Building Quieter Computers
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Jun 04, 2001 09:51 AM
from the trying-to-quiet-my-home-office dept.
from the trying-to-quiet-my-home-office dept.
So, as I suspect many of you have, I've got a home office that I probably work from for 2/3s of my working time, as I'm often working in the non-trad. office hours as well. It's nice having this space in my home, but the fans from the desktops are so loud, I feel as if I'm standing in the middle of O'Hare's runways. Anyone out there know of power supplies with quiet fans? CPU fans that are extra smooth?
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Building Quieter Computers
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Re:Fans are only part of the problem (Score:3)
As for getting a solid state disk, why? You'd be best off just buying more RAM for probable less money and better performance. These days, you don't need swap space unless you want crash dump analysis. Ideally, you should never swap, with everything being held in RAM.
--
Ah, an area I have experience with... (Score:4)
#1) You need to fix ALL noise sources inside your computer. Throwing in a new CPU fan no matter how quite will not really help much. You need to get a quieter CPU FAN (the Molex radical fin someone mentioned is what I used), a new power supply with a quieter fan, AND, MOST IMPORTANT, you need to quiet down your hard disk drive(s).
Check out www.quietpc.com - I got all 3 products I needed (CPU FAN, Power Supply, and HD noise suppressors) from them.
Lastly, if running a CPU that takes a lot of juice, you need to turn down the CPU VCore to cut back on some of the juice. My Athlon 1000MHZ runs 100% stable at 1.40V. This is important because most "quiet" PS units have variable speed fans. I can hear the difference between 1.75V and 1.40V.
Also- Be sure to try and lower the power consumption of your PC as much as possible. Example- An external modem with seperate PSU will not tax your internal PSU as much hence that variable speed fan will spin slower.
Lastly, you can take more drastic measures like cutting voltage to the fans and then underclocking your CPU (say a 1.4GHZ CPU down to 1.0GHZ) to generate less heat.
Someone on
Ted
Re:Put your computer in a closet (Score:3)
Anyway, since I'm one of those that really like my Matrox G400, I did consider moving my computer to a nearby closet (about 10 feet). My motherboard can power up the system off the keyboard, which is cool, and all my drives (dvd, cd, cdrw) are scsi so I could keep those on my desk.
The only problem I had was finding a good quality extension cable for the monitor. All those I've tried reduced the quality significantly or introduced obvious artifacts (moire, filckering at the edges etc). Did you observe any degredation of image quality?
I'm also concerned about heat problems, although I guess I should try it...
Obvious answer. (Score:3)
Kevin Fox
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I built my computer into the wall :) (Score:5)
See http://abelsson.com/tystdator [abelsson.com] . Comments are in swedish, but it's the pictures that are interesting in any case. Dont worry about not understanding the comments on that page, you're not missing much. I originally wrote it for a swedish friend of mine..
The basic idea was just that i wanted a quiet computer - and i had a spare room behind where i had my computer. So.. i just a few drilled holes in the wall and put the computer on the other side.
It works extremely well. Best part is that my box is *completely* quiet. It's exactly like having a fanless box. I've almost started to get annoyed by the noise my monitor makes. :)
It looks pretty cool too.
-henrik
Fans are only part of the problem (Score:4)
Best suggestions I saw the last time this came up was consider what quiet really means given your ambient noise. For me, it turns out to be nearly silent as the thing is in my bedroom. Based on my experience this is pretty tough to achieve. One issue I've yet to resolve, which you may like to look into, is how to build a *nix system where you can spin down all drives. The problem is swap disk. As for as I can tell presently, you always end up with one disk spinning (or constantly up/down) due to even the smallest swap accesses. What might be feasible, but exspensive, is a solid state disk for swap.
Hemos, try searching slashdot (Score:5)
Ultra-Quiet Linux Boxes? [slashdot.org]
Computers And The Noise They Make [slashdot.org]
I'm pretty sure there's at least one other story in the archives which I didn't find immediately.
Get a small desk fan and use that (Score:5)
If you really want quiet, and don't care about looks, get a small desk fan. I paid about $15 for a high-quality one that is whisper quiet and flows a LOT of air. I just popped the side off the case and blow the air in, my Duron 600@900Mhz runs at 45C instead of ~60C with the stock heat sink. I had 2 exhaust and one intake fan, and disconnecting those got rid of most of the noise.
When I get around to it, I'll properly connect the fan with some ducting and reconnect the side of the case up. This works great because it cools my horribly overclocked video card and hard drives / DVD / burner as well.
Think big fan, low RPM for quiet.
Other tricks to reduce noise:
Another tip: Rather than a intake in the front and an exhaust in the back, try a single, large, low RPM fan -cut in the top of the case- blowing out. Heat rises, and this works well from what a friend of mine has reported.
Big slow fans, not small fast fans. (Score:5)
The fan will run slower, but cooler.
2) Work on airflow near your fan blades. A fan with a great big sheet of metal with punched holes in it will be loud. The same fan with the metal grill removed will be quieter. The same fan with the metal grill and some extra space around it (because these fans typically blow air out in a cone on a 45-degree angle away from the center of the fan) will run even more quietly.
Still need finger protection? Get a real fan grill - the old-sk00l things that looked like three or four concentric circles of wire stuck together with a couple of cross-wise pieces of wire.
3) Rule of thumb - low RPM = low noise. If you don't get enough airflow (for cooling purposes) when you undervolt your 80mm case fan, carve up the case and add a big-ass 120mm fan. An undervolted 120mm fan can often move as much air as a typical 80mm fan running at +12V. If your local surplus store is well-stocked, you might even find some +24V fans that run at +12V. (But be sure to test them first ;-)
Well, there are a few ideas to start with. I'm sure others will follow up.
Re:Obvious answer. (Score:3)
seriously. people may scoff at Apple, but i worked on a cube with an LCD monitor in a quiet room for a while and it was increadible! i'm one of those people who likes his workspace to be quiet (i don't listen to music while i work either) so it was a very refreshing change.
if you don't want a Mac then i would suggest a well designed laptop, like an IBM thinkpad (perhaps with an external monitor?). although you'd better get a pad for it that allows airflow underneath it or the fan will come on quite often (i use a RoadTools Pivot 360 [roadtools.com] at work).
it's a rough life for us obsessed with quiet. :) what's really strange though is that while i insist on near silence when doing computer work, my hobby is DJing at insanely loud raves and clubs! :)
- j
Silent desktops (Score:3)
Obvious Solution (Score:3)
Re:It's all about design. (Score:3)
Nonsense. AMD's design is just fine. The Athlon is not particularly bad compared to Intel CPUs, given what it does. (And Intel made the Pentium 4 look better than the Athlon basically by lying [inqst.com].)
And the new Palomino-core Athlons dissipate 20% less heat, thanks to a bit of clever engineering; read more here [anandtech.com].
If you really think the Athlon is substandard, feel free to send your Athlons to me.
steveha
Radial Fin (Score:4)
Really Quiet Case Fan (Score:5)
Quiet PC Parts (Score:3)
Two best options are PC Power & Cooling http://www.pcpowercooling.com/
And Enermax http://www.enermax.com.tw
I have a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 275W ATX and have been very pleased with it. I have to listen very closely to see if it is even on.
Next is your hard drive. Do a google search for SilentDrive and pick one up. $34 might seem expensive, but it greatly reduces the noise of the drive. Also getting a quiet hard drive from the start helps, like the Fujitsu line.
Last thing is your processor. Best option is just to get a fat heatsink and remove the fan. Let the powersupply fan circulate enough air to cool the pc. Underclocking your CPU helps kepe the temps down. Get rid of all your other case fans, and you only have one fan in the powersupply and a quiet hard drive making noise. Other options are getting a specifically designed quiet CPU fan and heatsink. They also make quiet versions of case fans.
Links:
http://www.quietpc.com/faq.html
http://www.directron.com/silence.html
http://www.directron.com/quietpc.html
Enermax (Score:3)
Hard to do (Score:3)
I've tried PC Power and Cooling's Silencer [pcpowerandcooling.com] power supply. Quieter than most (20db) but definitely not silent.
The problem as I see it is partly fan noise and partly case design. Most machines these days have several fans for cooling, most of which seem to create around 30db of noise. Not deafening to be sure but if you have fairly sensitive ears (like I do) it is enough to wear you out after a while. The other part of the problem is reverberation (for lack of a better word) from the case. The case seems to act like a drum for all the fan noise. Really though, the noise due to the case is really just a function of the fan noise. Eliminate the fans, and you eliminate the noise.
Unfortunately it seems there hasn't been much effort put into keeping systems quiet because it requires more engineering time and effort. It's cheaper to just slap a fan in the power supply and another on the chip than it is to design the systems to not produce much heat or duct it efficiently. With commodity motherboards and assembly from components, it is very tough to design a system that will be flexible enough and still keep costs in line.
If there are any entrepreneurs out there, design a quite case and power supply and I will buy it. I would love to have a system that is silent or very close to it.
Re:I built my computer into the wall :) (Score:3)
I need to build a RJ45 to 1/8 Stereo plug cable so I can get the microphohne down the basement though. I will most likely need an amplifier too.
In all the KVM Extender (which will work fine without a a KVM was in the neighborhood of 250 bucks and the 2.3 GHz receiver transmitter were a hundred bucks from Radio Shack. So not bad at all, but then I REALLY value my quiet.
Jer,
Re:I built my computer into the wall :) (Score:3)
Is no one going to answer the question? (Score:5)
try this site [pcpowercooling.com], PC Power-Cooling.
My friend tells me they are really quiet (I've heard them) and swears by them, despite the slightly higher cost.
In their power supply section they have an ultra quiet section, and they even 'measure' the dB of their power supplies. The ultra quiet 275 ATX is only 34dB!
Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
Silent Mac Runs Multiple OSs (Score:3)
Stunningly Quiet (Score:3)