Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Hardware

Melamine Ceiling Tiles and the Quiet PC 269

Posted by CowboyNeal from the stretching-the-dollar dept.
Delta Screemer writes "What good are ceiling tiles when it comes to making a computer quieter? Well, Max Page of FrostyTech has found a use for 'Melamine Foam Sound Absorbing Ceiling Tiles' as a cheap way of lowering the noise a computer produces. By lining the insides of a computer with these $3 24"x24" industrial office panels he was able to quiet a computer by several dBA. That may not sound like much (pun intended), but when you compare the price of these melamine foam panel to products like Dynamat the price difference is substantial."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Melamine Ceiling Tiles and the Quiet PC More

Melamine Ceiling Tiles and the Quiet PC

Comments Filter:

  • quiet PCs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:31PM (#6364038)
    make for loud masterbation

  • Move? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Mod Me God ( 686647 )
    Or he could save cash and increase functionality by putting the computer in a cupboard...

    • Re:Move? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That generally isn't an option anymore with high-end PCs. The ammount of airflow required to keep the temperatures down generally precludes the use of a container space such as a cupboard. It's still possible to do so, however. One simply needs to be careful and monitor temperatures regularly.

      A few years ago my friend had his Pentium 166 in a cupboard. Even with the back of the cupboard open for cables and ventilation, the computer still became very hot, and may have crashed on more then one occasion due t

  • And the really good part is.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nzyank ( 623627 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:33PM (#6364046)
    ... it helps keep your PC nice and warm and toasty inside. Metal conducts heat. The side of my computer is warm. Ergo it is probably helping transfer heat outside of the computer where it belongs.
    • It shouldn't be. That's why you have air circulation.
    • Unless the heat producing parts of your computer are in direct contact with the metal, there's no difference, because the air acts as a nice insulator. In fact, it's one of the best insulators out there.

      • Re:And the really good part is.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Laur ( 673497 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:03PM (#6364425)
        Unless the heat producing parts of your computer are in direct contact with the metal, there's no difference, because the air acts as a nice insulator.

        False. While you are correct that air has a low thermal conductivity, if you have a signifigant air gap (say >.5") you will get convection. This is what the fans are doing, providing forced convection inside the case, transfering heat from the hot componets to the sides of the computer as well as expelling the hot air. Air is only a good insulator if you can keep it from circulating. Incidentely, this is why foams are good insulators, they are mostly little pockets of air which can't circulate. This is why if you are using foam to insulate something you do NOT want to compress it.

      • > Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?

        OK, this is totally off topic, but you should
        NOT fertilize your lawn with motor oil. It
        contains several mutagenic/carcinogenic
        substances and you don't want them going
        underground to pollute water/plants etc.

        Used motor oil should be properly disposed
        of in places that later sell it/use it where
        appropriate (ships can burn it, it has other CLEAN uses).

        P.

    • Oh for cripes sake! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by nzyank ( 623627 )
      You guys who disagree are wrong. If I feel heat on the case of the computer that means heat is being dissipated by the case. The fan is blowing the hot air around, mostly out the holes, but in the process some air contacts the metal walls of the case which is transferring the heat from the inside to the outside. Is that so hard to understand? Hey here's a thought! Why don't you remove all the insulation from your house walls and let the resultant air do its job of insulating. Put a bunch of fucking fans in
      • Just chill, dude. The heat dissipation due to a metal case is negligible; The vast majority of the heat is dissipated by the exhaust fans.

        I put some carpet underlay in my case, it's decent at absorbing sound, and the temperature only went up a couple degrees -- a small price to pay for the reduced noise.

  • Morons. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lucifuge31337 ( 529072 ) * <daryl@intros[ ]t.net ['pec' in gap]> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:33PM (#6364048) Homepage
    Lastly, since the front intake ports on this case are not used,

    Yeah...all those fans blowing out in the back don't need to pull air from anywhere. And they won't get louder as they have to run harder to pull air through the cracks in between the drive bays and around the insulation you just put in from on the intake.

    The really impressive thing about this article is that they guy managed to write an antire article about something as simple as chucking some industrial noise insulation material into a case.

    • High heat + low tech = ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Atario ( 673917 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:57PM (#6364154) Homepage
      ...scornful Slashdot readers.

      Now, if you want a positive repsonse, how 'bout coming up with a sound-canceling system inside the case? Then you'd have high tech and low heat.

      • Re:High heat + low tech = ... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:58PM (#6364413) Homepage Journal
        A low-tech solution that works *better* in most cases (no pun intended) is to simply put some sound absorbant material on the wall behind the case. The reason is that most of the sound that escapes from a case does it through the rear, especially through the rear fans, and is reflected off the wall behind it.

        And yes, to those who wondered elsewhere in the thread whether this would increase the temperature, it will. By quite a bit. Yes, air is an insulator, but not THAT good, or else a heat sink would be pointless. The surface area of a heatsink is what makes it work, and the metal inside of your case also works as a heatsink that helps to keep the air inside the case cooler.
        By using acoustic foam inside a case, it's not uncommon for the temperature to rise 5-10C.

        Finally, a good high-tech solution would not be to cancel the noise, but to create quiet components. It's impossible to cancel all noise actively unless you know the exact listening position, so this just won't work.

        Regards,
        --
        *Art
        • "Finally, a good high-tech solution would not be to cancel the noise, but to create quiet components."

          Exactly. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

          I have implemented this by tossing away the AMD athlon factory heatsink with is relatively noisy and replacing it with an Alpha PAL 8045 [overclockers.com] which is one of the best heatsinks out there. (The Thermalright SLK-800 comes to mind as well.) Use Artic Silver 3 or Ceramique thermal compound and then put a big ol' 80 mm silent fan on top (Panaflo Low or V

    • Re:Morons. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rlsnyder ( 231869 )
      Even more impressive, for me, was that I'm pretty sure the guy has no clue what this stuff is designed to be used for, even though he quotes an expert that is trying to explain it to him.

      This stuff is designed to control acoustics within a room, and requires a double wall / airspace barrier to be effective. I would wager you'd get the same, if not more, sound absorption from throwing a doubled up blanket around the case - hey, you'd still even get the equally dumb reduction in thermal transfer and increas

    • Obvious solution (Score:4, Funny)

      by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:01PM (#6364420) Homepage
      You need to add some air holes. I recommend a sawed-off loaded with buckshot. Or if you want to go old-school, just use old fashioned slugs.

  • Summary. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:36PM (#6364059)
    Computer user discovers a sound absorbing item indeed absorbs sound.

  • I like loud computers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:36PM (#6364060) Homepage Journal
    It lets me know things are working correctly.

    A silent hard drive is a dead hard drive.

    A silent fan is a dead fan.

    Give me as many physical clues to the health of the machines, if you please.

    • Re:I like loud computers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by metatruk ( 315048 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:45PM (#6364102)
      A silent hard drive is a dead hard drive.
      A noisy hard drive is a dying hard drive.

      • Re:I like loud computers (Score:5, Funny)

        by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:27PM (#6364280) Homepage
        > A noisy hard drive is a dying hard drive.

        Or a seagate. :D

        Course they're fine these days, but several years back it was like setting off a chainsaw inside your machine.
        • Course they're fine these days, but several years back it was like setting off a chainsaw inside your machine.

          I keep thinking of a little Ash running around in the computer ... "good ... bad ... I'm the guy with the gun"

          ... "Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand things with alloys and compositions and things with ... molecular structures."

    • Ahh, but you see... (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:55PM (#6364144) Homepage
      After the computer has been rendered silent, the sound card will play all those classic movie computer sounds to let you know it's alright: clattering relays, doot-doot-deep telemetery, chugga-chugga card punches, a little R2, etc...

      A computer that sounds like is supposed to! And what right-thinking geek could resist that? :^P

      • Re:Ahh, but you see... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Mr Z ( 6791 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:45PM (#6364372) Homepage Journal

        Ah yess... I remember when "Microsoft Plus" came out for Windows 95 (and people around where I was still called it the "Plus Pack"). My roommate installed one of the "high tech" themes (SciFi or Robots or whatever it was called).

        I've never really truly recovered. It's amazing how you largely don't notice the sound effects when you trigger them yourself. It's similarly amazing how maddening they can be when the guy next to you keeps triggering "Beep... snap... gloop... clink! Tronggggg... gloop.... shshshshshshshsh... Bleep!" (Adding about 2000mg daily intake of caffeine doesn't help either.)

        To get "back at" him, I wired up a cron job on one of the Linux machines there in the basement to play every .MOD file I had handy at a time I knew I'd be in class and he'd be computing. :-) He tore out and hid the speaker from that computer, at which point I found an old Kraco car stereo speaker and magnetically mounted it within my case and connected it electrically with two unused jumpers and some ghetto engineering.

        I miss college.

        Makes me want to electrify my door knob again like I did in my dorm room freshman year...

        --Joe

    • Raccoon Cubs ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mooncaller ( 669824 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:25PM (#6364275)
      ... sound like failing fans. Two weeks ago, while doing an all night coding session, I heard a failing fan. I at first thought it was my window fan. I turned it off; the sound continued. "Oh no my system is dying." I had just replaced my CPU fan, which I would not have done if I had'nt heard it failing. In a panic (I'm unemployed and don't have the resources to replace my old PPro system) I shut everything down. Fortunatly the sound continued. It was coming from outside. I finally located the source even though it was highly intermitend, fading in and out just like a failing fan. What I found was a days old orphaned raccoon cub right outside my window. It was yelling for its mom. Right now the cub and a sibling are with a Wildlife Rescue raccoon specialist.

      BTW, a stupid artical like this one desireves OT posts :P

  • Quiet PC? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bethane ( 686358 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:38PM (#6364069) Homepage Journal
    I used to have a annoying loud PC in my bedroom and it was very difficult to sleep with it on, so what I did was to place it in the basement and use it as a terminal server.
    For my bedroom I built myself a not-so-dumb terminal. I used a VIA processor based motherboard [ebuyer.com] and run it diskless.
    All I did was fit a CD-ROM so I could boot a minial homebrew Linux based on knoppix [knopppix.org] and Morphix [sourceforge.net]. Once booted up it logs in automatically and launches Rdesktop [rdesktop.org] which allows me to login to my server in the basement over 802.11b.
    This works great and I sleep much better now!
    • How is it for video playback and 3d? Enquiring minds want to know...

      I'm thinking of hooking up a slow P100 as a media access box, but I was wondering if it is possible to unload the video processing onto the remote X server.

      Many thanks in advance.

    • rdesktop doesn't support > 256 colors, has horrible keyboard handling (no winkey, rmb key, etc) and does not redirect remote sound or printers/file shares.

      Just thought I mention that for those who might want to repeat your experiment.
    • I can on-up you there. The CD-ROM makes too much noise for me, so I use the same fanless VIA board with either NFS boot and powerline networking or a compact flash card root (using an IDE adapter) with an 802.11b adapter and the rest mounted over NFS. Totally silent.
    • I used to have a annoying loud PC in my bedroom and it was very difficult to sleep with it on,

      Bedroom PC's are for those who do not share the bedroom with a significant other. Some of us do, and so have banished most electronics to other parts of the house, so we can concentrate on ...ahem...other matters pertaining to the bedroom.

      Sadly, most of /. does nto fit this profile, so a nice quiet bedroom PC is a necessary object.

      • Bedroom PC's are for those who do not share the bedroom with a significant other. Some of us do, and so have banished most electronics to other parts of the house, so we can concentrate on ...ahem...other matters pertaining to the bedroom. Sadly, most of /. does nto fit this profile, so a nice quiet bedroom PC is a necessary object.

        Actually, for most of /. a computer is a "necessary object" in "other matters pertaining to the bedroom."

    • "I used to have a annoying loud PC in my bedroom and it was very difficult to sleep with it on, so what I did was to place it in the basement and use it as a terminal server."

      wow i used to have the exact same thing, but what i did was put it in the basement and what i do is haul my fat lazy ass out of bed and walk to my computer room.. and i sleep pretty good too
    • This works great and I sleep much better now!

      Maybe you should consider moving the computer OUT of your bedroom. Or turn your computer off when you want to sleep. That's what a NON-techie would do, you see.

      ....Bethanie....
      (Original Recipe)
  • "I wasn't able to measure the noise frequencies before or after the modifications, but suffice to say the case is also much less "annoying.""

    Reminds me of a Brass Eye quote when a popular UK DJ compared the genes of crabs to sex offenders:

    "There is no real evidence to prove this, but it is a fact"

  • Larger, slower fans (Score:5, Informative)

    by metatruk ( 315048 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:41PM (#6364085)
    Use larger, slower fans when possible. They move the same amount of air as smaller, faster fans, but without the noise.
    • That's not quite true. What it actually doesn't is lower the pitch of the whining noise it makes, meaking it sounds much quieter to most people (not to mention much more plesant), but I'd be willing to bet the decible rating would still be about the same.

      • Re:Larger, slower fans (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Mr Z ( 6791 )

        It also lowers the velocity of the air at any particular point, which reduces the wind noise around the non-moving components, such as fan guards, etc. I seem to recall wind resistance (and thus wind noise) goes up non-linearly, and so a linear reduction in air velocity with constant CFM (implying a corresponding linear increase in surface area) still ends up reducing noise. A big component of noise comes from turbulence as well, which is why moving fan guards away from fans helps, and why reducing RPMs

    • This is the way to go. There have been cases available for a while now where they use two 10cm fans in the place of three 8cm fans.

      One problem is that the case fans are only one source of noise. The optical drives and hard drives are another that need work. Heck, graphics cards are nasty and often those fans aren't easily swapped. Some people go to the length of using a Zalman heat pipe / sink made specifically for video cards. It eliminates the fan but also large enough that the next PCI slot is unus
      • Thats the problem with trying to silence your computer. Alot of different componets for the sake of performance, are loud.

        I treated the entire computer as one. I got a KMV cable and stuck the entire thing into my closet. Now the only noice I hear when surfing is my CRT monitor.

  • Why not simply ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:41PM (#6364086) Journal
    ...get a quieter fan? [tomshardware.com]
    • I have a Noise Control Silverado [tomshardware.com] on my 1.2GHz Athlon. That cooler generates only 38Db in quiet mode, [tomshardware.com] which I'm using, and its STILL more noisy than I would like. My machine is 1 meter away from me and when I'm not listening to music, I want silence. I want to fall asleep without noting how loud the computer sounds 2 meters away. Sure plenty of people are used to sleeping with their jet engine on, but I'm not and I don't intend to get used to it.

      The next step in my quest for quiet is adding sound absorb
  • "quiet a computer by several dBA."

    I've known some loud DBAs, but I didn't realize they had been organized into a loudness-measuring system.

    • I can't believe this article got attention. Home depot jobs are cool only if they result in something useful. The numbers posted are worthless. If he had to conclude that it was "less" annoying, then nothing happened except some adequate denial to justify all the work.

  • Safety question? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:41PM (#6364089) Homepage
    Are those foam panels fireproof (or at least resistant)? If they're used in office ceilings, I'd guess so, but I'd want more than my guess before putting close to stuff that gets hot.

    And here, laugh, it's relevant [ibiblio.org]

    • Re:Safety question? (Score:5, Informative)

      by kirkjobsluder ( 520465 ) <kirk AT jobsluder DOT net> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:06PM (#6364195) Homepage
      Actually, one of the Melamine collectors handbooks, (believe it or not, there are people who run around trying to collect complete sets of brightly colored plastic dinnerware from the 50s) claims that the makers of Melmac had the Dod use Melamine dinnerwar. in above-ground nuclear weapons tests. Evidently the DoD was interested in the survivability of everyday materials and the producers of Melmac got free advertising on how indestrcuctable their product was.

  • My DELL Optiplex GX260 is dead quiet (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My DELL Optiplex GX260 is dead quiet. You can't even tell that it is on. They did an excellent job making it quiet.

    My previous DELL was a noisy s.o.b.

    My home computer (AMD 2200XP and Antec case like the one in the article) is pretty quiet, after i down-voltaged all the fans, replaced both the CPU and northbridge fans with big copper heatsinks, underclocked the cpu to minimum, seagate baracudda drive, but it still makes noise.

    In comparison, this DELL is dead silent. I can not tell that the machine is on,

    • Seagate Barracudas (Score:4, Informative)

      by jcsehak ( 559709 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:06PM (#6364198) Homepage
      I second that - can't say enough good things about them. SO quiet. I replaced the one that came with my early-model mac g4 (a Maxtor (Western Digital's are equally noisy, BTW)) with a Seagate Barracuda I picked up from www.endpcnoise.com [endpcnoise.com], and now the whole machine is maybe a third as loud. It's like a dream - the only sound I can hear is that of the power supply fan. I also replaced the case fan with one that was (unfortunately smaller) much quieter. So now, if I can find a quiet power supply that is guaranteed to work with my machine, I'm golden.

      In my last place, I had the thing in a closet, which really quieted it down. I was nervous about the heat, but nothing bad happened at all. I had to keep it quiet so I could do recording. Now I just have the mic in a different room. Much nicer.
      • If you're looking for quiet power supplies, I'd recommend you check out www.siliconacoustics.com [siliconacoustics.com]. I bought a quiet Zalman PSU from them a long time ago (and it was very quiet). Now they sell a completely fanless 350 Watt PSU.

  • Since he throws the terminologies around. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:45PM (#6364101) Homepage Journal
    A 6dBa difference (decibels, A weighted) is perceived as a doubling (or halving, in this instance) of loudness. His measurements seem to average in that area.

    Most of what he did was close off areas where sound could escape. However, as has already been mentioned, those same areas would have allowed fresh air to enter. I'd rather have the noise than let the smoke out.

    • Actually, while a 6 dB change is a doubling or halving of signal power, it takes about 10 dB to hear a doubling of "loudness" (a measure of perception, ie. subjective). This is also a non-linear curve (so 10 dB change in a quiet sound will sound like more than a 10 dB change in a loud sound, if I remember correctly; wish I had my acoustics book with me.).

      So, basically, while 6 dB change is significant, it is not nearly as good as a 10 dB change, in terms of perceived loudness.
      • Both of you are wrong

        read this

        http://www.audio-logic.com/html/power.html
        • And what exactly does that link have to say about human perception of loudness? It is about speaker efficiency, which is NOT what we were discussing. We are talking a subjective measure of loudness.

          "loudness" in acoustical psychophysics is (grossly) defined like this:

          Say I have the ability to measure the sound pressure intensity coming to your ears. ie. the "sound pressure level", which I can express with decibels. I play one tone and you listen to it. I then ask you to adjust the tone to be half as

  • Home Depot technology (Score:3, Funny)

    by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:45PM (#6364106)
    Foam panels are just the beginning. Imagine how quiet his machine will be after he fills every space and crevice inside with expanding foam [dow.com]!

  • No inflow = no outflow = excitement? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tsu Dho Nimh ( 663417 ) <abacaxi@@@hotmail...com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:46PM (#6364110)
    "A small section was also placed between the bezel and the front of the case in an effort to seal up the front intake holes which I don't use, and prevent sound from escaping."

    He might not be using those holes, but the air flowing into them is what replaces the air leaving through that noisy power supply fan. If he's making the fans work against higher resistance than they are designed to overcome, they will overheat, his computer will overheat, and he may be able to test the fire rating of those ceiling tiles he stuffed into the case.

    I bet he's the kind of guy who would take the air filter out of his car to "improve performance".

  • there's a better and yet cheaper way (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:51PM (#6364133)
    I let mine fill up with dust, and I can't even hear it.

  • Dynamat (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eric(b0mb)Dennis ( 629047 ) * on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:55PM (#6364145)
    I've personally used Dynamat for my bedroom system, right next to my bed (Used it for music,movies) and it really made it a lot quieter and well worth the money.

    The -1 hour increase in time it takes to get asleep was worth its weight in gold :)
  • This guy better watch out, or just like the greatest tragedy of early 90's glam rock, his computer case is going to go up in smoke.

    Now that I think about it. Maybe he should get a window case, some Great White action figures, and he can have himself a little recreation right there next to his Pentium.
  • I don't know if anyone is doing this, but active noise redcution seems perfect for this application.

    Rather than try to absorb the sound a computer makes, active cancellation uses a speaker or transducer to produce a counter-wave of sound that can be very effective at reducing noise.

    The technique works best with noise that has a regular pattern, such as computer fans.

    It's too obvious for no one to have done it yet, but I'm just too lazy right now to search for it. :)

  • Why waste $3.00.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Enraged_jawa ( 641736 ) * on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:57PM (#6364157)
    When you can get a can of Expanding Foam for $2.79 at Home Depot. Just stick the nozzle into the fan grille opening and fill 'er up till foam comes out the floppy drive slot and all 8 corners. It will get real quiet and work much better than the tiles.

  • Posts/Screws/Clips (Score:3, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @08:58PM (#6364158)
    I usually spend my time on the computer with a pair of headphones on just so I can escape the noise of the three or four cooling fans rattling around inside my computers' case.

    Those holes in the fan chassis are for the screws that came with it, unless you have a nice case with existing clips for simple mounting of the fans. Just leaving the fans hanging by the power cables to "rattle around" is not a good idea.

  • Silent Power Supply (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meehawl ( 73285 ) <meehawl...spam+slashdot@@@gmail...com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:01PM (#6364171) Homepage Journal
    Soundproofing your case produces results, but the biggest bang for the buck is definitely replacing the PSU.

    I built a TV PC and I was annoyed by the hovercraft-like PSU, so I invested in a silent PSU. There are lots of custom quiet PSUs recommended here [silentpcreview.com], but you pay for the styling and mods.

    For me, the most economical approach was to pay $50 for a standard Fortron/Sparkle PSU with inside-case 120mm fan intake [silentpcreview.com]. There's a review of it at Tom's [tomshardware.com].

    After the PSU replacement and replacement of the PC case, the PSU is literally inaudible. The loudest ambient noise in the apartment now comes from the fridge compressor in the kitchen one room over.

    It's a minimal system though, an underclocked XP2400, a single hard drive. If and when I put in some more drives, I may line the case with soundproofing...

    • Hard Drives (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bilange ( 237074 )
      I have a one year old Maxtor hard drive (40gb@7200 rpm) here and its making as much noise as my 4-5 year old fujitsu 8gb@7200 rpm. So I guess that hard drives is another major noise source.

      If you have the ressources to do it, heres an ingenious way to silent an hard drive [silentpcreview.com].
      • I highly recommend the Seagate Barracuda ATA drives. Mine is extremely quiet and gave me back quality sleep that I had been losing to some squeaky, loud SCSI drives. Seriously though, if you have the few bucks to spend (I think I paid $100 for my 80GB drive, a while back), get one of these drives, but forget about the hacks listed in that article. The drive is quiet enough that there is little to be gained from fancy mounting.
    • Ahhhrrrrggg. Its too late for me. You can read more here [berkeley.edu] at my blog. I had to replace my power supply just a month ago. I paid $75 with shipping and tax for a Zalman ZM300A-APF which is high on the list you linked to. There's nothing custom about it, unless you mean how its fan speed is thermo-controlled. At least its silent relative to my Noise Control Silverado. [tomshardware.com] I could have paid half of what I did...

  • bitumen mats (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rxke ( 644923 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:06PM (#6364196) Homepage
    not the same thing, but related: A lot of cheap computerboxes resonate, due to the spinning of the drives, fans, cd/dvd drives. An inexpensive solution is to go to your local upmarket hifi store, where they sell bitumen mats, used to deaden-stiffen the walls of speaker cabinets. These things are thin but heavy, and reduce the 'rattling' a lot by increasing the mass of the walls. Just apply a (small) patch to the insides of the case et voila Or you could try a cartuner shop, same material is used to dampen resonance soundproblems in cars

  • missing details (Score:3, Informative)

    by shird ( 566377 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:35PM (#6364324) Homepage Journal
    He fails to mention what the speeds of all the fans in his case are. With the increased temperature, most 'smart' fans will increase in speed, and therefore noise. So adding all that insulation can even increase the noise in some cases (not this one it seems). ie, on my case, it actually runs quieter with the sides off, than on, because the temperature drops and the fans all drop in speed. Plus it means I can disconnect some fans as they are no longer needed.

    I can run a nvidia G4 & P4 2.5ghz with harldly any noise at all - seems crazy to me that some people require such extreme cooling/insulation methods. I just use fans which adjust based on load.

  • Are these fiber pannels? (Score:4, Informative)

    by thogard ( 43403 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:38PM (#6364337) Homepage
    One problem is fibers break off and tend to collect in things like fans. If the fiber size is small (like asbestos), it can even find its way inside hard drives.

    I used some tar lined sheets. They are about 2mm thick and have metal foil on one side. They weren't cheap but the inside of my case isn't that big.

  • Totally silent setup. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:38PM (#6364338)
    Dude... You want quiet?! Here's how you can get a computer to run SILENTLY:

    Ok, the truth is that it doesn't really run silently, but you won't hear a damn thing. Modify a desk by removing some drawers from it to make enough space for your computer to sit inside. Drill a hole at the top for the wires. A monitor, keyboard, speakers and rat are all you need on top of the desk. The best insulator is air, and there's air around the computer inside the desk. If you need to access the CD-ROM drive or something, set it up so that in place of the drawers, there is a door you can open. This has other uses, like physical layer security. You could put a lock on the damn thing or simply make it so inconspicuous (by putting a shoddy computer case next to the monitor that doesn't do anything) to fool anyone who might otherwise jack your comp. It is so silent that nobody will ever even know it is there.

    You could go further, if you're like me and you've kept every old computer you've ever had. Put them in a walk-in closet and run a network cable to your desk. Run applications on all the computers and access them all from the one on your desk, via X, VNC, or other software. When your friends come over, they'll think your computer is 10 times as fast as it actually is since you can run tons of applications all at once and they all seem to operate at full speed. Little do they know that you've actually got 10 computers (or however many) doing the work. Even at work we don't put computers out of commission and continue using them to run old applications, and new ones that don't use up 200% of system resources in order to display stupid useless graphics.

    • The problem with putting a computer in a desk or cabinet is that it heats up due to the confined air pocket around the machine. Fans that just end up recycling hot air don't make the machine any cooler. One of my machines I've had to maintain has stability problems as a result of this.

      Lastly, the air gap in the cabinet is not what's shielding the sound. It's shielded because the walls of the desk/cabinet are good at absorbing sound, and because you're farther away from it (less reaches you), and because vi

  • My way.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @09:55PM (#6364407)
    I have 7 computers up and running, 5 of them being in the same room, one in the garage and one in my sons room.

    I'm here to tell you that the noise and the heat is more than I can stand. So, I scored a twin door soda display cooler from a drive in grocery store for CHEAP. It was broken and has a bullet hole in it from a robbery attempt. But, it LOOKS good. It's 6.5' tall, 5' wide and 3' deep. It's got a dozen heavy duty adjustable shelves plus internal and external 48" flourescent light fixtures. The doors are self closing, double paned glass.

    Well, I stripped out the compressor and all the other cooling things. Now I have a HUGE, insulated sound proof box that is big enough to put ALL of my computers into including my laserjet and other heat producing devices.
    pic of cooler stripped all the way down [rr.com]

    pic 2 of cooler stripped all the way down [rr.com]

    I pulled the doors off and seperated the double panes of glass and removed the "COKE" logos,
    pic of one door before removing logos [rr.com]

    Now I'm going to apply my own "etched glass" appliques that suit my tastes, I'm sanding the outer cabinet down and priming it so I can put a nice paint job on it and shortly I'll have a giant soundproof box for my pc's..
    I'm going to put vents in the bottom rear and baffle and filter them to keep the sound in and and the dust out. In the top I'm going to cut a four inch diameter hole and run a PVC duct through the top of the cabinet and through my ceiling into my attic. With a small, super quiet 4" fan to help exhaust the hot air, my computer room will stay nice and cool and my air conditioner will not have to work nearly so hard as it does now.
    In the winter I'll divert the exhaust into the computer room to assist the central heater..

    And to top it all off, I'm going to put a few cold cathode lights in it just for a nice effect. The internal 48" flourescent light I'll leave in there to light it up when I have to pull a rack out to work on something...

    My biggest problem now is figuring out how to get it into the house. I can take some door frames out but I don't know if it will turn the corners or not..

  • Another place where tiles can help (Score:3, Informative)

    by edhall ( 10025 ) <slashdot@weirdnoise.com> on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:05PM (#6364438) Homepage

    is on the wall behind the computer. One of the biggest noise-emitters is often the power supply fan and noise from other sources tends to leak out through other access points on the computer's back. If the computer's back faces the wall, putting a block of good sound-absorbing material can lower the amount of noise radiated into the room quite noticeably.

    You don't even need a screwdriver.

    -Ed
  • Ok, so I'll admit to being kinda surprised when I saw it done the first time (by a usually non-technical person I know, who hated the noise of her computer so much she had the guts to open it up, and line the interior with foam padding... and also spend £50 on a low-noise fan and heatsink), but I didn't think it was /. material... but then things are always obvious just after you find out about them.
  • The latest Dell Precision workstations run completely silent, except for the optical drives.

    You can hear a faint whir from the fans if you place your ear next to the system, but otherwise they are completely silent.

    Furthermore, they are extremely inexpensive. The latest deal on slickdeals.net was a $340 Pentium 4 2.53GHz system with 256MB PC2700 RAM, a 16X DVD-ROM or a 48X CD-RW, 30GB hard drive and 32MB Rage (in an AGP slot so it's upgradable) Slickdeals went so far as to say "You cannot build your own s

  • I've never understood why... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Thursday July 03, 2003 @10:11PM (#6364455) Homepage Journal
    ..we first seal the heat-generating components inside a closed case, then start worrying about heat dispersal, and then have to use huge and noisy fans to bring some cool air in and hot air out. Why not solve the problem from the beginning, rather than patching up existing designs?

    I've recently built a power amplifier with a practically sealed case with plenty of metal. The case itself is the heat sink, so there's no need to have any dusty air wandering inside. Of course audio devices don't usually need fans, but it's basically the same idea anyway. The next computer I build will hopefully have passive cooling in a similar fashion, and of course a fanless power supply.

  • What good does it really do to put these tiles on the inside of the PC case? It's been my experience that most PC noise is caused by the fans themselves blowing air.

    This is what fans do right? And yeah, it's a tough nut to crack, because quiteing the fans means limiting their airflow somehow. Limiting the airflow means that eventually our something inside our boxen is going to start to smell like burnt toast.

    As CPU's have gotten faster and required more cooling, I've noticed that machines have gotten loud
  • People will never learn that much of the sound a PC emits origins from the case itself per structure-borne sound. So you have to absorb the structure-borne sound by using a heavy, unelastic material. Foam is not heavy and thus it is not suitable.

    I choose bitumen, which I bought from the local car parts dealer at 20 for 0.75m. It is self-adhesive and can be cut by a scissor, so I fitted my whole case with it in about one hour, making noticeably heavier. Subjectively measured I think the PC is now half as lo
  • By the way: Did you know that Bucky Fuller (of geodesic dome fame) and/or his did invented those tiles?
  • I love reading all these comments from people complaining how their one or two PCs produce so much noise it drives them insane. Working as I do in a server room (on the bright side, at least it gives me my own office...), the noise levels I'm exposed to are exponentially worse than that of your average home or office user.

    To wit;
    • 1x IBM NetFinity 7000: 2x internal fans, 2x front bezel fans, 8x HDD rack fans, 2x PSU fans
    • 1x IBM NetFinity 5000: 2x internal fans, 2x HDD fans, 1x PSU fan
    • 1x F760 NetApp NAS:

Slashdot Top Deals

Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.

Close