Registered: Apr 2005
Location: summer!
Posts: 10457

i'm finding the noise that my pc makes increasingly annoying. i'll be getting one of those quiet PSUs tomorrow, if i'm not lazy about it. i wanted to ask what everyone else does to reduce the noise, if anything, and if you happen to know a company that makes good sound isolating cases (cheap is nice, too, if possible). or maybe you have other suggestions on how to reduce the noise (yes, turn it off. ha ha)?

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 14954

water cooling

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: summer!
Posts: 10457

i though that was expensive as fuck (not that i looked into it)?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Erehwon
Posts: 7537

www.quietpc.com

The noisiest component is nearly always the smallest fan, the smallest fans crop up on graphics cards and northbridges, slightly larger are the ones on reference CPU HSFs and then case fans are normally the largest. If you have a case with good airflow, you can try and cool a lot of it passivly with products like these:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product...st.asp?code=014
or with bigger, slower moving fans like thse:
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/002/index.html



You can buy noise dampening materials to stick in your case to absorb the sound, but its essentially foam insulation, so while it will reduce noise, your computer will also not dissipate heat as effectivly.

Quieter hard drives like the Seagate Barracuda drives can help too.

I have a large case with two big quiet 120mm fans inside, which are nice a quiet, and shift a lot of air. My HSF has an 80mm fan, which is pretty noisy when its running at full speed, but I have a fan controller to adjust the speed so I can't hear it. The PSU I have also has a 120mm fan rather than one or two 80mm ones so thats pretty quiet. The noisiest component of my system is the fan on my graphics card, which is only about 40mm and screams around at about 8000rpm - I'm planning on replacing the reference cooler with this: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=91 sometime soon.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 4736

http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is another good resource on general silencing.

Last edited by macker on 01-27-2006 at 11:24 AM

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 1725

Instead of buying all this shit as suggested, just try cleaning out your fans... specifically your system fan... you may need to lube up the bearings, but other than that, I would not buy anything unless you just have an urge too. Try setting your PC behind something, such as a board.

We have a professor here that is anal about sound. Thank god Im not a PC Maitanence guy, or I would flip out having ot deal with his crap.... they just moved his PC behind a few planks of wood.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Erehwon
Posts: 7537

quote:

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Originally posted by amerikanjunkie
We have a professor here that is anal about sound. Thank god Im not a PC Maitanence guy, or I would flip out having ot deal with his crap.... they just moved his PC behind a few planks of wood.

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: summer!
Posts: 10457

thanks for suggestions all. i went and bought a power supply yesterday. i decided to get a "be quiet" one. i looked into passive cooling as well but my pc uses too much power for that, i think. i'm also a bit suspicious about passive cooling in general. i also bought half a gig ram while i was at it. the cool (!) thing about it is that even when i'm working with audio it doesn't start making a lot of noise whereas my old old one would flip out and start making airplane take off noises. i'd still like to get a noise isolating case at some point though. apparently they make them them out of cork and they cost around 150eur but i haven't really looked into it yet. anyway, it's quite enough for now.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: is futile
Posts: 4983

quote:

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Originally posted by macker
http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is another good resource on general silencing.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 1725

quote:

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Originally posted by aminal
Thats a wonderful idea, just box the fucker in, wait till it over heats because it has no aireflow and then use that as an excuse to buy a new, quieter computer.

Also, you could just turn it off, it'll be real quiet then.

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Last edited by amerikanjunkie on 01-30-2006 at 02:12 PM

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: summer!
Posts: 10457

wow. the new core 2 duo processors pwn. even the included fan is pretty quiet. i'm hoping this one will still make it a bit quieter though.

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Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 15982

Quietest PC I've ever been around was a case mod - a mini-frig with the PC guts inside, thermostatically controlled to 40F at all times, with a very slow turning 260 mm fan mounted on the rear of the condenser coil. Standing right beside it you could not hear it in anotherwise quiet roon, and the guy said he spent a total of $52.00 on building it.

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