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Hardware

A Practical Approach To Shushing Your PC 201

Posted by timothy from the slaughter-a-carpet-as-a-threat dept.
An anonymous reader points to this wacky but effective-looking home-brewed answer to computer noise, consisting of a wooden case stuffed with ventilation shafts which follow a number of 180-degree turns, and implementing several ideas found at 12ghosts.de (in German). From the description on the site: "By traveling through the shafts, the noise is weakened gradually on its way through the sections. On the front the case has a door for accessing drives, the cables come out of a kind of "mouse hole" at the rear panel. A fan inside pulls an air flow through the wooden box."
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A Practical Approach To Shushing Your PC More

A Practical Approach To Shushing Your PC

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  • I put my PC in the fridge and have extra long cables!

    • Re:Meh (Score:2, Funny)

      by jaakkeli ( 47383 )
      I put my PC in the fridge and have extra long cables!

      Hmm. The noise from my PC has often made me want to throw it out the window. Now it occures to me that, since I live in Finland, this might actually be a *great* idea!

      • Re:Meh (Score:3, Interesting)

        by varaani ( 77889 )
        I live in an old apartment built in the 1950s, and it has a cool cabient in the kitchen which is cooled by outdoor air. I put my computer there. Of course it's only useful in the winters, but then it provides enough cool air so that I can close the cabinet door without fearing overheating. The monitor, mouse and keyboard cables are about 5m each and run neatly inside cable ducting. With the door closed the computer is much quieter than my fridge, which is not that noisy either.
  • I'd like a quieter PC, but space is at a premium here and I don't want a PC which is 5'x5'.

  • Watercooling (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:10AM (#7312999)
    ...simple as that. Go get a decent Watercooling setup [asetek.com] and a , and you've got an (almost) silent PC. [zalman.co.kr]
    • i already thought about a case made of a log, too... you could use ist as a stool or monitor stand or whatever so the argument of size - for me - doesn't count...

    • Re:Watercooling (Score:5, Informative)

      by Peter Clary ( 34038 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:17AM (#7313019)
      The author indicates that one of his problems is the noise from hard drives, even after decoupling them from the case using rubber mounts. Water cooling isn't going to fix that. He was trying for a solution that addresses all sources of sound, and isn't affected by upgrading or replacing the computer.

  • I don't see.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why using foam tubing (like pipe insulation) with other pieces of foam or rubber coming through the sides to provide obstacles, pointing towards the sources of most noise (ie. processor fan, particularly noisy hard drives, PSU fan) wouldn't be fairly effective without all the hassle and annoyance of constructing a case :)

    Also, I'd rather put up with a bit more noise than have my computer's temperature increase. Poor little thing has only just got over its last illness.

  • Wow (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did you see the picture?
    http://www.carsten-buschmann.de/noise-pr otection/p icture1.htm

    I have to say thats the most pimptastic computer I've ever seen.

  • Patent pending? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by phatsharpie ( 674132 )
    If the original design came from 12ghosts.de, how can he patent the design? Or is he the same person that came up with the design at 12ghosts.de? Wouldn't prior art be applicable to patents?

    Interesting concept, but that case looks really bulky, and I would worry about airflow. Would this idea work if we shrink it down drastically?

    -B
    • "Or is he the same person that came up with the design at 12ghosts.de?"

      My German is a bit rusty, but AFAICT Philip Ahrens is behind the ideas on 12ghosts, Carsten Frank Buschmann is acknowledging Ahrens' patents which, as he says, Ahrens has allowed to be used for private use (probably just a "not for commercial exploitation without a license from me" restriction).
      • At least in the US, IIRC, people are by default was allowed to make their own replicas of patented devices. IIRC, one cannot sell it, that is all.
        • >>At least in the US, IIRC, people are by default was allowed to make their own replicas of patented devices. IIRC, one cannot sell it, that is all.

          Sounds nice, but doesn't the DMCA try stop one from doing this? A guy would have to reverse engineer the patented device in order to replicate it. Maybe I'm wrong.

          wbs.
          • A guy would have to reverse engineer the patented device in order to replicate it.

            No, he'd just have to look at the patent. They're generally supposed to go into quite a bit of detail. I think in the past it was even neccessary to present a prototype to apply for a patent.
          • Sounds nice, but doesn't the DMCA try stop one from doing this? A guy would have to reverse engineer the patented device in order to replicate it. Maybe I'm wrong.

            You are. Those DMCA prohibitions are about "devices" designed to circumvent copyright protection methods (such as encryption). It has nothing to do with reverse engineering or duplicating a physical device.

    • Writing patent pending next to an idea means that there's a patent pending on it, not that I the writer am the owner of said pending patent.
    • how can he patent the design?

      Doesn't matter because he waited too long. Says the idea was "Announced on 28.02.1997", but according to Patent It Yourself 8th Edition [amazon.com]
      "in the United States you must file your patent application within one year after you first commercialize or publish details of the invention. However most foreign countries doesn't have this one-year grace period..."

      So unless he filed in 98 and has been waiting for the last 6 years to be approved he's lost his opportunity to patent.

  • Best way to have a silent PC... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:26AM (#7313040) Journal
    ...is running Virtual PC on an iBook ;-)
  • Problem is that you will need bigger fans to compensate for limiting the airflow.

  • Wow (Score:1)

    by Fringex ( 711655 )
    It isn't a terrible idea but the first problem I see is heat. That wooden case is gonna heat up pretty fast I expect. I think one of the easiest ways to make your computer quiet is not to decprate it is shag carpet but it is to find a means to cool your computer in another way besides airflow. Liquid cooling is always an option but has anyone created an efficient means to this?
  • Bah. Mod your ears and get over it. Augment your body and learn to live in harsh environments. Now that I've been given the chance to live in the 3rd millennium, I insist on transcending my puny human body. /me inserts ear plugs.

  • No need! (Score:5, Funny)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:32AM (#7313056)
    I've found that this [81.152.107.149] always does the trick!

  • Hmm whats that I smell burning? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bacon-kidney-pie ( 717079 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:32AM (#7313057)
    I don't like the idea of putting something which gets very hot inside a well insulated wooden box.

  • mod (Score:1)

    by manon ( 112081 )
    I would like to see some case modding for this wooden box.

  • The risk of chasing the silent PC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hanssprudel ( 323035 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:34AM (#7313067)
    The problem with going after the silent PC at all cost is that the level of noise is not purely objective, and there is a strong psychological aspect to how much a sound will disturb you. A lot of people have computers that sound like F15s during take-off, but seem completely surprised when you even mention the noise to them: other people start trying to silence their computers, yet end up finding even the slightest hum annoying.

    The problem here is the way our brain work in regards to sound. If a sound is percieved as a threat, then the sound amplified subcontiously, where-as ambient sounds that are percieved as mundane are muffled. It is not difficult to understand why we have evolved that way.

    When you start trying to silence your computer, it is easy to start thinking of any sound you hear as a "failure" and thus a threat, which will make you focus on it. Thus you have people who get a silent power supply, only to suddenly find themselves driven up the wall by the CPU-fan, and then the harddisk.

    The extreme end of all this, of course, is tinnitus. I've suffered from this condition for ten years, and it is like having a noisy a computer inside your head that nothing can turn off. But at the same time, it works just the same psychologically: if you start fearing the sound, running from it, thinking about how it will be there for the rest of ones life, the condition becomes unbarable. Whereas if you can tell yourself that it really isn't that bad, and learn to just accept it, you can live almost undisturbed. (The latter is easier said then done, even when you realize it is true - myself I tend to have good periods followed by bad.) Some people even argue that tinnitus is entirely psychosomatic in this sense (I would like to believe them).

    So, just as a warning, a silent PC isn't a bad thing, but be careful about how far you take yourself down the road of fighting the noise.
    • Yeah. I have a mild tinnuts, too, maybe since 10 years. When it started, I felt good as long as I sat near my noisy computer. When I turned it off, the sudden silence was really annoying, because I had to realize that a certain percentage of the noise I heard before didn't originate from the machine, but come directly from my ears or my brain.

      I think this mild form of tinnitus is really largely psychsomatic. The perpetual preoccupation with the sound inside the ears and the feeling of impotence to do anyth
    • Hurm. I thought tinitus was caused by listening to extremely loud noise for long periods of time... is that wrong?
      • It can be - one explanation I've heard is that tinitus is a manifestation or damage to the delicte hairs in the cochlea, which could be caused loud noise. However, I've also read that it could be degenerative damage in the vestibular or acoustic nerves or areas of the auditory cortex.

        Probably there's lots of different causes and it is located in different places in different people.

    • Re:The risk of chasing the silent PC (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Knos ( 30446 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @08:30AM (#7313216) Homepage Journal
      At work I hardly noticed the ventilation noise. Then one day it stopped (for a few minutes) .. It was like *heaven* .. we all just realized how noisy our environment was, and it felt like a huge weight was removed from us. We basically felt just a lot better and more relaxed.

      I'm thus postulating that even if you are not noticing the noise, it doesn't mean it doesn't have any effect on you. (Regarding stress)

      • My world works the other way around. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Zillatron ( 415756 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @11:49AM (#7313902)
        At work I hardly noticed the ventilation noise. Then one day it stopped (for a few minutes) .. It was like *heaven* .. we all just realized how noisy our environment was, and it felt like a huge weight was removed from us. We basically felt just a lot better and more relaxed.

        In my house we keep the fan (only the fan) running on the hvac unit 24/7/365. It does three things for us:
        1) Evens out temperatures so the hot and cold spots in the house are less pronounced.
        2) Filters out some of the ambient cat hair and dust (yes I change my filters often) and
        3) Provides white noise to cover the otherwise distracting sounds of being married to someone who keeps a differant schedule than you do.

        And let me tell you, it was CRUCIAL when we still lived in apartments to block the noise though our neighboirs walls. Do I really want to block all the noise of my computer to improve my perception of (a few years ago) my neighbour listening to "Who let the dogs out?" On repeat? There are worse things in the world than white noise.

    • You make some good points, but there's more to it than that. Computer sounds often make very good diagnostics that the ear used to ignoring "everyday" sounds can pick up on and detect problems before they're uncorrectable. The *absense* of a fan sound can trigger a "replace fan" impulse; the sudden and dangerously loud whine of a hard disk can say "you may have a few hours or you may have a few months, but back me up and replace me ASAP." Unusual modem sounds have woken me up and clued me in to system cras
      • That's what diagnostic lights, LEDs, messages and such are for. You don't need to be constantly reminded your computer is working. People who do system monitoring certainly don't sit in the computer room listening to all those systems hum and say "oh, sys234 has a problem."

    • Re:The risk of chasing the silent PC (Score:5, Informative)

      by ballpoint ( 192660 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @09:04AM (#7313320)
      I have suffered tinnitus in the past (and I still occasionally do) but I have found out I am able to make it go away completely using the following method:

      - Imagine a very strong sound with the same frequency as the most disturbing component of your tinnitus. Concentrate. It's hard to explain, but you must keep on trying to generate this sound yourself in your head, like if you are singing or whistling but without actually doing it.

      - After a short while (20-30 seconds) the tinnitus will disappear. It will come back after a while, but weaker. Repeat.

      - After a few iterations the frequency you focused on will have gone completely, but you will notice other, weaker frequencies in your tinnitus. Do the same thing to them.

      - Eventually you will end up with a tinnitus that is more noise like, instead of composed of pure tones. This is much more bearable, but you can still do better.

      - Try to generate the same kind of noise. The noise will not be completely white, but will have 'texture'. Imagine it (think 'sssshhh'), fight back. The noise component too will rapidly fade.

      You best do this at night in bed when it's really quiet.
      • Holy cow, do you have a link for more information on this? I'm very interested.
      • I was suffering from severe tinnitus for years.
        It was intolerable. To me, it seemed like a steam whistle going off 24 hours a day in my head. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I couldn't go any place on earth to escape it.

        I found that other noises would distract me from it and the only way I could get to sleep was to leave the TV on by my bed. I would listen to the TV and fall asleep. If the TV was off and the room was quiet it was like the chinese water torture, all I could hear was the whistling in
        • I would think that listening to a TV's flyback "whine" would damage you more than help. I know I'm one of the few people who are utterly annoyed by crt whine, and it's annoying to not have enough money to buy a good LCD tv (expensive) to get rid of that sound in my home theatre.

          And at this point, I've got tinnitus as well. Only in my left ear -- when I was 13, a firecracker went off pretty close to my ear, and I've had the ringing ever since. Of course, some of my activities don't help it, such as play
    • Psychological you say?

      Its 3am and I can't sleep.

      So I shut off the PC that runs 24/7. Immediately the noise from the Tivo blows me away. Its not the drive its the fan (upped to 12 volts). I swear its louder than the computer. At 3am I'm contemplating cracking open the Tivo box and lowering the fan down to that standard 9v. Then I realize I'm an idiot, turn the computer back on, and enjoy its new role as "white noise generator" and quickly fall asleep.
    • I'm not perceiving the sound as a threat, I'm perceiving it as:

      1. First and foremost: just that. Noise. It's a simple signal-to-noise-ratio problem. Too much noise drowns the useful signal.

      If I try watching a DVD together with someone (as opposed to alone, using headphones), I have to crank the volume _way_ up to just be able to understand what they're saying in the movie.

      If I'm talking to the phone, I often find myself walking over to the kitchen, to get away from the PC which indeed sounds "like F15s d
  • And one of the first 'problem' areas I had with it was the noise gernerated by the fans. I bought a volcano 11.. sounded like a jet engine taking off and I only had the dial at 3500rpm (full speed is 5000+). My solution was to remove the metal grill which covered about 50% of the top. It was really badly designed and after getting rid of it not only was the pc quieter but it was cooler too. I know I should bought a aeroflow but that was the only one I could find in my town and I needed it in a rush.

  • Moderate Tweaks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by malverian ( 563649 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:37AM (#7313072) Homepage
    While I'm not the kind of person that needs a silent PC, I know there are a lot of people that require a low noise polution level in their home or work environments. Several studies show that having computers perpetually running can cause people to become aggrivated often, due in part to the noise produced by loud fans or hard drives.

    When I had my first computer, I remember every 2-3 minutes the fan would intermittantly become about 40db louder than it should be, warranting a swift kick (or 2,3,4,..) to the side or front panels of the case (and I'm not a violent man). So I can definitely sympathize with why some people find a quiet computing environment optimal.

    Sorry, little walk through nostalgia lane. But that said, I do have a few recommendations for people that don't want to build their own wooden case just to limit noise output.

    * Buy quiet fans [thinkgeek.com] * Buy quiet hard drives * Make sure things are mounted securely! * NEVER skimp out when buying a case

    If you follow these very simple, unspecific guidelines, you will be well on your way to a quieter computer (at least one that doesn't require you to kick its ass at regular intervals)

    I appologize if this didn't turn out coherent, I tried to proofread, but I'm a little out of it ~~
    • Then only contribute more heat to your thermal problem (as do excessive fans).

      Think about it like this: peltier coolers only serve to create a temperature gradient, but you can't transfer heat out of your CPU faster than the "slowest" part of your thermal solution. This slowest part is almost always the heatsink/air interface.

      The chip/heatsink interface is usually good enough, especially if you don't overdo it with thermal grease, and the chips are designed to work with a heatsink anyway. They don't need
    • Wow, a CPU cooler that's worth atleast twice as much as my processor. Holy crap!

      Anyway, I don't know about those peltiers. Like any cooling device, it ultimately generates more heat than it cools. So while the CPU side stays nice and cool the other side gets hot, which means you need more fans to pull the heat from the case. While this may be good for overclocking (but then again at a cost of $120 why not just buy a faster CPU?) - I'll stick to my low RPM fans.

  • Computer Noise? What? (Score:3, Funny)

    by StoneCrusher ( 717949 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:45AM (#7313085)
    Computer noise solved in 3 easy steps.

    1. Get the latest tunes from your faviourite record company/piracy source.
    2. Turn the volume up.
    3. Press play.

    • Yes, it's moderated funny, so I'm not supposed to take it seriously anymore. But personally, the main reason why I want a silent computer is that I want to listen to music without having to turn the computer off. I'm not a total audio nutcase, but I have a fairly good stereo (you know, those old things with only tho speakers), and I listen to all sorts of music. Some of which is fairly soft. Trying to silence the computer noise will limit the choice of music severely.

  • Simple solution, keep your distance (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iceco2 ( 703132 ) <meirmaor.gmail@com> on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:50AM (#7313092)
    There is no need for you to work next to
    your computer box, the cables/RF connecting your
    screen keyboard and mouse to your computer
    can run a great distance. I have a computer set up
    in my bedroom with the box in a diffrent room.
    with a Screen a keyboard a mouse and a USB CDRW
    drive conviniently available.
    No nutty modifications, just USB extention cords.

    Me.
  • ... that plush cover is one of the coolest (hrm, no pun intended) ways to decorate a computer I've ever seen!

    Yeah, I know I'm weird, but I like it that way.
  • Large airflow restriction this will cut your flow rate substantially.

    And for the poster who said mufflers are glass fiber lined, they typically aren't, it's just an empty chamber.
  • Clever idea. It is the same as building a speaker; the ports (passages) are tuned to only allow through the low frequencies, which the computer does not create.

  • I've never understood this (Score:3, Funny)

    by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @08:27AM (#7313202) Homepage Journal
    I've never understood people's obsession with getting their PCs quieter. My PC has maybe 6/7 fans in it all going at the same time, and it honestly doesn't bother me. If it was silent, other noise would piss me off. For example, human voices actually piss me off a lot more. I find it very hard to concentrate in multi-user environments like libraries. And these people are saying that a small whirring is unbearable?? They need to adapt to life.
    • Maybe you just like noise and really are distracted by quiet? Not everyone is the same, and I know some people are this way, some are the opposite.

      If I can hear the thing from fifteen feet away then it is time to quiet it down. Having a machine running with several fans also reduces the dynamic range of music.

      My computers have usually sat under a desk on decent carpet and with an accoustical wall behind it and I think it is quiet enough like that. If it were out in the open or surrounded by reflective
    • Reasons for having a quiet computer can range from just being annoyed at the noise, to needing it quiet for, say, a home theater setup.

      As for myself, I edit music/audio on my system as one of my hobbies, and having loud fans gets in the way. I don't have a studio setup or anything fancy that requires ultra-quiet, but do want a low enough level of noise that I don't notice it (too much). I still use headphones sometimes when I really want to block things out though, but I much prefer working through the sp
    • It's all subjective. Computer noises bug the living hell out of me. Tinnitus was the final nail in the coffin for me, as it were. Permanent hearing damage sucks.
    • Your hearing is specially tuned to pick up sounds within the range of the human voice, so you are naturally more sensitive to voices. Plus, you are not only hearing their voices but you are understanding what they are saying as well. That makes it even more distracting. The steady hum of a computer is far easier to filter out because it doesn't change.

      But hey, I think there is beauty in silent operation. Wouldn't you like a solid-state computer with /no/ moving parts? It's not so much "people whining

  • My Solution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by binarysearch ( 605184 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @08:37AM (#7313233) Homepage
    A much simpler solution presented itself to me some time ago: put a wall between myself and the computer.

    Well, actually, the secret here is that the wall behind my monitor is very thin wood paneling (3 or 4 mm) separating the main basement from the workroom, which isn't used much. Cables thus run from the desk in the basement through a 2" x 3" hole in the paneling under the desk and into the computer. By closing the door that separates the two rooms, I simply cannot hear the computer, even during hard drive activity and full fans blasting.

    There is, of course, one unfortunate aspect to this: I have to take about five steps to access the CD drive; this problem could be solved by buying an external drive, but I don't use the CD drive often enough for this to be a problem. The benefits, however, are twofold: no computer sounds, as previously mentioned, and also, because of the colder air in the other room and the full-power fans, I can run a 2.4 GHz P4 overclocked to 3.0 GHz at 27 degrees Celcius idle, maxing out at 35 degrees C under full load.

    Oh, yes: the hole I mentioned earlier... I named it Glory

    • " I have to take about five steps to access the CD drive; this problem could be solved by buying an external drive,"

      Sounds to me like a perfect excuse to build a robot CD changer ;)
    • Your obviously not the type that has built his own "entertainment pc" so that you have full access to everything even while sitting at the couch with your wireless keyboard.

  • silent pc (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AchmedHabib ( 696882 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @08:45AM (#7313264)
    I just worked a bit on making my pc silent, mostly for the fun of it but it was a nice bonus if I could get less noisy PC
    First I got the MSI FX5900 with the dual fans. Makes less noise than my GF3 TI500 and a lot less heat.(no more warm cabinet :)
    Then I swapped the standard Intel P4 cooler with a Zalman CNPS7000A-CU.
    I also installed a Thermaltake PSU that I already had, which lowered the noise compared to the noname PSU I had before.
    I exchanged the Western Digital harddrive with a Seagate Barracuda which has no rotation noise, unlike the WD harddrive. I have a 5" mounting frame for the HD that suspends the HD screws in some rubber thingys that I hope will lower the head movent noise that the Seagate does have.
    Finally my cabinet has room for a big fan in the front which I have installed and adjusted so it runs slowly with little noise.

    So what now makes the most noise in my PC are the fans on the Thermaltake PSU. Regarding the cooler. The CPU temp went to 35c when idle(and fan runnin 200rpm) and 50c under full load with fan running at 70%(before staring to make noise). With the original cooler the idle temp was 43c and it hit 55c(full fan speed and a lot of noise) under full load where the motherboard kicked in at fired up the fan to full speed. I don't have much expirence in this and I am a bit unsure if I have applied the correct amount of thermal paste, but I have a lot left for experimentation, so I will try different configurations. I was expecting poor air flow inside the cabinet to be the cause of the high operating temperature but I tried opening the cabinet and placed an office fan above it to make sure the air in the cabinet was room temp. and the CPU temp. readings was pretty much the same. They only got 2-3c higher when the cabinet are closed.
    Also if anyone has any suggestions for a silent harddrive, I would like to know. Of course I would like it to be fast but noise levels are the top priority.
    It has been fun playing with this, tryng to make the optimal air flow and getting the most out of as little cooling as possible. And it is now clear to me that noise reduction and a silent PC is often one of the things you don't get in a DIY PC unless you put some effort into it.
    • I've seen somewhere on the web a nifty little hdd enclosure that suspended the hard drive in an elastic web. Think of it as a hard drive being suspended with rubber bands on all sides - from what I can recall about it the enclosure almost eliminated all the noise, as the hard drive was acoustically isolated from the chassis by the rubber bands. That's the big reason you hear the noise, it's being amplified by the case itself.
      But if it helps at all, try Samsung drives - I have a Spinpoint 80Gb drive in th

  • Another approach... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JohnPM ( 163131 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @08:57AM (#7313300) Homepage
    I received a pair of these [etymotic.com] the other day. They are incredibly effective at blocking computer noise and also provide an effective method of silencing your boss/wife/gf without encasing them in a wooden box.

  • Or... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SD-VI ( 688382 )
    You could just replace the existing fans with Panaflo L1As (probably the best "quiet fans" in existence), put vibration dampeners on any fan mounts that need it, and get a quiet power supply such as an Antec TruePower. Provided that you spend an estimated ten U.S. dollars on getting a decent CPU heatsink, you should never have any heat problems even given the low output of these fans.

    Of course, if this approach is too radical, you could build an exterior case for your computer the size of a car.

  • Apple did it right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JThaddeus ( 531998 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @09:11AM (#7313348)
    Have you seen the Apple G5 case? A terrific setup with a enclosed area and special fan just for the CPU. When the case is closed, the fan moves at a slow speed, drawing air front to back. When opened ('cause everyone has to look inside to admire its layout) the air channel is no longer as efficient and the fan picks up speed. Why can't my Dell be made that way?
    • Because Apple owns the patent and wants too high of a price to license it to anyone?
    • IIRC, the fan only speeds up when you take the plexiglass cover plate off, you can leave it on and still "admire" the layout. I do applaud their noise and thermal conciousness.

      I think Apple's layout sacrifices too much internal expansion anyway.

      In my case, I have two 15k RPM system drive (granted, one Windows, one Linux), two data drives mirror raided.

      I have six PCI slots and am on my way to filling them all, with multiple video input cards, SCSI, etc.

      I like to have a CD-only reader for running secure
    • Why can't my Dell be made that way?


      At work I have a Dell GX240. It's the quietest thing I have heard since they started putting fans in computers. However, it has the same problem as Apple computers, but to a lesser grade: high price. I think you were somewhat unlucky in your analogy.

    • Didn't the original Apple that Woz made have a wooden case?

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by ttyp0 ( 33384 )
    I never thought computers were all that loud in the first place. I think my refrigerator makes more noise. More importantly, I found that I have a harder time falling asleep at night if my computer isn't on. Strange..

    SCO Sucks T-shirt [anti-tshirts.com]. Shirts donate to the Open Source Now Fund.

  • Blu-Tac! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by StormcallerESC ( 626650 )
    There's always the old Blu-Tac approach. If a particular component is making a lot of noise, stick a blob of ol' Bluey on to it. It changes the frequency of the vibration slightly, removing any resonance that might have developed between the different parts of the machine (which could cause high amplitudes and lots of noise) and hopefully at least lowering the sound to a less annoying pitch.

    I've only ever had a limited amount of success with this little trick - it definitely does something, but it's never

  • If you want a silent PC (as I do), build it silent from the start...

    There are good web sites devoted to doing this.

    http://www.silentpcreview.com/

    http://www.silent.se/
  • This is a old idea that was in use for years at recording studios and was used for line printers back in the 80's.

    and he has a "patent pending" on it, making him a jerk.

    Many equipment enclosures for recording studios have labrynth vents, the more effective units have labrynth vents that have no parallel surfaces to eliminate resonance, while having a magnetic seal door on the front with dual pane plexiglass also that are not parallel to eliminate noise emissions out the front but allowing viewing of the e

  • Try the opposite approach (Score:3, Interesting)

    by azav ( 469988 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @12:06PM (#7313975) Homepage Journal
    Get some Bose noise cancelling headphones.

  • Old Stuff (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WayneConrad ( 312222 ) *

    Sound enclosures have been around a while, but usually for noisier things. A company I worked for purchased a sound deadening box like this [compudirect.net] for a client's noisy dot-matrix printer in the early 90's.

    Here's someone making sound deadening boxes for G4's [elias-audio.net] (a favorite of AV types, I guess).

  • Resonances (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JawzX ( 3756 )
    As an ameture speaker designer I'd be worried about the folded ports forming resonances that my not even be audible due to extreme low frequency, but which are still subconciously iritating. Granted there is usualy no coherent audio souce in a computer, and the ports are small buy audio standards but resistive coupling can produce some odd results just when you don't what it. I agree with others who have said "build silent to start". The Apple G5 design IS pretty damn nifty, but not perfect. As someone who

  • Learn from Apple (Score:2, Interesting)

    by invisik ( 227250 ) *
    How's the Cube for being quiet? Or the new G5? Hell-looooo!

    -m
  • I found this one out just yesterday Step 1: Press the "Off" button until the screen goes blank.
  • I've thought about approaches like this. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the engineering involved.

    It seemed to me that any approach that produces more reflection (running things through a series of turns) also reduces airflow, requiring a louder fan to produce the required airflow. I'm curious as to what the best approach to reducing sound relative to airflow is.
  • you can get a mac

  • Desperate Measures(ep.42):The Mineral Oil Incident (Score:3, Informative)

    by D4C5CE ( 578304 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @02:10PM (#7314460)
    From the book of truly desperate measures to "silence" a PC (without killing it), take a look at this interesting episode [archive.org] (only some images archived - anyone got a mirror?): An entire mainboard was submerged into pure mineral oil, to work silently below the surface of this unconventional computer coolant - which it actually did, and survived...
  • Anyone sell an active noise cancelling solution that would work off a PSU power supply?

    You'd think with all that power my AMD has, 1% could be used to track and cancel by white noise the offending sounds?

    I figure there is more to this than there seems?
    Like disturbing my brain with whitenoise [sciencedaily.com].

    Has someone figured out how to dump /dev/entropy into a pink/white filter to the sound device?
    aka almost like here [std.com]
  • The best solution I've found is to have 15 metre mouse, keyboard and monitor cables.

    You then simply put your computer into another room, such as the kitchen or even your garage.

    Viola ! - no noise !

    It also has the added benefit of making you get out of your chair every once in a while to put in a CD which is definately good for a geeks health !

    Yes - I'm really not serious...
  • Maybe it's just me. I dig the bigger, better, faster, quieter debate, but what are you trying to sneak up on with your PC that you have to completely silence it? Taladan

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