragonOrb3. I have one for an AMD Palomino 1.2 GHz and it wakes the dead, and sometimes even me!
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Buy a very long cable!
Have I read about quiet PCs on Slashdot?
My contest: who can post the most links to prior articles on this one? Winner gets their name in my sig line for a week.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
My power supply isn't the noisiest thing in my computer. That crazy P4 dissapates MILLION watts of heat requiring 4 or 5 fans. Get me a Pentium M consuiming 21 watts then I'll look at a fanless power supply or a those old cheap 150 watt power supplies.
Just do what I do when they get too loud.
In my experience, it's the case fans that are the culprit for most of the noise. I have several Vantec Tornados cooling my rig, and sometimes I wish that I didn't overclock everything so that I could run a much quieter fan. My powersupply, on the other hand, is quite quiet.
I bought a Zalman cooling fan, and it came with an adapter with a knob that you can turn to slow your fans down to about 1k RPM. I found a few more online, and with my Antec PS, which lets you plug its fan into a mobo fan slot, i can control the speed of all 3 of my fans. My computer is as quiet as a mouse if I need it to be.
That constant 25-dB wooshing is the perfect white noise for blocking out the sounds of chatter and staplers in my office, and helping me catch some much needed sleep.
10
20 Print "Balls To That"
They are all silent or virtually so.
I built my latest AMD64 rig around the fact that it was going to be in my bedroom and on 24/7, so it is nearly inaudible from three feet away. Silence comes at a cost though - it's been rather expensive to build for it's modest specs. The basics are Athlon64 3000+, GeForce 6600GT, 1GB crucial ballistix ram and 3 160gb harddrives. I found SPCR to be a very helpful source of information and many modifications i've made to the internals of the case are based on plans and recommendations from that site. It's worth a look.
The poster makes us go through 13 ad-filled pages and then concludes that all the power supplies are great.
Check http://silentpcreview.com/; it has a lot more information about silencing a PC and less ads.
To me, the white-ish noise of a fan doesn't bother me nearly as much as the clicks and clacks of my coworkers mashing their keys and mouse buttons. Forget the fans, just stop shipping mice and keyboards that INTENTIONALLY make noise every time you do anything! Why does my mouse button need to make a click that can be heard 20 feet away?
Why stick up for big business?
Have your PC in the basement, and the longest monitor and keyboard cords you can find to your office.
One thing that most people overlook is how tight their case is. If your tower is made of metal of any kind, make sure to eliminate any room for the walls to rattle or vibrate and that will cut down on noise by great leaps and bounds. Also, I try not to have my tower on a metal surface, because the vibrations also cause more noise than most people give credit to, or at least get some kind of boots under the machine.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
If you want noise to be less of a problem, buy a nice pair of headphones and use them at your computer. You'll be able to hear sounds and music better, and they'll cut out a lot of other background noise (people talking, outside noise) which will help you concentrate. You'll also be able to listen to whatever like at whatever volume you like without disturbing anyone.
It's a cheap and easy solution, and until silent PCs are perfected it's what I'll be using.
thirty page story full of advertisements with zero content.
Wanna lower the noise of your computer? Stop burning 450 WATTS of power to browse the web or send email.
Don't see any moving parts on your gameboy do you? Or your PDA for that matter. If desktop computers were made of APPROPRIATE parts instead of the "my computer has to be faster than yours" parts we'd have silent desktops that run in under 20 Watts of power that cost 150$ and run whatever OS you choose.
Anything short of this and you're doing to noise what we do to heat, moving the problem elsewhere. You could [for example] pump ice cold water over the heatsinks and keep the pump outside, in the basement, etc...
But that's just moving the problem elsewhere and not really solving it.
The solution is more scalable computing or appropriate choices. There is no reason, for example, why the P4 idles at 400Mhz and the AMD64 at 1Ghz other than the design can only scale so far. This matters a bit more in laptops where every mW counts.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
but one of the easiest and most effect is to upgrade to a silent power supply
It has been years since I've used a PC where the power supply was a significant contributor to the noise, and even the bargain basement ones are pretty well behaved these days. Not only are power supplies generally pretty quiet, but the noise they do make is the gentle sound of airflow.
Instead the low hanging fruit in aggravating noise are the hard drive, especially as rotational speeds increase (bringing the pitch to more and more irritating levels), optical media drives (though only when in use), and CPU fans. A quick up-and-comer in the ranks of audio assaulters are video cards, some of which come with ridiculously loud cooling contraptions.
Luxury!
When I was your age, we worked in factories with machines so loud, we'd go deaf by the time we were 12 years old!
If I walked into the server room, heard nothing, I would friggin' panic. Silence would take some getting used to. Also, that low hum or whir tends to soothe my frazzled nerves on my home PC..., Just my take.
Not at work. Background office noise drowns out any PC fan noise. Businesses won't care. Only people who will are gamers and Divx movie watchers with puters in their bedrooms (nerds).
Doesn't PC noise have more to do with the operating system? I remember a study a few months back which seemed to imply that windows machines were silent a whole lot more of the time compared to their competitors. Anybody remember that link? :p
**insert favorite profound quotation here**
items designed to produce a white noise while they sleep ! Look for white noise on google... They sell devices, relaxation CD etc all based on white noise. And you'de be willing to have a PC, whiteout the incredible benefits of the perpetual humming ??
\u262D = \u5350
Big, beautiful, Sony Vaio laptops for everyone!!
Or a PowerBook..(whatever floats your boat)..
It has not worsened.
The absolute 100% worst noise I ever had from a computer was in the Amiga days.
The Floppy disk click used to drive me potty.
It was like a dripping tap, and practically nothing could stop it.
At least the noise of a computer is a static stable background hum rather than a rythmic tapping (unless you own a deathstar of course)
liqbase
Get a laptop.
All the ones that aren't super-powered are pretty much super-silent (except in the rare case that the fan actually turns on).
Just be careful when installing Zalman heatsinks. Getting blood on your motherboard may void your warranty.
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
6 years ago I was in college dorm rooms and had my machine running constantly for the full 2 semesters. Occasionally someone would log in remotely or I would need to perform a much needed disk defrag. The hard drive I had was a 20GB IBM DeskStar (a.k.a. DeathStar) and all I can remember is how noisy that thing was chomping away at its spindles. My roommate can attest to that! Now, my 200Gb Seagate drives run about 6 dB lower than that old beast. The point is, all moving computer components become smoother and quiter over time as new innovative methods arise. I have a feeling noisy fans will be replaced by circulating fluid in the future to produce the 'ultra quiet' machine. We won't even be able to tell if it's on unless it has lots of flashing LEDs!
I am NOT putting my signature in this stupid little box! How do I know you won't steal my identity???
I can not stand PC noise. So much so, that when I got the money to buy a PowerMac G5, I almost did not from fear of the many fans it had in it. I held out till the magazine I work at got one so that I could hear it in action. I was shock by how little noise it made.
I am glad to see that I am not the only geek that hates a noisy computer.
I have a silent PSU in my main machine. It also has a Zalman Flower Cooler on the CPU, which also runs damn near silently. Unfortunately the noisiest part of my PC is the ATI Radeon card, with its proprietory fan and heatsink.
:(
I know there are kits out there that can replace the fan/heatsink combo on a graphics card, but they are not for the faint hearted - I broke my previous graphics card just trying to remove the original heatsink
Graphics card manufacturers really need to get on the silent PC bandwagon, instead of focusing on how many trillion polys per milli-second they can render.
-Jar.
Together, We Can Make Slashdot Better. I Do NOT Mod ACs. - Check Me Out
here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Turn it off, it's very quiet :-)
Lock your box in the basement and use a sunray. 0 sound, little heat.
I find it quite easy to make the PC quiet enough for my standards in general with one exception - watching movies on DVD. Does anyone know of a good silent DVD drive on the market that doesn't cause a large amount of vibration and hum whilst spinning?
A link submitted by a vendor selling silent power supplies? How original! ;)
I moved my PC out of the office and to the garage to serve duty as the house fileserver. I can once again watch TV in my office without cranking the volume three-fourths of the way to max.
As a side bonus my office got cooler. I was able to take my 450watt PSU and 19" CRT out of the room and it makes it all the more comfortable in the summertime!
Cool and quiet - it's a winning combination! DoublePlusGood; the Mac has a high W.A.F. because it's "pretty."
I've had a lot of cases and computers in my day. And the best thing for getting a quieter computer is bigger fans. Bigger fans have to spin at less rpms to push the same amount of air as a smaller fan. Less rpms means less noise.
The real key here is not to go crazy with the cooling/overclocking. Giant heat sinks with crazy fast fans are loud as all hell. And often the default fan that comes with the CPU is sufficient.
If you want more cooling than you need for overclocking the only real way to stay quiet is water cooling.
But my recommendation is always to just run hardware at speed, default cpu fan, big intake and big exhaust fan running at lowest speed. You wont even know it's there.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I just go to Start menu -> .. err just a minute, it's stuck.
Wait, I'll try the tray icon..
What?? It crashed.
No worries, I'll just resta.. WHAT?!?
*** UNPLUGS COMPUTER ***
There, silent.
|| Geshem ||
Buy a Mac Plus. It's completely silent.*
*Except for the floppy drive, of course.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'd like a PC that doesn't interfere with AM radios too.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
If you're not a total performance junky but like me just want to get on with computing (audio/music/image editing/perl/html/asm etc) then buy a thin and light or ultraportable laptop like sony T or S series. Many laptops are very quiet and the "centrino" based systems even more so (yeah, Intel's done a good job on those CPUs)
o ry.action?site=ite_en_GB&category=VN+T+Series
8 1.htm ;-)
here's more info on the T series
http://vaio.sony-europe.com/view/ShowProductCateg
I can barely hear it. Failing that you will just have to spend a small fortune on low noise fans etc all of which cost more, usually due to the enormous size of the things. TBH I can't the stand drone PC's make it sends me to sleep, so does the whirr of air cons. I can't stand working in offices. Hence, I work at home! Those places literally knock me out. My old tower system has low noise components (PSU/cpu fan/fanless video card) but it is still very audible to me.
failing that this computer is deadly silent...
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/zx81/zx
http://www.burnttoys.co.uk/
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
You don't have a G5 2x2GHz sitting on your desk, then.
It's usually fairly quet, but if you get the load up, it sounds like it's getting ready to take off (it's my first sign that it's having problems). I've had plenty of other noisy Macs... the only quiet ones are those without fans (iMacs, including the mini).
The G4 tower (1x866Mhz) under my desk is typically the noisiest thing in my office, unless the G5 starts getting beaten on. (it's my QA environment). The XServes generate a fair bit of noise, as well.
I wouldn't even qualify my powerbook as particularly quiet (TiBook, 1GHz). Not just the fan, but the optical drive and the hard disk are rather noisy as well.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I have my Prescott P4 overclocked, and I have replaced the stock fan with a 1 hp vacuum cleaner. I don't mind the noise, as long as I have speakers capable of blasting Metallica louder than the vacuum cleaner.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
I don't believe that. After a BSOD, my hard drive really chatters for a couple of minutes as multimeg of 'essential' components like IE are installed. BSD is easly small enough to fit on flash memory, so it only chatters when I'm reading the SAMBA partitions mounted on the HD.
Think global, act loco
This may sound kinda intuitive but the best way to get a silent PC is just to have it not make any noise :-)
Here's my shopping list:
Admittedly, it's not the fastest thing on the planet but it does for web browsing and lightweight gaming (sorry, no Doom 3).
Need more storage? Have a data server in a closet somewhere.
AC
You need to defeat two major factors: fan noise and hard drive noise.
Fan noise:
-Buy good silent CPU fan (Zalman, etc)
-Buy silent case & mainboard fans.
-Have motherboard that can regulate fan speeds depending on temperature.
-Power supply noise: it's the easiest part - buy better power supply that has no noise ($30 here make a world of diffrence).
Harddrive noise:
-Harddrive itself may be noisy, depending on speed/model, etc. Nothing you can do about it (except buy another).
-Harddrive noise resonated in case: Solution is hard drives monuts on rubber pads- reduce noise, but not as much as advertised.
Case is very important. Cases starting from $100 are more silent then average cases.
Case can be temperature efficient and noise efficient.
- Case temperature design: more expensive cases have better design/materials to keep system cooler. Means less FAN noise.
- Noise efficient design: this comes to fan&hard drive mounts, air flow and overal case quality.
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/ampc/
Some of the modding sites sell that fabric you can line the inside of your case with for noise reduction. Does this stuff actually work, and wouldn't it have an insulating effect?
Execute? [Y/N] _
My biggest problems now are the CD-ROM and the hard drives- I was kind of surprised to find the video card fan (ASUS GeForce 6600) is literally slient even under heavy load. I'm debating if the hard drive silencing enclosures are worth it- you can still tell the thing is on if you're within 5 feet, but unless the CD-ROM spins up you tune out the noise in a few seconds.
I'd love to see a benchmark of "Quietest PC for a given performance level".
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Article summary:
Ad, ad, ad, cookie, cookie, ad, cookie, ad, cookie, ad, cookie, cookie, cookie, ad, ad, ad, silent power supplies are quieter than normal ones.
I had the fan die on my video card a few weeks back, and went with the $20 thermaltake fanless kit instead of a replacement fan to prevent the failure from happening again.
It wasn't any harder than installing a heatsink on a CPU. Removing the old one was just a matter of squeezing the little plastic bits that held it on with pliers, and pulling them through the holes. Installing the new one was just a matter of putting all the pieces on in order, with heatsink goo in between.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
To be honest, I've endured quite some time my ThermalTake Vulcano running at about 40-50Db thinking "the loader the cooler, and more hardcore / OC-abilities", accepting the soothing jetengine like produced whitenoise.
But where I work they delivered new Dells, running extremely silent. After getting a PC in for repair and also having this contrast with my "hardcore Thermal Take" I went to investigate on silent Coolers, and they are en effect really quiet these days... (AMD Athlon, temps haven't been an issue so far)
I now just have to find more silent HD's now ;)
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
at uni I found removing the fan guards (Gasp!) reduced the noise by reducing air turbulance. Now I want to either migrate the PVR to watercooling (zalleman silent tower) or get a mobo with speed step so when the CPU is idle (with a hardware MPEG encoder on the PVR-250 and the NVidia MX440 MPEG decoding the CUP rarely crests above 10%) in the meantime I might try underclocking the cpu (dropping the voltage and the clock spped) and see what happens.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Forget mini-ITX, go with a VIA nano-ITX if you want to be really impressed. (Yes, there is only one nano-ITX board at the moment, but it is quite cool).
I find it's the best way to keep the computer quiet (but then the AC becomes the nosiest thing there :)). With an AC you won't need all the case fans, you can run your cpu fan at a lower speed and your powersupply fan (if it's intelligent can also run low speed)
did you forget to take your meds?
My computer used to sound like a jet engine until I took all the fans out (except the PSU) and put in a near silent water cooling system. It's fantastic. I wasn't interested in a "super cooling system"; I just wanted something that works and was quiet. Unfortunately the zalman reserator pump suffers wear and tear and needs to be replaced every now and then, but otherwise it is great!...
But this is just silly.
And it makes the page impossible to read.
I might be somewhat unusual, but my computer is about a foot from my bed when I sleep, and I actually like the quiet drone it makes. Its not loud, its just right, and it lulls me to sleep. Its just a standard Antec full-tower with all the fan bays used and a stock intel heatsink, so its not loud at all.
I had this problem. Loud PC, small apartment. Made it hard to leave on all the time downloading, um, updates...yeah, downloading updates.
Anyway, before I decided to plunk down some serious $$$ on quiet power supply, case fans, new case etc., I figured I'd give quieting the thing down one more shot with just what I had on hand. Turns out, I could disable both of the loud as hell case fans. The overall case temp. went up several degrees, but the CPU and MB sensors only went up a couple. PC has been running 24/7 for almost 2 months that way now, during the hottest part of the year.
I take pride in my 3.8 GHz Pentium 4, with 2 GB DDR RAM. I may need alot of fans, but my speakers are loud enough to drown the noise. I also take pride in the software I write, which is why I use Xlib. I take pride in configuring my OpenBSD firewall, and my NetBSD server, and my Gentoo workstations, like my P4 and Mac Mini.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
I'll second that.
Just got a Sony T-series: tiny, ultraportable, and quiet. Only time I notice the fan at all is when it's running at 100% CPU for a while. DVD drive is noticeable, but that's only used read/write optical discs ASAP; when playing a CD/DVD, just copy it onto the hard drive first (then can send the disc into storage, content is now online, but I digress).
This in contrast to my old SR17K, which made quite a racket (but took a beating). Sony is learning.
Having gone to notebook computers, I won't go back unless there really isn't a choice. They're quiet, power-efficient, convenient, with most vital peripherals built-in. Most larger accessories can be left on a small desk and attached via USB2. No need for the relatively huge desktop box unless you're doing hardcore gaming.
Why idle hundreds of watts on a big noisy fan-laden box, if a power-efficient notebook performs the same with a few dozen watts?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
...how will we know the fans are still running correctly?
(tinfoil hat on)
Oh, I know. The PC hardware vendors can now put in all sorts of electronic monitoring of the coolant systems and add to the cost of the system. If we pay a premium, it will page us. It will be separate and not part of the PC itself, sort of like a home router. And it can then even monitor other things.
Oh, wait. X10 systems can already do this and control my stereo and open my curtains and so on.
No thanks, I'd rather do like the late Engineer Scott and tell how well my cooling is doing by the sound it makes, like the vibration of the deck plates of a starship. I mean, imagine suggesting to mechanics that they pay no attention to their ears when diagnosing auto problems.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
My 'main' machine is allmost silent, dead cheap and consumes 35W.
I use a P3-500, passive cooled by a huge heatsink I got from a compac P2-450 (socket is the same). I undervolted the power supply in my heatsink to 5V, and 'decoupled' it from the power supply itself using the kind of foam with one adhesive site that's used to insulate indoor doors and a couple of rubberbands. The ram on the machine is maxed out (768Mb) though, that probably helps performance a bit too. The harddisk is a very quiet 40mb seagate 34016A (or something like that), which is hanging in the case using rubber bands to avoid transmitting noise to the case.
The videocard is fanless too.
I use no case fan, only way air is moved is with the undervolted power supply fan. I taped up all unnecessary air intakes/outlets except for the ones in front of the drive cage, hoping that the little air movement is optimized this way.
This started as a little pet project, and I used old hardware that was just lying round. I was thinking something would soon blow up due to overheating, but so far it's been constantly on (except for a few reboots now and then) for about half a year, surviving room temperatures of +30 degrees C.
For standard day-to-day computing (and I'm also running a mysql and postgresql on there for various projects) I have no need at all for anythign faster, noisiers, and more power hungry.
I have my computer running in my apartment at school 24/7, and it's pretty loud. When I go home, I end up using my laptop and it is really hard to fall asleep... the deafening sound of silence pierces my ears.
No, I'm not talking about me complaining. I'm talking about the various sounds that many people don't even notice. I've encountered CRTs that produced a high-frequency sound that causes a headache in some people - and can't even be heard by many people. And my Mac Cube - fanless, supposedly silent, with a quiet Seagate disk drive - produces a very high-frequency sound. I can barely hear it, but I can FEEL it. And when I power down the machine, the absence of that whine is like the stopping of a dentists drill; A tension you may not have realized is there disappears immediately.
I don't even turn on my PC these days. I use my Powerbook almost exclusively. Yes, the fan comes on sometimes, but it doesn't bother me as much as the high-frequency sounds.
One of my biggest pet peeves is HD whine.
I usually have 4+ (up to 9 sometimes) pc's running here and among the fan noise, the HD whine is far louder and far more annoying. I am in the process of building a sound proof area in my office for the pc's.
I moved all the pc's into a double wide closet and brought out my connections through a 16 port KVM to my desk. Next step is to install sliding glass patio doors on the closet so I can see inside and get inside to access them. I installed a QUIET bathroom type vent in the ceiling of the closet to exhaust the heat up into the attic. When done my noise AND heat problem will be almost nil.. I know it will work because I tested it by closing the original wooden doors. I just want the glass doors so I can see status lights and the like..
Pretty cheap to do when compared to replacing all the PSU's and fans with water cooling stuff. The price of one set of sliding glass doors is about the same as one water cooled PSU.. When you are talking about quite a few of them like I am, it's an easy choice to make.
Nowadays the question is one of appropriate hardware choices for specific tasks...
. html - I'm sure there is something comparable for Windows (citrix) but it sure will be expensive...)
The power supply is just a first step. A silent system is more like a long compromise on many fronts.
For instance I run a web/mail server using an old P2-400 and a maxtor 20gig from the scrap closet. I'm serving 150K pages a month and getting like 5000 mails/month.
True, a silent power supply would reduce the noise of this single machine, but buying a modern crusoe system with totally passive cooling with a "lowest" cpu would still give me more power than the P2-400 (890 Bogomips) and scratch a large enclosure beige box from my field of view...
it's just a question of cost, I don't really need a low power machine, but I need the money it would cost me.
Another problem I have is the file server next to this machine:
3 fans, 5 hdd and a 450W power supply.
I need enough power to start and run 5 disks, and enough cooling to keep them disks "cold" (lukewarm, to tell the true).
So I can choose between water cooling the disks, and the CPU/GPU as long as I am at it, or find cooler and silenter disks (lol - seagate 5400r/s if they still make them) and/or put a controller to regulate the venting...plus a silent power supply... and a regulator for the cpu...everything comes quite expensive.
I can also get the long cable(s) and a KVM, ethernet KVM if there is such a thing...
Or better, a silent desktop machine and all the servers in a closet somewhere... and a solution to reboot the machines remotely...and a basic knowledge of remote desktops and ssh. altogether quite cheaper than the other solutions.
If I had the vented closet, I would get a crusoe something "dumb" terminal and a citrix-like Linux solution (forgot the name). Your puny computer is just accessing a much more powerfull one, and running everything on it.
You have a silent environment with high cpu power access, you can add unexpensive desktops wherever you want, wifi possible as you use a real computer as a terminal...
Your server(s) has a nice, cool closet all to itself and can be happy churning watts without disturbing you. Cluster for redundancy, dual raid 10 array, or JBOD and a backup disk somewhere else and you have a corporate-like environment.
Still the problem of rebooting the remote server without moving, but a solution can be found in many flavors even from an X10 controlable power outlet and a mobo supporting wake-on-lan.
See how-much a silent power supply costs, see how much a low power "semi-dumb" would cost, and start emptying that closet.
(see here for some example of Linux thin clients : http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT4923746399
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The reason I don't have a fanless PSU is that I think somebody has to get the hot air out of the case. If not the PSU, you need additional fans which sort of ruins the whole point...
But I did put some work into it as well. There are two fans in my case, the PSU 120mm fan, and the 120mm fan that blows air through the radiator of my watercooling system.
:-D
I am running an AMD64 3700+ that barely reaches 30C, even when the ambient temperature is 35C and the CPU is at 100%.
My whole case is padded on the inside with asphalt/foam mats, which reduces the noise considerably. This does increase the case temperature, but the water cooling takes care of that effectively.
My only harddrive is mounted in some Zalman harddrive cooler/silencer thingy, that adds rubber gromits.
My PC is so silent that I can't hear it when I switch off everything. What I hear is the kitchen fan-thingy since I can't switch that off.
I love silence
The easiest way, and also maybe the healthiest way to avoid this first generation long-time exposure to PC radiations is to make a hole in the wall and place the PC in another room. All cables to pass through this hole, one gains much more working space and all becomes surprisingly quiet! Might be that a good percent of work related stress is subconsciously caused by computer noise.
cut this signatures madness. stop reading them now!
I find that the noise generated by the PC users to be far more annoying than the PCs themselves.
I'd rather hear fan noise (think air conditioned server room) than the white noise of a thousand users grumbling.
/. spaztech
Try this some time... shut off all the machines in your office next time you have to read a paper document. I'm willing to bet you'll suddenly realize that your neighbors are a bunch of noisy louts.
And if their machines were silent they might hear the snoring from your office.
Defeating fan noise:
Get a processor that runs efficiently, then you don't need a fan.
Harddrive noise:
Buy more memory and then you will find that your computer doesn't need to use swap space too much. You can then even turn your harddrives off when not in use, saving even more power and produing less heat.
Laptops run very quietly and consume very little power. Why can't they start putting some of this technology back into desktops?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
1. Buy extension cords for keyboard, mouse & monitor
2. Cram computer into wall closet, basement, cellar, hallway, whatever is convenient and puts a wall or a door between you and the computer.
3. Profit!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I just got to the point where I didnt notice all the computer noise.
Now it will take me 4 days to forget about the noise again and not notice it.
How about some tv jingles to stick in my head for a year or so.
"Any other hints from people?"
How about deal with it? Most computers make little noise, unless there's a hardware problem. That little bit of noise is not going to deafen you. Right now, I'm in the middle of the Accounting department (don't ask), and the only "computer noise" I hear is from their keyboards.
-jls
Techno-pagan
why the PSU has to be inside the computer case? It only adds to the total heat inside the case, it adds to noise etc. wouldn't it be simpler and easier, quieter to cool the PSU if it were outside the computer case and several meters away from it?
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Noiseless GPU cooling by Zalman= 138&code=013
= 145&code=005009
.. if it's built like a russian tank, that means less noise from ventilation AND HD spinups etc as well.
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx
Ultra-silent PSU - any under 20DB will do.
Quiet CPU cooler by Zalman
http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx
Get voltage limter for the CPU cooler
Then get 1 intake fan below 20 DB for the front (92 mm if you can accomodate it), and one identical exhaust for the back.
And you're golden...
Actually one of the most important bits - dont buy a cheapass case, those are usually really thin
Most powersupplies are good enough- even under load.
The 80mm fans are quiet now for about 10 bucks.
The 120mm fans are dead quiet.
But the 50mm fans are very noisy and induce a lot of case vibration because they have to turn so fast. These are usually on the chip set. I have been unable to find a solution. Does anyone else have one?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I must admit that low-noise is, for me, much more of a consideration that what games it can run. A desktop PC for most people is usually sited in a main family room and having a constant background humming or churning is not nice to listen to.
I tend to stick with older machines for many reasons (cost, reliability, no need to worry about a fan stopping and the machine going bang, no need for excessive venting and can still do most things I need it to) and this helps me when it comes to keeping them quiet.
The old PII-233's (with that weird processor fitting system) can operate perfectly well with no fans (found by experiment, confirmed by over three years of fanless operation *after* having been used at a school in working order for about three years previously).
I find the sweet spot for myself to be around 1-2GHz in my machines (a 1GHz laptop or desktop is not going to make a lot of noise or need a lot of power and yet will get almost anything done in a reasonable time and not cost the earth to buy) Computers of those speeds can run easily off a 300W power supply.
I bought a 300W Etasis Fanless PSU as it was enough and quite cheap considering and it's worked like a charm. Noise is drastically cut through the system as a whole, temperatures are barely affected.
I also invested a few quid in a temperature monitor, it acts as a passthrough for the cpu and case fans and also contains a thin temperature sensor that you can place elsewhere in the case (in my case slid between the top of the PSU and the inside of the casing above it). This beeps reassuringly on every boot to let you know it's working and also throws an absolute wobbler should a fan fail or the PSU get too hot. I much prefer having an non-software/firmware warning as a backup for this sort of thing.
I also placed my computer in a small cupboard and that lets me hide the PC and also dampen the noise. The computer is approximately two feet from my ear if I sit on the sofa and watch a film and, therefore, I need it to be quiet.
My next "projects" is probably to vent out the back of the cupboard to direct the sound in the opposite direction to my sofa or to build a small door to go in front of the PC (though I don't like these because of the way they interfere with the operation of the CD drives).
My office has two computers and a laptop going at all times, as well as on the other side of the room there are several more computers constantly running. At home, I have two computers that are on 24/7 as well. I have trouble sleeping during power outages. On the other hand, I just bought a miniature refridgerator for my room, and THAT is something that I'd like quietly. Like farmers don't notice the smell of horsecrap, nerds usually don't notice their computer noise. To actually stay on topic, one thing that I've found useful for me to silence (or muffle) a noisy computer is to toss a towel over it. It's not pretty, but it works!
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-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
You could just take the 10 fans out of your computer required to keep your overblown £400 graphics card from melting, and your equally overblown £300 CPU from bursting into flames.
Alternatively you could just buy a Mac mini. Or perhaps Antecs P180 case (looks like a fridge).
I would say the power supply is the least of my noise problems, considering there are 4 completely redundant case fans and one graphics card cooler in my 1.1ghz/r9700pro linux box that I put there either for show, or just for somewhere to put them out of the way.
If it takes several decades for mankind to come up with a silent power supply then there can't be that many people who give a damn anyway. I mean... seriously... power supply, heat sink, screws... job done.
Gadgetoid.com - Gadgets & Games Journalism
1) Buy MacMini
2) Install Linux
3) Be happy
I recently got a Lanboy case, and can no longer hear my computer running. The big problem I have now, and have always had is the heat produced by the computer. It makes my room so hot and stuffy, that I cannot leave my computer running overnight. Not to mention all the heat thrown off by my big arse 21" CRT monitor.
If you have your computer in a room you live in, do it! It is amazing how much more enjoyable the room is without the constant noise.
What I did:
What I didn't do:
In the end, the hard drives were the only source of hearable noise in the system, and only if they were actually working. On idle, you would have to get close and listen carefully to hear them running. I'm sure with some casing and/or special drives you could get that noise eliminated as well.
It's worth it. You will never notice until the constant noise is gone, but once that happened, you'll be happy that it did.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
While on the topic of Silent PSU's, I'd like to throw a huge endorsement to Antec's Neo Power PSU. I have had about 4 PSUs over the years, but this was the first one I dropped more than $90 on. And now I understand why it's worth it. Here's a review on some british mod site that I'm not affiliated with in any way. I've seen this at Fry's for about $80 with some kind of rebate. Here's Antecs specs page for the Neo Power.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Wife's iBook - Also near noiseless
My Powerbook - Noiseless and warm on those cold winter nights
Heck, the noisiest thing in my house is my printer (Brother HL-2040), and that's only when it's printing.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
If the next generation of PCs is silent, you can bet that white noise generators will become more popular for hard-core geeks.
I know I've lived the last 10+ years of my life with the whirr (or roar) of computer fans as a constant presense in my home and office. I've had problems falling asleep in the "unnatural" silence on the rare occasions when all my computers are turned off for the night.
Pavlov's Dog ate the bell, and now he's barking at Schroedinger's cat all the time... -Me
I never heard my power supply make any noise. I thought it was the fans.
That's what I removed them all. They weren't keeping me that cool anyways.
Most of the PowerMac G4 desktop models (including my 2001 "digital audio") are actually quite loud. On the bright side, the fans are standard size and easily replaced.
And how many of you with silent power supplies have reached over to kick them on thinking they were off!
So am I the only case ricer who can't fall asleep with his computer on because of all the lights on it? :o
When building my last computer noise was a large factor in all of my component decisions. The previous machine was loud despite being water-cooled because, mainly, the case itself was too small. A normal sized mid-tower ATX case looks plenty big at first, but after 3 IDE HDDs, 2 IDE optical drives, floppy drive, large AGP card and all the extra power cables that most PSUs come with that space gets eaten up quickly. This leaves very little room for airflow for components that aren't water cooled. As a result, that machine was loud (due to needed fans) and temperatures were still not much better than air cooling.
I took what I learned on that machine and applied them to a new one. I made sure to fight my desire to buy a small, flashy case and instead looked for full-tower solutions. Bigger cases allow bigger fans and more airflow. Bigger fans allow for more airflow with less noise without requiring the added cost of water-cooling. FYI: aluminum cases don't help cool anything to a significant amount, so the cost is prohibitive unless weight is a factor.
I bought a PSU with a 120mm fan and modular power cables (OCZ Modstream), a full-tower case with 120mm intake and exhaust fans (Aerocool Spiral Galaxies) and also a CPU heatsink with 120mm fan (Thermalright XP-120). Moving to SATA drives helped reduce cable clutter.
As a result, I had the necessary equipment to keep a high-end machine cool and quiet. I run an Athlon 64 3500+ (overclocked to 2.5Ghz from 2.2Ghz) with 1GB Corsair RAM and BFG 6800GT on a DFI NF4 SLI-DR motherboard. It consistently idles around a ridiculously low 35C and tops out just under 50C, all the while running at a very comfortable low sound level that is easy to ignore from a few feet away. I later added one 80mm PWM controlled intake fan to help supply the video card with fresh air. Happily, this did not add significant noise.
Using some common sense to maximize airflow and minimize fan speed was the right way to go. Avoiding high-priced water cooling kits and phase-change systems while also avoiding noise is possible even on a high-end, overclocked machine. I recommend this approach if a larger case is not a deal breaker.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
... as I bought one last week that made a nasty bang and electrical flash when I turned it on for the first time. There was a little smoke too.
I don't know what was wrong with it, but it tripped the mains supply to the house too. It's going back to be replaced so hopefully better luck second time around. It wasn't switched to the wrong voltage either as it claims to be auto-switching...
In January, I built a new Linux/Windows box. Pimped it out with a Zalman power supply, and extra-quiet case. Acceptably quiet.
Then, I popped in an Nvidia 6600 GPU, and we're back at 747 take-off levels.
Last month, I bought a pair of Mac Minis. *Both* machines running simultaneously produce less noise than the Linux box. And the mini, in sleep mode, is dead silent.
Not only that, but the Linux config hassles are also a thing of the past.
the article mentions "working around computers" - not just the one sitting in your study. one thing i feel is drastically needed are silent keyboards and mice. i share open-plan desk space with like 6 people - when they are all furiously typing and clicking away, the noise can be rather distracting. i must distract the crap out of them because I am a "CR-basher".
Turn off your PC.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
For business desktops, anyway, this is just one reason in a very long list, to get rid of the PC entirely and move back to terminals. Quiet, stateless, and maintenance-free. Today's terminals can even connect to legacy PC apps if you have a Citrix (or similar) server.
Corporate America's insistence on clinging to WinTel desktops is a pretty good example of massive industry-wide stupidity.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I had some rattling with my case, and tightening screws didn't completely address the problem. I caulked the surfaces that were the culprit (nearly everything) and that did the trick. Of course, everytime I open the computer case I have to cut the caulk open and make sure to vaccuum out chunks before turning on the computer. However, I rarely open the computer and I vaccuum it anyway after such a long time (~1 year) for the dust bunnies, so I don't think it's such a big tradeoff.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Your card is about as big and as hot as they come. I had a slightly more modest (and older, hence the fan failure) Radeon 9800 Pro. I did notice that Thermaltake had a larger solution for hotter cards, though-- it costs twice as much at $40, but it has more heatsink area, including a set of copper fins that stick out of the neighboring slot to give the card some cooling outside the case, too. The external part looks kinda silly, but it doesn't stick out any further than the VGA plug already would, so it's not going to necessitate any rearrangement in your desktop.
I can't vouch for it, because I haven't used it myself, but it's like the humongous big brother of the one I bought. And those external fins should help significantly-- dumping heat into the lower-temp outside air is much easier than dumping it into the alread-warm internals of your case.
Linky
Hey that would be great. But realistically, if it doesn't run a mainstream OS, it's not going to sell. And the mainstream OS makers are unlikely to (expensively) port to a new architechture without a ready customer base. Chicken-and-egg, Catch-22, call it what you will.
Boycott that stupid review page, Everytime I've seen an article there or a review its behind the times or being promoted by the site owner..... I doubt that someone would truely submit a link to a 13 page review of ads and possibly some silent power supply (I couldn't see it, the ads took to long to load) unless they had something to personally gain from it.
not that the editors will hear me, but come on!!!!
Many recent Macs were fanless and the sleep function in the hardware combined with OS X is wonderful. My 4 year old TiBook 400Mhz still runs at an acceptable speed with all the newest programs. It's quiet, cool and uses little energy.
Via tech is designed this way. Low power, quiet, either totally passive cooling or very small quiet fans.
Let's all just take a step back here and think about this for a minute.
While servers and rooms full of servers are definately loud as hell, they're found in closed rooms at work. If you have one of these loud-ass servers at home, I do not feel bad for you.
So, you work with computers huh? So does everyone else, pretty much. If you think that your PC is somehow louder then the drouning noise of a busy office, you need to seek help. If you need your workplace to be as silent as the vacume of space, you need to seek help. Workplaces are noisy for the most part, and your PC under the desk is a tiny little part of it. I currently work in a small room with 5 desks and 8 PC's and I can't hear any of them - even when I'm the only one here.
Got a computer next to your bed? Why! This one baffles me. "I couldn't sleep at night because my PC was TOO LOUD!! Sure, it was six inches from my face..." Them move the damned thing! Don't put it in your bedroom, for goodness sakes.
Don't want a vacume cleaner sounding computer? Easy! Don't buy the latest contraption from nVidia, or the loudest fan from UberC00lCompany. It's that simple.
It really sounds retarded when some of you complain and bitch about loud computers when the vast majority of them are almost silent these days.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
- The slowest version of one of the "ultra low voltage" CPUs from Intel, which aren't really targeted at PCs, but at embedded devices
- A slow, quiet (A/V) disk
- Not much memory
- Totally passive cooling
Normally, this machine would only be for reading email, surfing, and running Word, so 800 Mhz would do the job, but she has mentioned that she wants to run Photoshop.The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
One of my favorite /. quotes, from a previous discussion about system noise:
"(somebody's gaming rig)...sounded like a VTOL aircraft landing on a Swedish death metal band..."
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Voodoopc that is. I think they did the first 40h bit laptop or something. The Eden is huge and heavy, but advertised as silent.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Aquarium Full of Oil For PC Cooling
This was an article posted on slashdot a while back about cooling a PC by immersing in in mineral oil, I believe. Although it was covered in the web page, I bet it's pretty sound-insulated by natural viscosity of the oil.
The next trick is getting Linux and also Windows to work better in hybrid designs like that - having the full install on disk, and caching frequently-used programs onto the USB or whatever.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just remember, heatsink paste is an insulator, not a conductor. It just happens to be more conductive than air (which isn't saying much). You want to use the bare minimum amount of paste sufficient to avoid having air pockets between conducting surfaces, but no more than that.
I'm not saying that you don't already do this, but I've lost track of how many "more is better!" applications I've heard of spontaneously leaking magic smoke.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I bought a Compaq SR1012NX last year (cheapest PC I could find at the time), and I was astonished by how quiet it was. I grew up with computers and never noticed the noise until I started reading about it, but this guy is amazing; I can't tell if it's on or not just by listening. The fans run below hearing most of the time, but when the box heats up from a high load the fans kick in very loudly until it's cool again. This typically only happens when I'm switching between heavy processes like games.
It's kind of sweet to have a quiet computer, but I also work in a computer lab all day with 30 really old Gateway desktops, and they're noisy. Doesn't bother me one bit.
I just want to point out, that in my setup of three large desktops cramed into a rather small room, it's not the power suppplys or the computers. I can easily take a nap with all the computers on - it's the gigabit switch that makes the most noise.
;-) ). The chruning of the harddrive after it's been spun down can even be heard over the hum of the power supply - but none of these can be heard over the drone of the box I love to hate - a $300 gigabit switch.
That said, I think a more universal solution needs to be found. A quieter power supply is great and all, but will only cut down on that part of the noise. A DVD spinning up probably creates twice as much noise (hmm.. i have sound equipment here, i should test, mabye get a slashdot article
Also... another soultion is just to buy good headphones that have noise cancelation hardware in them. They can REALLY kill all continous sound that a fan would produce.
'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
Yes, it _is_ my right to have a 500Wh PSU, and a whoopin' 3,6GHz P4 CPU, and a super-duper-power-eating GPU.
/. only use our PCs for browsing?
And would you like to know why? Because I can [theoretically] AFFORD it. And affording this equipment, means paying a great deal of taxes in Denmark (Where I live).
Also, my electrical bill is my own problem. Why do you just randomly presume that I and everybody else on
Did you ever stop for a second and think about us who use all this power for folding@home? Did you ever think about us, who use processing power for more than just browsing the web? Hell, while we're at it, why dont we downgrade everyone to 56k modems and force them to pay a per-minute fee for being online, as to reduce the network load (and hence the demand for highly energy-consuming network servers) all over the web?
Who the hell needs more than 56k modems for browsing the internet anyways, RIGHT?
Did you ever think that an increase in demand for power, will push research into the development of cleaner, more efficient and cheaper power, with the help from international deals about decreasing the released CO2 volume - which AFAIK USA hasn not even signed?
I could easily downgrade back to my PIII 667MHz PC, which uses only 150Wh to power every single component in the case, but I WONT, as my need for processing power is a lot more higher than what a slow CPU can deliver.
Also, I dont really give a fuck about noise. I love my fan-noise, and I plan to buy a new case for my PC so I can fit more fans into it, so they consume more power and generate more noise, so my three 120GB HDD's can be cool, so I can justify to myself and my economy that I buy a 640Wh PSU, so I can feed a newer and more power-consuming GPU, so my electrical bill will skyrocket even more, so I can be satisfied!
You insensitive clod!
I have built a very quiet AMD Athlon 64 3800+ desktop computer that has no CPU fan, no video card fan, and no CPU power supply fan. To cool my 64-bit CPU I use the Zalman Reserator 1 fanless water cooling system. Instead of using a CPU fan, it uses a 2 foot tall finned aluminum external water tank to dissipate heat. The power supply is the fanless Phantom 350 power supply. The video card uses a heat sink but no fan. The video card is probably not the fastest choice but, I am not a gamer. I use a knob on a rheostat to turn down the speed of the two case fans to where they are not noisy. The small fan on the Northbridge doesn't seem to be a significant source of noise on my computer.
I use the AMD 64 version of Ubuntu Linux as my operating sytem. By default, it supports the Cool'n'Quiet feature of the AMD Athlon 64. When my computer is idle or doing some easy task like playing music while browsing the Inernet it slows the CPU down to 1004 MHz. When I do something more demanding it briefly jumps to 2411 MHz until that task is completed. The electric cord for my computer is plugged into a Watt meter so I can see that most of the time it uses 91 Watts but can use as much as 167 Watts during more difficult tasks. My monitor is not plugged into the Watt meter. The CPU seems to run at about 40 degrees C most of the time.
The Linux hddtemp says that one of my hard drives is currently 40 degress C and the other one is 34 degrees C right now. I am not sure what temperature they shoud be but if I decide they are too warm I could turn the knob which will raise the speed of my case fans and cool them off somewhat.
I finally have a very quiet, powerful, stable computer. Because it uses Linux it is also nearly immune to spyware, viruses and worms but of course I still install the latest security patches and use a firewall to keep hackers out. I enjoy the silence.
Best **** upgrade I ever did was to buy 15' of various cables, and drop the whole bloody thing through the floor into the basement. Hook your CDRom up to a external USB enclosure, and viola, you set.. Runs cooler now too..
I haven't seen any laptops in the category you're describing, unless you count PDAs, at least with good-resolution screens on them. There have been niche-market Transmeta laptops, but they get part of their battery life (and portability) by using relatively small screens. While there is certainly an emphasis on putting in too much CPU, so the specs look "better", there's a lot of demand for better screens, which keeps the price higher, and most of the machines I've seen with slower CPUs are simply older laptops, which still don't have good battery life.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
At first I was really happy, but then when the weather got warmer, it started to be unstable. An extra 80mm fan added to the inside of the PSU cured this temporarily, and was much quieter than anywhere else I could mount it. Then it got unstable again. The usual fluff had slightly restricted the airflow on the CPU fan. Vacuumed it out, and it was stable again. But then the fans started to get noisy. After a year or so, it wasn't nearly so silent. Then it got unstable again due to fluff, and this time I junked the quiet CPU fan/cooler - too much trouble, and not so quiet anymore anyway. In the end the PSU fan got noisy too, mostly I think because the fan was temperature controlled, and the PSU now had enough fluff in it to cause it to run hot. I finally replaced it with a regular PSU because it was more important it worked than that it was silent.
Lessons: quiet fans get noisy. Quiet PSUs get noisy, especially if you can't keep them clean. Silent PCs don't stay that way. If you build a quiet PC, install air filters, especially if it's going to be in a bedroom, and expect to have to replace the fans periodically.
The one thing I expected to fail was the disk in the silentdrive enclosure - it ran rather hot right from the start, but it's still working quietly four years later. At least it encouraged me to keep good backups.
... you just need a better case!
Easiest solution I know. Metalica can reduce a noisey power supply to a whimpering mass of copper.
>sighhttp://www.xyzcomputing.com.nyud.net:8090/ind ex.php?option=content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=2
Enjoy.
(anonymous so as not to karma whore)
The hearing damage will take all the noisey fans away (and replace it with tinnitus).
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Hey, I'm not trying to defend the ugly status quo, I'm just pointing out that there are reasons for the way things are.
I wish the OSS movement all the best, I really do. Use quite a bit of it myself. But face facts: in a world where a 3.5" floppy is still referred to as a "hard disk" by a large percentage of PC users, Linux is a long way from mainstream, regardless of your familiarity with it.
Fan noise! Dammit!
I'm old! And senile!
Whaaaaaa?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
need a fan to sleep too, for both the noise and the air circulation. My whole family is that way, and now I've passed the addiction along to my girlfriend. Sleeping in a still, silent room now is horrible.
I have an air filter I turn on every night to help me sleep. The filter's so clogged with dust, that it doesn't do it's job anymore, but at least the white noise helps me sleep. I can't sleep with it off now.
My wife's deaf, so she couldn't give a hoot. Heh
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
I run an ASUS C3 Terminator with a fluid bearing 250GB hard disk and 512MB of RAM. To this I added a DC power supply and an Lcd monitor that I power using a short cable in the back of the PC that runs off the 12vdc bus.
With an adjustment in the BIOS to only turn on the (rather large) case fan when needed, the PC is silent enough that I have to look at the lights to see if it's on or not. Best of all, it consumes about 7A from the 12VDC power brick including the Lcd monitor and a WRT54G connected to the 12V bus as well.
My entire desktop consumes about 84W of power. Of that, how much turns to heat? Very little.
The system runs a VIA C3 processor at 800MHz and it has some items optimized in hardware, others not. It'll run DVDs, MPGs, and most other items beautifully, but WMF's and some other formats tend to bog it down. Anything but light gaming is straight out of the question. As a workstation where work, email, web, and crypto is used, the system works as fast as my 2.2GHz Celeron, and in the case of crypto, runs about 80% faster.
This solution is not for everyone, but for the limited things I use a computer for (it is a tool after all) it fits the bill nicely.
Now, imagine these in a call center or light server rack and start multiplying the cost savings both direct and indirect.
200 PCs consuming 250W less energy per desktop comes to 50,000W direct energy savings. These are also producing 116W less heat energy. This comes to 23,200W less cooling and figuring 80% efficiency (too high really, but giving the benefit of the doubt) comes to 29,000W less power for cooling (indirect savings).
Total savings is about 52,200W. Over the 14 hour day of a call center, this comes to about 731 kWh savings per day
The A9Home:
# 400MHz Samsung ARM9 processor
# Graphics processor
# Power Management Unit
# 128M SDRAM
# 8M VRAM
# 40GB hard disc
# 2-3W average internal power usage
And it's faster than the computer I'm typing this on - which uses ~200watts.
Slashdot melts another server. Even the Coral cache is sluggish:
h p?option=content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=2
http://www.xyzcomputing.com.nyud.net:8090/index.p
(anonymous so as not to karma whore; repost because i munged the other one.)
The secret to reducing computer noise is to start by targetting the loudest component in the system. Quite often, that isn't the PSU, but the CPU fan. CPU fans tend to be smaller, but run at high speed so make much more noise than larger PSU fans.
So, carefully stop each fan in your system in turn to see which makes the most noise. You will be able to tell becuase you will notice a big difference in sound when you stop the loudest one, while the others will make very little difference. Find a way to quieten it, and the repeat the process.
My system is water cooled, and has three fans. Two are 92mm Panaflos running at 4.5V, which are inaudiable. The third is a 120mm PSU fan, which also cools the water, which I can hear and is the loudest thing in my system. With the window open, the system is totally silent, without it is just audiable.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
my noise problems were easily solved.
1) client machine in 'quiet' room (living room) is a cdrom booted linux box running vnc client. no hard drives and when the cdrom isn't accessed, it spins down and is silent. older matrox card (dual screen) with no fan. zalman fan on my AMD64 chip - but its a mobile chip so its cool and quiet. power supply is fanless. no case fans (side of case is open, allows enough cooling). the single fan is the cpu fan and that SHUTS DOWN quite a lot due to asus qfan tech. very quiet.
2) server box is in the 'noisy room' via a 10/100 or gig-E cable. that system is always on 7x24 and runs (for me) freebsd and vnc-server. this holds my 'sessions' and permanent desktop. so far, I have almost a year of uptime on that box! when was the last time YOU had your desktop (icons, emacs windows, etc) up for a year at a time?
I can shutdown my client box at will. since it has no hard drives locally, a simple power-off is all you need! or run the power mgmt and have it shutdown after an hour of idle.
vnc is the bees knees! quiet client boxes (even several of them connecting to the same server in -share mode). server box holds sessions.
works great. highly recommended. oh, and its cross platform - a windows box can run vncviewer (client) and connect just fine to linux/bsd. and the other way around, too!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think things would be much easier if someone made an external power supply. It would just avoid having to cram more heat generating equipment inside the case. A nice vented/ thick aluminum casing should do the trick for the external unit.
Then have one cable from the PSU to the case, with some neat connection scheme for each individual power cables, I think you'd have a killer external PSU resulting in a lighter, quieter, cooler desktop.
You could even bundle it with an UPS.
I remember older computers with an external power supply (or was it some transformer?)... Why did they move away from that?
/* TAANSTAFL */
Eleminate the fan and heatsync on the CPU and replace with a solid state Peltier thermoelectric modual. Then place a large heatsync on the other side to disburse some heat. Uses more electricity to cool the processor than just a fan and heatsync might but will elminate the noise.
My G4 consumes only a fraction of the electrical power that a P4 consumes, leading to a very small heat dissipation (and presumably the need for a small fan), so why the noise?
Do any case modders have any ideas?
Tom's Hardware is currently stress testing power supplies. One of their most recent tests involved a passively cooled power supply.
Due to the cooling concept of no ventilator, very high temperatures of more than 150.8 F (66 C) are produced on the blue lacquered outer surface of the power supply unit.
Ouch!
When I first started putting together a PVR the noise from the fans was quite distracting. I replaced all of the fans with Nexus fans, and got a Seasonic power supply to replace the Antec one. Now the hard drives make more noise than the fans, and I've not had any heating problems even with the 90+ temperatures we had last week.
www.coolerguys.com
What should be done is to make the PS have fans that draw air in the back and out the top, and make cases with matching holes, and not have vents (on the PS) on the inside of the PC case - so you isolate the PS airflow from the PC airflow. It may not solve the sound issue, but it would help keep the heat down (maybe they already have something like this?).
The closest I have been able to do to approximate this (without modding my case and PS) is to reverse the fan direction on the ATX power supply (if it isn't already reversed - the ATX spec calls for drawing air in thru the PS and "out" over the CPU), so that it is exhausting the warm air out of the case. Depending on the need, I may add a second exhaust fan, and maybe a front intake fan, to reduce heat buildup.
This does nothing for noise, though (not that it matters to me - over the weekend I modded my monitor to add a fan because heat buildup was causing display funkiness - while I was at it, I blew out all the dust inside after removing the shielding - I may need a new monitor - sigh)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Why do they keep putting the fan on the "outer wall" of the PSU next to the power switch. I like moving the fan to the opposite wall of the PSU (dremel or sheet metal nipper required). Now the hole where the fan was is just a vent hole and the PSU is a muffler. It does not matter if you suck from one side or blow from the other as long as you have air flow.
:)
please try to refrain from "RE: suck from one side or blow from the other" jokes. thanks
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
|whiners]
[PSP]
You keep using that unit. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Did you really mean to say that the PSP operates at 3.9 Joules?
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
It's not a solution, but it improves life:
I have a Dell 5150. When I'm compiling, it acts like a cross between a notebook and a hovercraft. Ok, can't get rid of that. But when I'm editing, the CPU is not doing a lot, and when the environment is silent, like at home, it's much nicer if the cooler is not working more than necessary. The bios doesn't handle this well. When I start up, the fan is always running fairly high without reason.
I use a windows tool called i8kfangui to control it. First thing I do when i start is switch on and off fangui to bring down the fan speed.
We're using a bunch of hush mini-itx systems as firewalls/vpn gateways. Probably not the best systems for gamers, but for everything else, INCLUDING multimedia, these are sweet:
http://www.logicsupply.com/default.php/cPath/49
I got supremely tired of the PC noise a couple years ago, and after an initial bad experience with simply relocating the thing (under the desk, thus providing a not-so-pleasant sauna effect), plus some underpowered power supply instability issues, I sprung for an Antec TruePower 450 with its speed controlled fan plus a secondary speed controlled fan plug. I've been extremely happy with the arrangement. While I don't need all 450 watts, the fact that the unit is way overcapable means that it runs very cool all the time, and the fans stay at very low speed, so the noise factor is very low. As an added benefit, the underutilized power supply means that the power supply is very stable, and the overall machine has been accordingly much more reliable (compared to a previous daily crash or two even with WinXP, simply due to undervoltage problems). (I'm now convinced that a couple drive failures I had over a couple years were primarily due to poor power quality.)
Also, I upgraded to a couple 7200 RPM SATA drives that are extremely quiet - not zero noise, but far less objectionable than the previous drives. Frankly, I don't care for the whine, but I like hearing the heads move, because it gives an excellent indication of what the machine is doing; an overly quiet drive always leaves me wondering what's going on under the hood.
It's no silent machine, but it's far quieter than the other two PCs in my house.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Each power supply did well in the testing and in a way, they are all winners.
In another, more accurate, way the Antec Phantom 350W is the winner.
Scientist: Gentlemen, you've both worked very hard. And in a way, you're both winners. But in another more accurate way, Barney is the winner.
From Episode 1F13 - "Deep Space Homer"
"Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
I run an OCZ ModPower. I like the modular cabling, and not having extra connectors and cables cluttering my airflow.
I'd _LOVE_ a fanless PS that could pump out ~450W, IFF it had modular cabling so I could install only the cables I need.
Okay, since we can't actually use any really useful formatting tags, I'm having to post this as 'code'.
/.'ed them, so I think we should be happy they load at all... :) ]
:D ], but not a bad way to keep price details from being outdated.
;D ] please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe as long as the power provided is within acceptable tolerances, it is better to run slightly hot on a given bus, but be dead spot steady than to run slightly closer to an exact target voltage but have greater overall relative variance.
First, to address the apparently obligatory bitching:
- Yes, there were a ton of ads and cookie crap.
- Yes, the pages loaded incredibly slowly for a while.
[ We
- Yes, there are almost certainly better discussions on building silent boxen.
- Yes, it was a little long.
But, as a general review of four silent power supplies, though, the actual article format really wasn't too bad.
Better more information than less, neh?
And I thought the real-time price checking was an interesting touch. Not necessary, no, and I'm sure it contributed to how slowly pages loaded [ how often do we get to meta-slashdot another site?
When looking at the data (there was actual data buried in at page 12, if you got that far...) what struck me was that the conclusions were flawed.
All four power supplies (much to the apparent disappointment of some folks) did perform well within tolerences, yes. The actual stability analysis, however, I believe is incorrect.
Here's the data provided: (I'd love to be able to use a table tag now... or even a pre tag... sigh.)
IDLE:
manufacturer +12V +5V +3.3V
Thermaltake 11.98 5.11 3.30
Coolmax 12.04 5.03 3.28
Antec 12.06 4.95 3.31
SilverStone 12.04 5.00 3.36
LOAD:
manufacturer +12V +5V +3.3V
Thermaltake 11.94 5.11 3.30
Coolmax 11.92 5.05 3.26
Antec 11.98 4.97 3.33
SilverStone 11.92 5.00 3.34
Now, let's look at the actual variances (which I've drawn from their data, above):
RELATIVE VARIANCE AFTER 30 MIN AT 100% LOAD:
manufacturer +12V +5V +3.3V Absolute Total
Thermaltake -0.04 0.00 0.00 0.04
Coolmax -0.12 +0.02 -0.02 0.16
Antec -0.08 +0.02 +0.02 0.12
SilverStone -0.12 0.00 -0.02 0.14
RANGE OF DEVIATION FROM TARGET VOLTAGES:
manufacturer +12V +5V +3.3V
Thermaltake -0.02/-0.04 +0.11/+0.11 0.00/0.00
Coolmax +0.04/-0.08 +0.03/+0.05 -0.02/-0.04
Antec +0.06/-0.02 -0.05/-0.03 +0.01/+0.03
SilverStone +0.04/-0.08 0.00/0.00 +0.06/+0.04
MAXIMUM DEVIATION FROM TARGET VOLTAGES:
manufacturer +12V +5V +3.3V Absolute Total
Thermaltake -0.04 +0.11 0.00 0.15
Coolmax -0.08 +0.05 -0.04 0.17
Antec +0.06 -0.05 +0.03 0.14
SilverStone -0.08 0.00 +0.06 0.14
It appears from this that the conclusions drawn in the article are based solely upon what I've labeled the Absolute Total Deviation from Target Voltages, and not from an actual assessment of the relative variance in voltage observed during the test.
Someone [presuming you actually know
From the perspective of Absolute Total Relative Variation, it's clear that the Thermaltake (while running slightly hot on the 5V bus) was by far the most stable power supply, varying only by -0.04V on the 12V bus, and remaining rock steady on the 5V and 3.3V buses.
After that, it's a near tie between the Antec and the SilverStone, but it appears that the Antec actually edges out the Silverstone, in terms of overall stability. having a Absolute Total Relative Variation of only 0.12, while the SilverStone has an overal absolute variance of 0.14. (The SilverStone does, however, maintain a zero variance on the 5V bus, which could be argued to be more stable, on a bus by bus comparison, being stable on one bus, versus none for the Antec.)
Finally, the Coolmax is right on the heels of
This would solve both the energy crisis (first law, energy out of nothing) and computer heat problem (secon law, no dissipation)
PC users (those who know that they're buying a computer) accept the associated noise because that's how it's always been -- they (we?) don't know any better. If a vendor wanted to really pull off a coup, they'd start with something like a Media Edition PC and market it as consumer electronics, with a sly wink to the tech community that this thing is also a high-spec PC. I'm sure that plenty of users will complain that these machines aren't powerful enough for them; to them I would say "fine, you'd rather have a high-end machine, deal with the noise".
From performance tests, I've noticed that it's possible to get CPU coolers with nerarly identical performance where one is rates at 22 decibels and the other is rated at 45. Case fans are another easy one. Compare air displacement between models and buy the quietest one that moves air at the rate you need. Just by doing this, I've reduced my computer from sounding like a hovercraft to being barely audible. And if you aren't review-inclined, many popular online retail sites list the noise rating of these products, so there's often no need to go looking for this information.
My old laptop's fan was making horrible noises, so one day, I just killed it by poking it with a pencil till it stopped.
The laptop has worked fine ever since, and no more noise.
The hard drive is still noisy, but I am afraid to use the same procedure on that piece.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I have a mac mini on my desk at home which I use for browsing, downloading pics from my camera, and keeping my ipod full of music.
Still have a PC, of course, I need it for gaming and work, but after realizing how much power that X800 and three SATA drives eats, I turn the thing off except when I'm using it.
I built my own home computer, and wanted it to be quiet. So I bought the Sonata case and got myself a quiet PC. I can still hear it, but it's so quiet you just don't notice it. But it's still nowhere near as quiet as the Dell Optiplex at work. This thing is amazing. Granted, it's only got a 1.5Ghz Pentium and not fusion-temperature GPU, but that in no way discounts the fact that the system is SILENT.
Opening it up to put in a second harddrive, I figured out why. It's similar to the Sonata case, but squared. Rubber mountings for the drives, large fans, and an air duct for the CPU fan to direct the hot air (and noise) out and to the back. I don't really like the clamshell style acess to the case, but I love everything else about it. If Dell sold just the case, I would buy one for home.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Becausee their isnt any :0)
I heart my PM G5.
The noise in the powersupply comes from the fan. That fan is a standard 8 inch fan. I replaced mine with one that is able to run at different speeds.
I have 7 fans in my case and sleep almost next to it. The fans run at 1200RPM instead of 4500 and make a LOT less noise.
So just replace the fans instead of all of the powersupply.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Several years ago... actually 5, I almost silenced my Duron 700MHz PC by dropping the fan voltage to 7V.
This is all explained beautifully at 7volts.com. The site is a bit fancier now, but the details still seem to be in the same place.
Dropping the voltage to 7V is very easy (just move a wire) and the noise is considerably reduced. The air flow does drop as the fan speed is reduced, but if you're careful, it's fine.
Basically, as the poster says, you want big, slow fans. The 7V solution is great and has given me many hours of extra sleep over the years!
http://blog.grcm.net/
- The most noise often comes from the CPU fan. Make sure there are no wires running over the fan. If it's noisy, peel the sticker off the bearing in the back and squirt in a little 3-in-one oil. if it's still noisy, replace it with a quieter one!. Usually bigger means quieter.
- Second noisemaker, the tiny fan often seen on video cards. Again, oil it and/or replace it with a bigger, quieter one.
- Third noisemaker, old or high RPM disk drives. Replace with new quiet ones, or if SCSI, relocate them to the nearest closet.
- Fourth noisemaker, case fan. Clean, lube, and/or replace with a bigger and/or quieter one.
- Fifth, the power supply fans. Same routine.
it's not hard to buy 28dba fans with pretty blue LED's at a very reasonable price. Buy them in bulk for even better savings. Buy some shrink-wrap tubing as ina few cases you'll have to shorten or patch fan wires to oddball fan connectors.After that, get one of those cheap fan speed control panels with the three knobs. Dial back the fan speeds as far as you dare.
Note that the power supplies without fans and without an external heat-sink are just transferring most of the fanning duty to the case fan. They may dissipate a little heat through their contact with the case, but most of it will depend on the case fan to waft air through it. You may need to upgrade that fan if you install one of those well-vented power supplies. Then sit back and enjoy the quiet :)
Might want to check out this new fanless case from Zalman: http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx= 151&code=020
Well for one thing: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/ 11/1756259&tid=222
use mineral oil cooling as outlined in a previous slashdot article.
but since the hard drive has to remain above oil level (submerged=quiet) you could use flash media instead....or build a sealed box for your HD and submerge it
CF to IDE
http://mach5products.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Sc reen=PROD&Product_Code=CFTOIDEALONE&Category_Code= CF
compact flash instead of HD=no movement=QUIET!
That is why I buy laptops and only laptops. Awake they produce less, but not zero noise. Asleep, they are silent.
I used to enjoy going to sleep with the PC noise but no longer.
Now that I've moved the (0.5 l/s) water pump and aquarium into the garage, a water cooled power supply is my next home project. I figure I'll build a sealed enclosure for the supply, fill it with transformer oil, and run a copper tube through it for heat transfer. The heatpipe solutions are neat, but I don't need any burns from touching the radiator.
At that point, the only air cooling in my system would be the SDRAM.
Support SETI@home
I am not kidding; Move your computer to another room. I have bought a 10m VGA, 2xPS2 cables, and moved everything to the hall way.
There really is a difference from a very silent computer to 100% silent computer!!!
Probably doesn't apply so much to the \. crowd since I'm sure we all replace components like the newspaper in the bottom of a birdcage. But...
Peal sticker off fan.
Add 1 drop of lubricant.
Replace sticker.
The sticker on the mount side of the fan covers a hole which lets you see the axle of the fan. Be careful though. Take a look inside and if you see black flakes, the fan is lubricated with graphite, and adding oil isn't a great idea. Also, despite the rule of thumb regarding WD40. It will evaporate within a few weeks leaving your fan (nearly) as loud as before you lubricated.
Don't go out and buy a new power supply just because someone said it would make your PC quiet.
Approach this like any performance problem:
For my computer, my video card fan was by far the noisiest component. It was also the most irritating sound. I think this might be typical for power systems, as it's ok to have a noisy video card so long as it is blazing fast. They're competing on speed, not sound. Take heart though, there are solutions out there to remove their cheap fans. For my card I used a zalman heat pipe solution to remove the fan from my card. I found info at http://www.quietpcusa.com/ and then found a better price elsewhere.
I also replaced my CPU fan with a zalman unit. I am very happy with it. After you do this, you may find that it isn't necessary to swap out your power supply.
I would not recommend Antec. I bought a Antec SmartCool 120mm case fan that was temperature controlled, and it produced an irritating clicking sound and was louder than my stock case fan. I may have had a bad unit, but it soured me on Antec. At 10 bucks I was too lazy to do a mail order return.
- Darkhog
my pc sits in a cabnet under my desk (slot in back of cabnet prevents overheating) I dont hear it all unless I open the cabnet door.
"Harddrive noise:
[...]
-Harddrive noise resonated in case: Solution is hard drives monuts on rubber pads- reduce noise, but not as much as advertised."
One small problem with this bit of advice. Some Hard Drive cages don't have the tolerances to allow rubber mounts.
Ideally would be a HD cage that could be cooled cross-wise to the drives mounting, using the stiffest material and design possible (that's were the noise comes from).
I've found that in many situations with old machines and noisey over spec'ed fans, a simple reverse biased zener in series with the fan can drop the voltage to the fan to slow it down a tad, in many cases vastly reducing the overall noise of the machine. Made my life much better with the reduced noise levels, as I have several old linux machines that run 24/7 (servers) in my office.
With the advice of a friend in EE, we determined an 1N4732A seemed to do the job for my fans. Depends on the fan and voltage you're working with. Most fans run off the supply's 12VDC.
If you know what you're doing, this zener in series can be a cheap way to greatly reduce noise, without having to replace the fan(s).
Use a hefty enough zener (so that it doesn't get too hot; mine barely gets warm), and make sure it is indeed reverse biased, and doesn't slow the fan too much; you want the fan to be spinning at a maximum speed that still moves the air, without making too much noise. Empirical observations with a varaible voltage power supply running the fan seems to be the best way to determine the optimal value of the diode/fan combo.
Obviously, avoid such a mod on fans that are already speed controlled by the mother board, as you're only going to defeat the machines ability to adjust the fan's top speed.
But this is useful for lots of old dumb motherboard/fan combos where the fan is way over-speced for the purpose, and has no speed control.
Obviously, be very careful when messing around with fan speeds, as you want to make sure the speed you slow it down to still keeps stuff cool, even on the hottest room temps.
What are you doing that a few decibels of noise will bother ya?
+++
Cache In, Trash Out!
+++
http://www.drudgereport.com for the truth.
Typing this on a silent PowerBook. It's the rare day when the fans go on with this thing...
Sure, there are many applications for which laptop drives just fine, and it wasn't all that long ago that 20GB was a nice comfortable space to bounce around in and 40GB was luxury. On the other hand, once you start downloading jam-band concerts from eTree in lossless-compression mode instead of MP3s, your disk space is toast
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I use the Zalman Reserator water cooling system which does not use a fan, plus the Antec Phantom 350 (fan less). I have three case fans that put out 16db. The only noise from my system are the hard drives and I will be getting enclosures for them to. I have a small office at home and the PC noise really gets too me.
I've just read the /. article about the Pentium M adapter and this might finally be a reason to go back to Intel. 120W difference under load compared to other Intel CPUs? Time to see what the power consumption of AMD's comparable offerings is.
I wonder if there's any studies done on mid-range hearing loss due to being around the noise computers produce too much. I've had my ears tested by a friend who was studying audiology multiple times for her research projects and have some mid-range hearing loss but seem to be fine in all ranges. The only thing I could attribute it to would be living around computer noise all the time, including all night (college life means sleeping in the same room as your file server). I could be wrong, but it might be an interesting study.
try folding.stanford.edu or other distributed computing projects- your computing power/energy costs are going to a good cause while your computer idles.
"So even though the first keyboards were silent..."
:), but that's my reasonably-well-educated guess.
:-)
Heh. The earliest computer (or rather, terminal) keyboards were electro-mechanical teletypes which make the loudest modern PC seem quiet by comparison. The first glass teletypes (i.e., CRT, not printer) weren't much better. I think it's a fair bet that quiet keyboards came later. I don't have any solid references (but then, neither does the parent
"I found a couple of silent keyboards..."
Sacrilege! You can have by gloriously loud IBM model M when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Type hard or go home!
Not only that, but what's this fasination with quiet disk drives? It used to be I didn't need a hard disk LED, because I could hear the head servo motor running back and forth. It got to the point where I knew what certain programs sounded like when they ran and could hear when something went wrong. Now that's debugging! [Tim_Allen]Urh urh urh urh.[/Tim_Allen]
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
*CPU Heatsinks have fans that are usually the loudest part.
*Check your video cards, folks- many of them have loud fans as well.
*hard drives and optical drives (cd, dvd) can be noisy when reading and writing- they may spool up to MAXIMUM speed and be quite noticeable.
Personally, when I run my main computer I can literally hear a piece of paper drop on my desk- but then I am a water cooling hobbyist.Linux computers, watercooled, photography
A few months ago, I got sick of my computer desk and decided to make a new one. Bought a few sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, wood and whole bunch of screws, a hole saw and got to work. Space was at a premium for me and I just needed a "workstation", not a desk. I only really use this computer for gaming, movies, music and the occasional surfing. So I went with a "console" design. The monitor sits on the top, the cpu under it and the subwoofer under the CPU (I made a large hole to line up with the Sub's port to let it pump air freely). The keyboard sits on a shelf mounted on two rails and this shelf holds also the mouse to the right. The shelf is on rails so it extends out in front from the monitor and system. On the side of the "console" I have a place to hang headphones, gamepad etc. The router is also mounted on one side of the console reducing clutter further. This design was prompted by my wife's constant objections to the computer taking too much space and there being too many wires all over the place. I have another small wall mounted shelf beside this that holds my printer and scanner and the wires to the PC run inside a PVC channel so they're hidden from view. This console I built also manages to conceal all the power and data cables resulting in a very neat design. The real benefit as a I realized after setting it all up was - since the CPU sits in a "duct" of sorts, all the noise from it gets muffled and GREATLY reduced. My system pulls air from the front and pumps it out the back so cooling isnt affected. I figure if it wasnt this quiet already, I could have made it even quieter by putting a baffled door in front and a LARGE (slow) fan at the back of this "console" to draw air over the system while keeping it quiet. The only major drawback is that taking the system out is a pain though I can still get access to the PCI slots and the internals by sliding it back and accessing it from the back of the console. Its worked out great! :) Plus I love the position of the monitor - 21" smack in front of me at eye level. It feels more like a cockpit with everything exactly where I need it to be. Plus I can stretch my legs out on either side of the console without hitting anything (i'm 6'2" so thats a big issue with smaller desks).
I used to work at a Compaq dealer in Norway. We had to equip every machine sold with a device called a "Noise killer", which was simply a thermostat regulating the speed of the fans in the power supply.
Without the Noise killers those Compaqs sounded pretty much like a Cessna on its take-off run.
We complained repeatedly to Compaq but their response was always: "What noise?"
They explained to us in great detail that nobody was interested in what a bunch of people living next to the North Pole thought about the finer points of CPU cooling, of all things.
In the real world, according to them, people were using air conditioning systems and cooling fans in their offices anyway and couldn't care less if the fans in their computers made a bit of noise.
Well guess who was right in the end, eh Compaq?? Oh, that's right, you don't even exist anymore. Mu-ha-ha-ha!
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
Yeah. Find a Mac Plus.
What?
If you're thinking about getting a silent (ie fanless) power supply, consider whether your PC has a separate case fan. If it doesn't, the fan on the PSU may be needed to circulate a little air through the rest of the case. I replaced my PSU with a fanless one and in very hot (for London) weather the PC started overheating - there was no air circulating inside the case. I had to take the lid off and underclock the processor to 500MHz or something to stop it randomly crashing. (Since then I've put the lid back but kept the underclocking, since for most things you don't really notice.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
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