Case modding.

No, not the geeky nonsense with the LED's.. Something else.

My PC here is pretty quiet, generally except for the whir of 4 hard
drives. Quite annoying me that whir.

So, what I was wondering is whether anyone here has tried sound
deadening material on the inside of the case cover. The machine is well
ventilated so I don't imagine it'll cause any heat issues.. what I'm
wondering is will it make things much quieter?

Thoughts, suggestions? [1]

[1] The obvious one is just leave music playing all the time to cover up
the sound. That's the present strategy.

 

Record the noise, convert it into a digital file, make a mirror image of
it, and play it back as an active sound deadener....

 

Put it in another room. Run cables. All you have with you is screen,
speakers, input stuff and removable media. You only need tech room access
for hard reboots and upgrades.

 

Do you need 4 hard drives (RAID, constant file access [file server],
removable backup drive, huge storage requirements) or could you just
replace the four drives with one larger one? I noticed a big difference
in noise going from a 5 drive RAID array to a 2 drive RAID array.

 

I don't have another room more suitable.

 

This is the stuff..

http://www.earinc.com/images/products/p1/classicfoam.jpg

 

Have you moved the Walton's in or something?

 

No, not the geeky nonsense with the LED's.. Something else.

*Snort*
LOL

--



Robbo
Trophy 1200 1998
BotaFOF #19. E.O.S.M 2001/2002/2003/2004/2005
B.O.S.M 2003, 2004, 2005
FURSWB#1 KotL..YTC449
PM#7
..

 

Ginge was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

LEDs is *so* last year, got to be neons and a fish tank, at the very
least.

I do have a computer full of sound deadening material as I hate
computers that drone out the faint noise of my thinking. It does make
a difference but it's not as huge as the marketing weasel do
suggest. That said, most of the components I've got in that machine
have been selected for quiet operation already so I wasn't expecting
it to.

The main benefit I got from it was that the foam in the "AcoustiCase"
cuts out on lower frequency droning noises but it made hardly any
difference to the noise originating from something like the power
supply or disk drives as they are higher frequencies.

TBH trying to make a computer run reasonably quiet without going back
to a fairly stone age SFF machine will cost a considerable amount of
money and can't really be done on the cheap. For harddisks I'd look at
Samsungs, at least when I bought the last one these were labelled as
useable for home entertainment systems and are very quiet indeed.

I've written up some of my experiences on a web page that's a tad out
of date now but it may still be somewhat helpful:

http://www.unixconsult.co.uk/computing/quiet-pc-howto.html

 

How faint?

 

Imperceptible to all but very finely attuned bats, until the words
"BMW", "Shite", "Antique" and "Rattle" enter his brain, in which case
seismograph needles start jumping worldwide.

 

<Chuckle>

 

Good to have two discs for stufff like photoshop. You can configure it to
use one as the scratch disc, saves a lot of thrashing. I always forund sun
scsi drives to be the quietest, not cheap for large capacity ones though.

the discs get rid of heat by being connected direct to the case chassis,
so if you decided to cush mount them, you'd have to upgrade the airflow
around them, which would probably replace the hum with an equally loud
whoosh anyway.

 

Just the gentle hiss of escaping steam.

 

http://www.hushtechnologies.net/

 

Nope, I just don't have a room more suitable. The computers are in the
'Office' (smallest bedroom).

 

Loft them.

 

<snip>

Unfortunately, in my experience, no.

Probably depends a lot on getting your hands on "the good
stuff" and knowing how to use it to maximum effect.

 

Get some gel mounts from quietpc.com so that the whirring isn't
transmitted directly from the drive to the chassis. If you're going to
go the foam sound proofing route see if you can get some bobbly packing
foam first. I've done this to mine and it works a treat and was free.
The "proper" stuff from shops seems extortionate for what is
essentially the same thing.

The only other thing I can think of is quiet hard drive enclosures.
Again, quiet PC for ideas and then shop around.