The recent issue of PC World talks about how to quiet your PC (and mine is sure noisy). Here are some of the products they recommend. And do you know anything about them?
**PC Power and Cooling Ultra-Quiet Silencer 235 Watt power supply. (The same company sells PSUs up to 400 Watts. How do I know how much power I need? I have an XP 1800+, 40GB 7200RPM hdd, 2 CD drives, GeForce 3 Ti200 vidcard, I'm NOT a gamer).
**PC Power Sand Cooling Silencer Auxillary Cooling Fan.
**A passive heatsink (no fan).
**Molex's Silent Drive (plastic case to cover drive). The magazine talks about it working with a 7200RPM hdd, while the company"s website says up **Dynamat Extreme Computer Kit (for vibration dampening)
**Anti-vibration mat.
Passive CPU cooling isn't an option with most of today's relatively hot running CPU's. Granted, Dell technically uses a passive setup, but it still has a shroud going to a fan to draw air over it.
The PC Power PSU's are expensive, you can buy a good Antec or Enermax PSU and replace the fans with quieter units for far less money. That is also my preferred way of quieting down anything in the computer that is cooled by fans, just use a quieter model fan.
I have an Antec 400WATT PSU and it's the noisiest thing in the case. I'm sort of reluctant to mess with the fan, (I'm an electrical illiterate). I've learned to do a lot of things myself since I built the system, but the PSU still intimidates me.
Sound waves travel at a rate of 1,128 feet per second through air (at 70 degrees F); 11,700 feet per second through wood; and 18,000 feet per second through steel.
Sound absorption is basically a loss of energy (loudness) of sound as it is reflected. Each reflection absorbs some sound and converts the energy into heat.
Hard, massive, nonporous surfaces will absorb less than 5% of the sound energy and reflect the rest.
Porous materials such as acoustical tile, carpets, draperies and furniture are absorptive. They permit the penetration of sound waves and are capable of absorbing most of the sound energy.
In a fully enlosed environment, metal would keept the sound in to bounce around inside the case at high speed, any opening in this enclosure would cause a problem, sound waves will find a way out. Hign NRC products, absorptive materials, green in nature, will elviate this.
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Technology increases at a parabolic curve upward.
I'm runnig my cpu fan at 7 volts, and I've replaced my power supply fan with a silencer 12 volt fan. In one of my other computers, I'm running the PSU fan at 7 volts, and it's quiet, and doesn't really get hot since I have only one HD and a single CDROM drive in that system. I've also glued a couple of mouse pads to the inside panels to absorb some of the vibrations. Every bit helps, but I still would like to make them quieter...
Originally posted by evetsrim: Sound waves travel at a rate of 1,128 feet per second through air (at 70 degrees F); 11,700 feet per second through wood; and 18,000 feet per second through steel.
perhaps if i rigged a case that could travel at 1,128 f/s, the sound would never reach me and thus be completely silent
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It is best to build a system from the ground up to be quiet. There are several quiet power supplies out on the market. Their are also several low RPM case fans. There are also many very quiet hard drives. CDROMs generally are not very quiet when they spin up, but there is nothing you can really do about that. You can replace active cooling with larger heatsinks with no fans for your NorthBridge and graphics card. You can also carfully select CPUs for cooler running features. If you do not need a power house, you can take a newer CPU and lower the clock speed and and voltage. You can then use a good large heatsink with a large low RPM fan. Sound proofing mats are OK, but it is better to have lower noise from the start. Also the location of teh computer makes a differance. Put it on the floor. The farther away the better.
If you can not find a quiet enough power supply, then you can get one rated higher then you need. It will generally not run as hot. Then you can switch out the fans for quieter ones.
Heck I am using an OLD GlobalWin FOP32-1 on my CPU. It was a good heatsink 3 years ago, but it is getting aged. It is all aluminum. Not even a heat spreader. I spread the fins out so I could replace the small 35db fan that generated 27CFM to a nice 80mm fan that ran at 30db and generated 34CFM. I could have gotten a quieter fan that cost a bit more and likely run at below 25db and still keep the temps of my AthlonXP 1600+. A good Duron 1.2 Ghz, unlocked and clocked at 1.0Ghz will likely run at a nice 1.4v or less. You could use almost any heatsink out there and add a low RPM fan and be just fin. One low RPM case fan in the back would work fine too.
AMD Phenom II x4 945 3Ghz | ASUS M4A77TD | 2X WD 1TB SATA 2 hard drive | 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 | nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS | ATI TV Wonder Theater Pro 550 | Antec P-160 case | Antec 650w Earth Watts | LG Blu-ray Super Drive | LG DVD RW | Windows 7 Pro
Originally posted by deltree_windows: perhaps if i rigged a case that could travel at 1,128 f/s, the sound would never reach me and thus be completely silent
Might be easier just to buy a pair of ear-muffs.
MuFu.
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XP1700+@1776MHz
Innovatek H20
Abit KG7-R
Crucial 512MB
90GB of IBM GXP Worry!
£15 GF4 Ti4400 :-)
WinXP
Or buy a couple of 2'x4' for acoustical tiles for $3 each and mount 6" away from the computer, probably put the computer on the floor away from you too. Easier and less expensive than installing watercooling.
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Technology increases at a parabolic curve upward.
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