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Building the Ultimate Silent PC 389

Posted by CmdrTaco from the a-mod-not-to-be-missed dept.
TRH writes "You had a post not long ago about building a totally quiet PC, I came across this article on Rabid Hardware where the author had another approach for quieting down a PC, through ripping out fans, motors and replacing heat sinks with sound deadener material. Funny read, especially from a site that's known in the modding world for being a little off-the-wall to begin with." Finally, the silent PC you crave, and for a change, this one won't cost you a fortune.
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Building the Ultimate Silent PC More

Building the Ultimate Silent PC

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  • What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by salemnic ( 244944 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @02:55PM (#4532044)
    I hate it when there's no noise. Without that, and my lights burnt out, I can never tell if the wonky parts are still going!

  • Help! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Quasar1999 ( 520073 )
    Someone PLEASE post a link to a reputable site that has QUIET fans (CPU fans, projector fans, powersupply fans) that can be bought in Canada! PLEASE!!!

    • Re:Help! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I use quietpc [quietpc.com] in the UK, but they have a Canadian outlet too. As far as the UK operation is concerned I recommend it highly.

    • Re:Help! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Data::Dumper ( 21103 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:04PM (#4532124)
      http://www.quietpc.ca/ [quietpc.ca]

    • Re:Help! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I will trade you 2 dozen for one good, old fashoned, normal-flow toilet (banned in the US for several years).
      • And I just took my old pastachio-green commode to teh dump last week. Not that you'd want a 20-year old toilet with all the hard water stains that go with it.

    • Re:Help! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lee Horrocks ( 11056 )
      I just bought some 60mm Vantec Stealth fans from:
      www.e-compuvision.com [e-compuvision.com]

      No problems at all, & they shipped in a couple of days.

    • Re:Help! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 )
      "Someone PLEASE post a link to a reputable site that has QUIET fans (CPU fans, projector fans, powersupply fans) that can be bought in Canada! PLEASE!!!"

      Here you go! [bigfootcomputers.com] Check out the Panaflo Lows and Vantec stealth fans. Overall, this place has tons of really excellent gear. These people are based in Toronto and I have ordered from them several times. Highly recommended.

  • My Vic-20 was silent (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So all you need is to build a Beowulf cluster of Vic-20s.

    • Re:My Vic-20 was silent (Score:5, Funny)

      by Fastball ( 91927 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:45PM (#4532461) Journal
      Until you upgraded to a C-64 and bought the floppy drive that accomodated it. You know the sound that a bum makes when he tries to clear his throat? Yeah, that's your C-64's floppy drive loading Flight Simulator for the next two minutes.
      • that's your C-64's floppy drive loading Flight Simulator for the next two minutes.


        Two minutes? You never had a C64 with a floppy drive, did you? ;) It must have been the only disk add-on to an 8-bit computer that managed to be slower than the tape drive ;)
    • My many many (JK-64) Krupsen from Sun are all 100% quiet... its eerie!

      If I could bury the NFS server underneath the floorboards I wouldn't even need ears.

  • Yeah, that is quiet... (Score:4, Funny)

    by VitrosChemistryAnaly ( 616952 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @02:59PM (#4532075) Journal
    Quiet PCs are easy. There's lots that you can do to make your PC quieter.

    Instructions on how to make a quieter mother-in-law? I'd really like to see that.

    Anyone else have a crazy Korean mother-in-law? You know what I mean!

  • My ex boyfriend had a computer.. (Score:3, Troll)

    by Lover's Arrival, The ( 267435 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @02:59PM (#4532084) Homepage
    ..that made a terrible amount of noise. Being from a rural area in Scotland, I'm not used at all to roaring cars and noise and humming computers, and his computer had hundreds of fans because he said it had more than one intel inside it!

    Also the tapping of the keys really annoyed me. So eventually I told him to sort it out or else, because I wasn't getting sleep and I was working as a receptionist at the time so needed it. He found a way to dampen the noise using some sort of cloth that was very effective, and he "lowclocked" it he said so that it didn't get as hot?

    I really had to tell him to do a lot of things like that to keep noise down, it's a real shame. But now I have a computer job and I find it is really universal that they make this noise.

    Anyway, I hope I didn't push him too hard. he left me, eventually, but I don't think it was over the computer. it was because he didn't like my candles (I am Catholic and Scottish).

    I wish I hadn't told him to do that now, I could do with a really powerful computer for my computing course at college. It would help a lot, and I miss him.

    So my point is, be careful about computer noise. it can cause a lot of tension and problems in a relationship, as I found out to my cost, beyond just headaches.

    Thanks, Margot. :o)

    • Re:My ex boyfriend had a computer.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:04PM (#4532125)
      I'll bet he couldn't even hear his computer as he was most likely hearing impaired from listening to a screeching Scottish Catholic woman bitch at him all day and night.
    • My goal is to make the computer as quiet as possible and the keyboard as loud as possible. After all the keyboard noise actually _means_ something and it's a real noise, not just a background drone.

      I was doing quite well with this goal after I removed the fan from my processor heatsink (it was a P200, and seemed to not get too hot). Unfortunately I then upgraded to an Athlon (Palomino; probably the hottest chip currently sold, though not the fastest) and a fan has become necessary. A fanless power supply would be nice but I don't think they exist at the power levels today's PCs draw.
      • Im pritty sure you can remove the fan from a power supply without causing much damage...

        Line the inside of its case with small passive heatsinks, and put an ultra quiet fan in its place but use a resistor to slow it down till it makes almost no noise, and it would be okay I would imagine. My powersupply barely even gets hot - So long as you arent running like your monitor from it too I reckon a fanless powersupply would be easy... I may be wrong though.

    • Re:My ex boyfriend had a computer.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:18PM (#4532257)
      Is this post for real?

      First of all - with that ...wicca... part of your domain - I am sure you have more issues than just the noise that his machine was making.

      Second - I dont blame him for leaving if you're constantly harping on him about things like the flipping key-stroke noise that kept you from getting all the rest you needed for your oh-so-difficult receptionist job.

      Third - your not used to a lot of noise because your from scotland? but now all of a sudden your OK with it all because you have a computer job? I assume you have a much larger paycheck now - so it would seem that you didnt really care about the noise, you jsut cared about the money that you weren't getting. Now that you have a job making a larger wage you can suddenly forget about the fact that you're "from a rural area in Scotland, [and] not used at all to roaring cars and noise and humming computers"

      Now you miss him because you could really use his computer?

      JEEEBBUUSS!!

      Give me that guys email address - I would like to congradulate him for leaving you!!
    • it can cause a lot of tension and problems in a relationship

      Or you could try being understanding. I'm no psycologist, but it sounds to me like the noise the computer made wasn't exactly the primary issue.

      Being controlling and demanding are much larger problems in relationships than computer noise.
    • Anyway, I hope I didn't push him too hard. he left me, eventually, but I don't think it was over the computer.

      you should do yourself a favor and wear a big sign on your forehead that says "BAD NEWS: NARROW-MINDED AND HIGH-STRUNG." That way, other people won't waste your valuable time by trying to have meaningful relationships with you.

    • It was a Compaq.

      I wasn't dating her for her brains.

    • Re:My ex boyfriend had a computer.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:46PM (#4532471) Homepage Journal
      (I am Catholic and Scottish)

      I know a couple who are Irish. He's prodestant, she's catholic. Whenever they argue, she blows up his car.

      Anything like that?

    • it was because he didn't like my candles (I am Catholic and Scottish).

      Oh, well that makes sense.

  • Silent PC (Score:5, Funny)

    by itsawondertoo ( 620553 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @02:59PM (#4532085)
    I have found that my PC runs silently when I play my illegally gotten mp3's at ear crunching loud volumes. Preferrably "System of a Down" or "Tool" although I have been known to play the soundtrack from "Fiddler on a Roof" or "The Fantasticks" also.

  • Other Hot News on Slashdot: (Score:4, Funny)

    by theonomist ( 442009 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:00PM (#4532093) Homepage

    10/21/2002: Netscape innaugurates Mozilla open source project!

    10/20/2002: Windows NT 4.0 released!

    10/19/2002: DEC changes name to Digital, and/or vice versa!

    10/18/2002: Altair home computer released!

    10/17/2002: New "Multics" project aims to revolutionize operating systems!

    10/16/2002: New "high level" programming language Fortran promises to revolutionize number-crunching!

    10/15/2002: This just in: Renowned mathematician Alan Turing found dead!

    10/14/2002: HITLER INVADES CZECHOSLOVAKIA!

    10/13/2002: Council of Trent adjourns!

    10/12/2002: EMPEROR DIOCLETIAN ACCEDES TO THRONE!

    10/11/2002: Orgmph discover fire! Fire good! Cook meat!

  • The quietest pc. (Score:5, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:02PM (#4532107) Journal
    is the one at the store that I can't afford. All I hear is a little voice that says, "buy me, buy me". It might just be in my head.
  • currently my computer sounds like a shopvac that is running all the time. without that noise, how would i be able to sleep at night?

  • through ripping out fans, motors (Score:3, Funny)

    by jack1323 ( 301059 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:04PM (#4532120)
    Hmmmm. Links dead. Assuming that's his server, too, I think he ripped out more than just some trivial fans and motors...

  • UH-oh. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ospeovedizer ( 85934 )
    I shudder to think of the /. overclocking zealots that will take this article seriously, eg:

    "Hey! I removed the CPU fan and the HD motor, but my computer just makes a sizzling noise. Maybe I need to take out the power fan too..."

    Good ol' slashdot.

  • Ionic Breeze (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kamskii ( 619903 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:06PM (#4532170)
    If anyone owns one of these, you'll know that it can create a breeze without a fan (or any moving parts). Maybe Sharper Image should build a power supply using this method. Then again, you could just open your computer case and put your Ionic Breeze right next to it.
    • I've always thought those were kind of cool, since it's basically a tiny ion drive attached to a tower.
      Apparently they don't have a very strong airflow, though, which rules out using them for most modern PCs.
      Also, I imagine the shielding to protect the PC from the electrical field would make them pretty bulky as fan replacements.

  • That was fast (Score:3, Funny)

    by slickwillie ( 34689 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:07PM (#4532173)
    I wonder what a good slahdotting sounds like?
    • first, it starts with the jaws theme.
      then about 2 minutes in it goes something like
      NYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
      Some standard mourning music over the dead server, Then that anime song they play when a character comes back to life.
      Then, At the last moment, another huge explosion. Timothy most of posted the story again..
  • My case fans and power supply are pretty noisy, but it's not something I mind. In fact, it's sort of comforting.

    Back when I lived on campus I slept in the same room as my computer, and it stayed on 24/7 (helping to keep my room toasty in the winter, among other things). Eventually, after a long day of hardware troubles and case dissassembly, I was too tired to put everything back together and left the computer off for the night.

    Alas, I couldn't sleep! The white noise that had masked the gurgles of the plumbing, the neighbor's TV, and the cars outside was suddenly gone. So, personally, I'd rather save the cash that could go towards hushing my case and enjoy just it's soothing hum.

    • "my computer, and it stayed on 24/7 (helping to keep my room toasty in the winter"

      Everytime someone mentions this, I can't help but think of their poor cpu's stuck inside a stationary clothes dryer. It's cruel, unusual and easily remedied I tell you! :) With more airflow through your case and the temp can't climb so high that all expelled air is superheated. With my current case (SC750) and a couple of good fans, even though the cpu (1.33 TBird) is running at 53C under load, the air coming out the back is nearly indistinguishable from ambient to my hand. The PS fan exhaust blows warmer air, but that's to be expected. Also, a little ducting fashioned from plain old cardboard and tape can do wonders for better direction of the airflow you currently do have. For noise control I sealed all the gaps where panels meet with weather stripping (which also helps with guiding your airflow) and lined the panels and many internal flat (and non-heat producing) surfaces with the heavy-ass sound dampening material that looks/feels like the material refridgerator magnets are made of. I guess my approach was more one of building a noisy machine that performs how I want, and then cutting the noise as much as possible, rather than building a machine that's as quiet as possible and hoping the performance and ease of maintenance was there.

      • umm, are you r*******d or something? and who modded you up????

        no matter how close to ambient you are keeping those pc parts they're still going to produce the _same_ amount of heat that will eventually get transferred to the air in the room.

        it doesnt matter if you have huge airflow vs. almost no airflow inside the case. if you have little airflow, sure the air feels warmer, but there's less of it, with more airflow it might not feel as warm to your hand but it's still moving the same amount of heat from your computer in the long run.(unless there's a spot in your computer that gets heaten up to gazilion degrees after being on for couple of days).

        your computer that has those extra casefans is going to heat up your room even more since those casefans heat up too(not too much but still)..

        heat meant as thermal energy
  • The one that just had 4 rounds of buckshot through it...

    -OR-
    The one that was stolen, a la the fax machine from "Office Space"

    -OR-
    The one that was stolen from you.

  • Why bother... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by denzo ( 113290 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:13PM (#4532234)
    trying to make your PC quieter when you can put it under your house [fortunecity.co.uk]??
    • Eh? Is it just me, or does this seem like a really stupid way to keep your PC quiet? You are better off just running some cables up through a vent or a wall or something. It just seems really silly to me to cut a huge hole in your floor to store a PC in a dusty basement pit.
  • I think this part of the story sums up just how serious these guys are:
    CD-ROMs are relatively easy to secure. Once we remove the motors (3! Tray, spinny motor and the wee one that moves the optics back and forth), the rest is child's play. I doubt this Lite-On drive will make much electronic vibration afterwards, but I'm also removing any chips that have the potential to create noise, just to be safe.
    gosquad

  • Hmmm.... No fans and slashdotted? (Score:3, Funny)

    by McFly69 ( 603543 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:27PM (#4532315) Homepage
    Without fans, this can mean only one thing.... their webserver is already on fire.

  • Story summary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EricWright ( 16803 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:31PM (#4532353) Journal
    1. Rip out fans and heat sinks
    2. Put some sound dampening dynamat over fan and heat sink holes
    3. Put back together
    4. Turn on... wait a few seconds
    5. Extinguish flames
    6. Go to store.apple.com and buy a Mac

  • Dynamat is too expensive (Score:5, Informative)

    by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:35PM (#4532380) Homepage
    You can either spend ~USD120.00 for 39ft2 of Dynamat or you can get the same effect with materials like B-Quiet Extreme [b-quiet.com] and get 50ft2 for USD85.00.

    I'm not affiliated with them, I just hate seeing people spend a ton of money on something that has an equal quality, lesser-priced alternative.

    • Or you can get the same effect by going to home depot and buying two rolls of pipe insulation tape for $3 each. Two layers works just as well as dynamat and weighs almost half as much.

  • Power Supply (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stephenisu ( 580105 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @03:42PM (#4532434)
    I am currently working on a water cooled PC. However I would like to move the powersupply out to another location. Can anyone see a problem with 20 foot long extremely well shielded low resistance power supply cables? The box will be alluminum with TONS of vents, but no fans in a room with 65 degree farenheit ambient tempature. And yes, even the harddrive is water cooled, in its own airtight enclosure. (still kept cool by water)

    • Re:Power Supply (Score:3, Informative)

      by rcw-home ( 122017 )
      Can anyone see a problem with 20 foot long extremely well shielded low resistance power supply cables?

      Don't worry about the shielding. It's DC. As for the voltage drop, let's figure it out using some basic assumptions: your power supply has 18AWG wires, your motherboard is most sensitive to 5v sag, you have 1 foot cables currently, and that you are currently drawing 100 watts on the 5v line across 6 of these 18awg wires.

      Ohm's law says that a load drawing 100 watts at 5 volts is .05 ohms. 18awg wire is .00751 ohms per foot, divided by six wires is .00125 ohms per foot. Round trip for your existing power supply is .0025 ohms, or 4.7% of your total load resistance. Therefore your voltage drop is .238 volts.

      Extended to 40 feet of cable round trip, we've got .05 ohms of resistance. Which is the same as your load. Which means half the voltage gets used up in the motherboard, half gets used up in the wire. Unacceptable.

      Same numbers with a single run of 4-gauge wire: .000292 ohms per foot, 40 feet, .012 ohms, .012+.050=.062, 5*(.050/.062)=4.03v. Still unacceptable.

      You'll want to run your own numbers to make sure, but it looks like you'll need stupid amounts of copper for this.

  • mini-itx (Score:3, Interesting)

    by horster ( 516139 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @04:04PM (#4532622)
    I know this article is a joke but there is a very real solution to the noise and form factor problems. It's via's mini-itx motherboards.

    Check out mini-itx.com [mini-itx.com] the boards are low heat, low noise and fairly powerful (500-700 mhz). They are perfectly suitable for a media box, router, or low end linux/windows workstation. All parts included they whole things comes in at under $500 usd. That's pretty reasonable, and the site has a greate many interesting links about projects (like the one I think is cool, the computer in a cigar-box, the 'Hummidor64').

  • Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by Door-opening Fascist ( 534466 ) <skylar@cs.earlham.edu> on Friday October 25, 2002 @04:05PM (#4532632) Homepage

    Yet another /.'ing. Mirrors up at Earlham College [earlham.edu] and at UW-Madison [wisc.edu].

    Be warned that I am planning on taking down the UW-Madison server for repairs and upgrades later tonight, so Earlham is probably your best bet.

  • I found it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by epukinsk ( 120536 ) on Friday October 25, 2002 @04:09PM (#4532667) Homepage Journal
    The real ultimate silent PC [apple.com].

    Erik
  • I know most of the machines around my house have started to get noticibly loud fan noise. I'm
    guessing that if I took the time to shut them down and give the fans a good cleaning, it would
    cut the noise out by half or more.

    It's cheaper than a new super quiet power supply too
    • Just so you know, extra noise coming from fans isn't ALWAYS from the dust (however a lot tends to be). A little oil in the fan goes a long way. Some fans just don't hold up to being run all the time, and putting some oil on them helps to extend their life and make them quieter :)
  • seriously, i lined the door of my antec SOHO case with it and it noticably cut down on the ambient noise given off by the system. im even running 3 case fans, 2 psu fans, 1 cpu fan and 1 gpu fan. trust me it works, its almost as silent as the G4 400 sitting next to it.

  • Done before (Score:3, Informative)

    by Peaker ( 72084 ) <gnupeaker @ y a h oo.com> on Friday October 25, 2002 @04:49PM (#4533031) Homepage
    I'll start by explaining I know this is a joke.

    However, it did remind me of a british Company that used to make PC's back in the early eighties, I can't quite remmember their name.

    They put the power supply in the monitor, which has enough fanless vantilation, and thus did not need the power fan in the main case. The CPU's of those days did not require fans so it was a completely quiet setting.

    However, one of the first FUD rumours was spread that this was somehow wrong, so they put a useless fan circulating air inside the main case to make noise. Those who had a clue, ripped off the power supply of that fan.

    Anyhow, wouldn't it be possible to just put the power supply in the monitor or such, and thus eliminate the main source of noise (the big power fan)?

  • Too complicated (Score:3, Funny)

    by kbielefe ( 606566 ) <karl.bielefeldt@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Friday October 25, 2002 @05:31PM (#4533391)
    All that soundproofing stuff is too complicated. On my computer I just reversed the polarity on the clock generator so it runs at negative 1.7 GHz. Now my cpu runs cold instead of hot and I don't need any pesky cooling fans.

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