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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?
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.
I miss our server rack. It used to be in an alcove near our workstations and the white noise was wonderful. I couldn't hear other people's phone conversations and they couldn't hear mine. Everything was blocked out except for the blissful hum. Now I'm on a different floor and can hear every word spoken around me. It's distracting as hell.
I 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.