[sdiy] OT: The best ways to silence a PC?

[Tim Ressel]

Glen.

I'll take a whack-whack here and a whack-whack there
at this. Yeah, they are noisy buggers, aren't they. I
didn't really notice until my wife left  ;-)

We are talking fan noise here. The hard drive is
pretty quiet. Fan noise is in the higher frequency
range which is easier to get rid of. The simplest way
to get rid of noise is to drop the PC into a big box
lined with acoustic foam. Two problems: heat and
cables. You could try getting some acoustic foam and
placing it strategically around the PC. One trick is
to place foam directly in front of the apeture where
the noise is coming out. That way the noise is
absorbed instead of reflected. Also you can place foam
between you and the PC. You can get inferior acoustic
foam at guitar shop. Just push past the Eddie Van
Halen wannabes and head for the pro audio section.

As for headaches, I find the monitor to be a bigger
pain source than the fans. The scan rates on monitors
has gotten up to the range where normal eye movement
is at the same speed, causing your eye to try and
refocus on phantom images. Not fun.

All else fails, play rap music. The PC noise will just
melt away...

--Tim



--- Glen <mclilith at charter.net> wrote:
> This is mostly off topic, but it does affect many of
> the people on this
> list. It also has an impact on many people's ability
> to hear the music they
> make, without the annoying noise of a PC that might
> be running in the same
> room. Often that very same PC is instrumental in
> either creating or
> recording the music in question. This is also a DIY
> project--maybe this IS
> on-topic after all.
> 
> What I want to do is gather together ideas of how to
> best silence a PC.
> I've read some ideas on web sites, but most of those
> only targeted a
> moderate reduction in PC noise. I want to totally
> eliminate all humanly
> detectable PC sound! I'm looking for something far
> more comprehensive and
> effective than simply buying a lower-noise fan for
> my CPU, or running my
> case fan from a lower voltage. I'm also looking for
> things that can be done
> as a DIY project, and hopefully won't cost a lot of
> money. I feel that this
> should be a solvable problem, and that it shouldn't
> require an expensive
> solution.
> 
> I'd also like to reduce the electrical noise
> generation of a PC whenever
> possible, but the total elimination of acoustic
> noise is the first priority
> for me at the moment.
> 
> I happen to suffer from a hyper-sensitivity to such
> noises. If I sit in
> front of a typical computer for any length of time,
> a headache always
> develops. This headache is from the constant
> acoustic noise being emitted
> from the PC, and also, to a lesser extent, from the
> monitor. After having
> used computers for a long time, and living with the
> headaches they create
> (in more ways than one), I've decided to do
> something about it. I'm tired
> of the constant pain and the dulled senses it
> creates. I should have done
> this a long time ago.
> 
> Anyone and everyone is welcome to make suggestions,
> or refer me to internet
> references on the subject. The more help, the
> better. If you feel this is
> off topic, but would like to help with this project,
> please send me a
> private email. I intend to distill the better ideas
> and place a summary of
> them on a web site. Once I've tried a few techniques
> on my personal PC,
> I'll publish the results to the web site, for the
> reference of others.
> 
> 
> Let's cure the noisy PC problem once and for all,
> for the benefit of everyone!
> 
> thanks,
> Glen Berry
> 


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