Quiet Please!

[swarfrat]

Ok, it wasn't horrible to listen to, but the faint whirring of my supposedly quiet PC was bugging me. I couldn't hear it in recordings, but I wanted to see how quiet I could get it. My meter is a tiny handheld, I'm pretty sure the bottom limit of the mic is around 30db spl.  I measured about 37db at my chair with the PC on, and 33db with it off.

I figured out the biggest noise contributor was my PSU, so I did some research and found this puppy.  A little pricey but not insanely so:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VAFDQS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The great thing about this one is that it's actually silent under 300W, where most every PC that's not a gamer is. Plugged it in and voila!!!

I can now hear but not measure 1) a faaaaaaint whirring from the CPU cooler (which is a quiet one), and 2) soft ticks from my hard drive, 3) the biggest source of noise in the room now is a blower in the duct leading to the bonus room. If I put the SPL meter right up at the grill that reads 40db (so it's about 7db above the meter's noise floor.)

I've got a quiet case on the way, which probably wasn't cost effective but I wanted something with better cooling and damping, and it wasn't expensive. I also decided to move my big spinning hard drive to a NAS box in another room, and use an SSD caching an NFS mount of the big platter drive (OS running on my old 60gb SSD).  That'll git rid of the hard drive ticks and gnat farts.

Debating what to do about the HVAC fan noise - I know how to fix that - debating doing anything about, but it might be a fun cheap project so it'll probably happen. I have space in the attic for a muffler - so I might build a dead vent. (Basically a big muffler made of plywood and insulation.)

I should be able to hear my tinnitus soon.

 

[Cagey]

Which case did you order? I bought a "silent" case not too long ago - the Fractal Define R5 - that works quite well. I don't remember what PS I put in it, but it was some 750W super-quiet unit or another. Might have even been the same unit you've got there - I've have good luck with Seasonic's supplies. The fans the Fractal comes with are quite qood - normally I would have bought some Noctua fans for it, but as it worked out I didn't need to.

The niftiest part of the whole thing is the main drive. I splurged and bought a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 PCI-e board. Talk about wicked fast! Pricey little rascals, but even Windows runs well on one of those.

 

[swarfrat]

I bought a Silencio 352M, but had to return it - I had it in my head that my MB was m-ATX but it's a full ATX. So I'm now waiting on a Nanoxia Deep Silence 3.  I also added a 500gb SSD, installed my root OS on the 60GB SSD I had. I'm trying to move the 1Tb hard drive I have in there now to another room, and NFS mount it as my home directory - and use the 500gb SSD for a cache for the NFS mounted spinning drive.

I also started looking at what I could do to silence the HVAC duct in the room - the major remaining source of noise. I was doing some research between tasks at work, when my hits start pulling up all these pot growing sites. Whups. close browser, back to work!

 

[Cagey]

That's a nice case! Aside from a few minor differences, it's very much the same thing as my R5. I would probably have opted for the Nanoxia were it available here, because I like that split front door. Mine's all one piece. Not that I'll use it much, but still. Only having to open that 1/3 cut door to get at the optical or removable HDD bay would be better than having to open that whole thing, especially considering there's never any reason to be playing around in the lower front area. All the drives in that area are internal.

Speaking of removable bays, check this little lovely out...

It's an ICY DOCK DuoSwap MB971SP-B 5.25 Inch Hot Swap Drive Caddy / Docking for 2.5 Inch & 3.5 Inch SATA Hard Drive/SSD.  Bolts right into a 5" bay. I've used a lotta removable drives in the past, but this one's the best. Does 2.5" and 3.5" drives both, and at the same time. Plus, you get power and activity indicators for both, and you can turn the drives on/off individually from the front face. Power 'em right down, so no spin, no heat, no wear. Very cool feature. I'm gonna stuff a huge HDD in the 3.5" slot, and that's what I'll use for backup.

As for your HVAC noise - what's wrong with the on/off switch on your thermostat? Just shut the system down when you're recording. That brief period shouldn't affect your comfort much, if at all. Also, unless you have an isolation booth, it's unlikely you're ever going to get the room much below 30dB anyway.

 

[swarfrat]

My dvd burner is currently internal. I thought about putting it in an external case so i could unplug it, but theyre pretty easy to shut up - just don't access it. The fractal looked like a good case too, but in the end it came down to who was $5 cheaper on otherwise pretty darn similar cases at the time. The Silencio didn't have behind the board cable routing, which is a super nice feature to have. It was half the price, just didnt fit.

The psu runs a bit hot in my ancient case i found, so i wanted to get something with a bottom mount psu and bottom intake for it. In the meantime ive got the cover off, and find my low noise cpu cooler might could be a smidge quieter, but its barely noticeable with the vanilla non quiet case buttoned up. Will see how things sound once the Nanoxia gets here.

I probably will try to do something about the duct. Its measuring 40db at the duct,and about 33db in the room, so...if i can quiet it down by 6db at the duct it'll be totally inaudible, and not expensive.  I'm curious though if i can calibrate my AT-2020 somehow. My $20 SPL meter with its tiny mic doesn't really go below 33db, even when i can still hear noises come and go. Having an LDC (even if barely "large diameter" ought to get me far better measurements at the hairy bottom edge of room noise.)

 

[Cagey]

Back when I was researching SPL meters, it didn't seem like anybody went below 30dB unless you spent an obscene amount of money. That's when I found out that it's a very rare thing for any environment to be more quiet than that. Plus, it seems most people are trying to find out how loud things are, not how quiet. Sounds like semantics, but in this case perspective drives design. If you're going to be measuring how loud things are, you design something that can take high SPLs without damage, not hear a mouse fart under a pillow at 100 meters. Kinda like not expecting a bathroom scale to weigh your gerbil, even though it theoretically starts from 0 pounds.

 

[swarfrat]

Yeah. My only curiosity went about as far as seeing if a $100 mic i already had for recording could be calibrated using my $20 SPL meter, hoping to have a little better idea of what is going on at 30db.

Some of the quiet pc reviews were done like that in an 11db anechoic chamber. That's pretty extreme, much further than i need to go, but i was trying to avoid the astrophysicist problem where people try to determine precise orbital mechanics of something they claim to be at the edges of their equipment's abilities all based on a single pixel dimming imperceptibly. Even a few db lower noise would be helpful there, since what I'm trying to measure is at or maybe even below the noise floor of my meter.

 

[Axkoa]

Why don't you take the easy route and put sound insulation around your computer tower so you can't hear it?

I'm sure that would work!

 

[swarfrat]

1) buying stuff is the easy route. I got a garage full of projects.
2) air still has to get in and out of the case relatively unrestricted (which is what the cases we're talking about are about)
3) the easiest way to keep pc's quiet is to keep them cool.

 

[rgand]

Why don't you take the easy route and put sound insulation around your computer tower so you can't hear it?

I'm sure that would work!

I had a computer that made fan noise so I put an "X" of masking tape across the inside of the metal sides to stop the oil can effect. That reduced the perceptible noise to an acceptable level. It also didn't affect the air circulation at all. You can test that on the outside of the panels and if it works, then take the sides off and do it inside out of sight.

 

[Cagey]

Taking that idea a step further, anywhere there's an expanse of sheet metal in the case he has, as do some of the other better "silent" PC cases, they laminate a layer of sound deadening material similar to what's used in car doors.

It's some sort of impregnated vinyl, only it's not sticky or anything. It's just...dead. Keeps anything from vibrating. Works pretty well, too.

 

[Logrinn]

3) the easiest way to keep pc's quiet is to keep them cool.

Stuff it in a refrigerator  :icon_biggrin:

 

[mayfly]

3) the easiest way to keep pc's quiet is to keep them cool.

Stuff it in a refrigerator  :icon_biggrin:

Then you need to quiet the refrigerator... 

 

[Logrinn]

3) the easiest way to keep pc's quiet is to keep them cool.

Stuff it in a refrigerator  :icon_biggrin:

Then you need to quiet the refrigerator...

:toothy12: :toothy12: :toothy12:

 

[swarfrat]

3) the easiest way to keep pc's quiet is to keep them cool.

Stuff it in a refrigerator  :icon_biggrin:

Then you need to quiet the refrigerator...

Funny you should mention that. I did look into water cooling a while back. It's a great way to sorta quite things down when you have to remove GOBS of heat. It's actually kinda convoluted and expensive for VERY quietly removing MODEST amounts of heat. Not to mention that water pumps themselves make noises. Having spent many a night standing at the control panel of a 320 hp diesel powered water pump on wheels, I can assure you water pumps are not inherently quiet.

Still, it's kinda sexy and I thought long and hard about liquid cooling before deciding it was a lot of cost  that might still not get things as quiet as I could with a properly designed air cooled system.

 

[swarfrat]

Nanoxia Deep Silence 3 arrived. Beautiful case. Very well damped. But every single plastic part that holds the front on was busted. This after the last thing I ordered off Ebay (different seller - this was via an actual dealer on Amazon) also got screwed up. I ordered a mixer rack/stand and they sent me a 25lb box of casters and bolts and wouldn't take it back until I got Ebay involved, then they wanted me to revise my negative feedback.  :tard:

Anyway - I REALLY hope they can send me the busted part and not have to box another dang thing back up and send it back. Yeah, I have the original box, just opened it. Yeah, they pay shipping on RMA, but dangit I just want to put the puter in the new case already. Sent me the plastic only and avoid shipping a 20lb computer case (cause it is a heavy one) two more times.

 

[Cagey]

That's a shame. Wait and wait, then... denied!

What's funny is if you read a lotta case reviews, you'll invariably see in the comments somebody complaining that the reviewer spent 2 or 3 paragraphs talking about unboxing the thing, as if it was a waste of time talking about non-technical details. Thing is, what happened to you happens too often, usually with packaging that isn't UPS-proof. Knowing that sort of thing on the going-in side can save you some grief.

For example, not too long ago I bought one of those Black & Decker Shopmate folding benches, and from nearly every seller there was at least one reviewer who complained about missing/broken parts due to poor packaging. Knowing that, I ordered one for pickup rather than delivery, and it was a good thing I did. Got there, and the one they pulled for me looked like it had been used for artillery practice. So, I made the guy go find me one that didn't look like it had been run over by a tank.

On the flip side, and speaking of cases again, Last week I ordered a 19" rack mount case from Newegg. Super sale. They were nearly giving these things away. Anyway, it showed up today, and you talk about packaging! They could have dragged it here from New Jersy behind the truck instead of in it, and it would have been just fine.

 

[swarfrat]

I actually have a rackmount server case - you know one of the 21" DEEP ones, that I cut down to fit in a 13" musical instrument rack.  I suppose I could have made that work... 

 

[Cagey]

There's definitely more room in there than I've had in a while. Get to splurge on a full-size ATX mobo for a change.

 

[swarfrat]

Forgot to follow up - they got me a new front plastic, super customer service from Eagle Tech USA (Amazon seller). They made it right immediately without even having to get Amazon involved.

It's quiet, and spacious and nice cable routing. The green LED ring on the power button is stupidly bright - that's about my only complaint. I might unhook it (and the power button) as it only begs my kiddo to turn my computer off and on.

I would have preferred to power my fans off the motherboard's controller, but the front fan cable won't quite reach it. The sliders are fine though, and I just leave them on the quietest setting. I don't have a ton of heat coming out of this case.

There's a little bit of cpu fan noise but it's not worth chasing - except for the fact that my current big fin fan cooler blocks DIMM slots. I currently have 24GB memory - and I could go up to 32GB except for that fact. So far though I've not been able to fully use what I have - but as the motherboard ages I expect it might matter more (more demand, not failure/degradation)

The biggest computer noise left is now the external NAS - that needs to go into the spare bedroom but I need to run gigabit there first. I wasn't able to put my home folder on NFS - it was just too slow. Currently just using the SSD. Once I get my pictures/backup straightened out I guess I'l just move the spinning drive to the NAS and keep video/photo storage there as well.