KVR Audio

Panphobia · Post by **Panphobia** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 9:11 pm

Hi, just wondering what you folks do about computer noise. Do you put the tower in a closet? Use some box or something?

I mean if you have a home studio and don't have the ability to stow the tower in a separate control room etc.

noizetronic · Post by **noizetronic** » Wed Nov 13, 2013 10:05 pm

- use a passively cooled gpu
- use a large cpu cooler with slow pwm fan
- use as large and therefore slow case fans as you can
- try to slow them down even more by things like a zalman fanmate
- limit the number of hard disks, newer ones also tend to be more quiet
- nevertheless do some stability testing, accounting for really warm summer days

Specially soundproofed boxes exist, but are insanely expensive. Some of them also make it easy to boil your PC to death.

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:14 am

I have the same problem (with my cuurent PC which I will be replacing soon though). A friend of mine build a box for his PC with isolation material on the inside. Yet there has to be a hole in it for air circulation and thus there is still sound..

Maybe build yourself a box within a larger box or so..

crimsonwarlock · Post by **crimsonwarlock** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:34 am

I have a sound-insulated compartment build into my studio desk. However, my current (old) computer is very quiet so I have it outside of this compartment. I have two intake vents (with rosters) at the bottom back of the compartment, and an output vent with a big slow fan blowing through a big aluminum harmonica tube (the kind they use for wash dryers and cooking ventilation) that tunnels both heat and sound outside the studio.

Panphobia · Post by **Panphobia** » Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:07 pm

cool, thanks for the info on your setups.

grabme · Post by **grabme** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 6:57 pm

Panphobia wrote:Hi, just wondering what you folks do about computer noise. Do you put the tower in a closet? Use some box or something?

I mean if you have a home studio and don't have the ability to stow the tower in a separate control room etc.

Or better still, use a laptop.

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 7:12 pm

or headphones.

Roman Empire · Post by **Roman Empire** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 7:25 pm

Panphobia wrote:cool, thanks for the info on your setups.

I bought a Corsair H55 Water cooling system recently, which is not that difficult to Mount. You'll need another case fan though than what comes with it, since it's as noisy as a hairdryer. So I bought one of the brand Noctua, which made me think that it's not spinning at all just after I had replaced it, cause it really is very quiet!
I think if you'd by a PSU then with passive cooling, your system should be really quiet.
The H55 is about 55 EUR and the Noctua around 20.
A passively cooled 400 W PSU from the brand Seasonic which seem to be good can be purchased for about 110 EUR.

Best Regards

Roman Empire

ezelkow1 · Post by **ezelkow1** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 7:39 pm

I also have mine watercooled. use silent bearing fans for all the case fans (i think this helps the most), and last year upgraded my psu to a newer 800w one but it was much quieter than my previous one. It wasnt a seasonic since I heard issues about them when they get under load (coil whine) now that they are manufactured in china, apparently their quality has gone down, but maybe they have gotten better again. Its been a while but i think it was a coolermaster silent pro that i went with

IMHO PSU and case fans are the most important. Avoid a giant honking video card but you can still have a good one, I run a gtx660 and never hear it

Kaboom75 · Post by **Kaboom75** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:06 pm

Put the parts in a case with massive fans at least 120mm. Larger fans spinning slower are quieter. If the CPU is easily managing the workload clock the CPU down. When my CPU fan died I was able to run my computer at stock speed because the CPU heat sink was so huge it was a Coolermaster V8. Replaced its fan with a Noctua fan. Noctua are the best brand there is for fans that are quiet vs air flow. Zalman Resorator (see pic)is what I used on my older computer just too lazy to install it on this one and I'm not sure if it can cope with modern |CPU's and GPUS. It cools the CPU and GPU and you can't tell if it's on unless you look at the flow meter.

Dunbar · Post by **Dunbar** » Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:20 pm

Get a cardboard box. Line it with acoustic foam. Put it over your PC.

Panphobia · Post by **Panphobia** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:47 pm

Thanks again guys, and thanks for the fan recommendations. I have shopped them before on newegg ect, but with thousands of fans its hard to know which one to get. Now to see if they come with led's in the fans B)

I have a zalman cpu cooler, it is pretty quiet. When I built the tower the water coolers were new and untested, so I was a little nervous.

Zombie Queen · Post by **Zombie Queen** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 1:02 pm

I used coated rubber cord, kind of you find in clothing, can be acquired cheaply in clothing accessories shops. I used it to put all moving parts (fans, hard drive) on suspension, works wonders.
However the best thing I did was a hole in the wall. Now I keep computer box in another room, couple of meters away behind concrete wall. I have Blu drive, mouse and keyboard hanging on long USB cable + firewire soundcard, can't hear any computer noise.

Obsolete317542 · Post by **Obsolete317542** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:18 am

[DELETED]

Computer noise