Acoustic foam/enclosure for quietening noise

[Humbucker]

I know this has been asked a lot here, infact I just did a search and went through the results. I have a pretty noisy base unit - not sure exactly which fans etc are causing it but if I could quieten it by say 20% I'd be pretty happy. Putting it in another room or a closet, simply isn't an option for me and I'd rather not change fans etc so I'm thinking about either enclosing it or putting some acoustic foam inside to deaden the noise. 2 questions really:-

1. Does anyone know of anywhere you can buy an enclosure? Just something reasonably smal, as I have a small recording room, to elimininate a little of the sound would be awesome.
2. How easy is it to apply acoustic foam inside the base unit, and are there any risks(such as not allowing the fans to cool properly etc) to doing this? If any of you have any recommendations of where/what to buy for this it would be much appreciated.

Many thanks.

 

[Halion]

I would forget all about foam or an enclosure and go for a cure right at the source of the noise. You can buy quieter fans, HD noise dampners and even passive cooling for your power supply or video card. This can greatly reduce your noise. I got a Nexus cooler for my CPU, a Nexus quiet power supply, some vibration dampners for my HD and Zalman passive cooling for my video card. It knocked the noise down at least half-way. The CPU cooler and Power supply were about 50 bucks each, but the HD dampners and the Zalman cooling plates were alot cheaper (20 bucks each or so). Check them out.

 

[Jim Y]

I got some self adhesive foam from DABS for my ali case (Lian Li). It definately helped a lot, also it stops the side panels and mobo shelf resonating. Pieces were also fitted behind the ali drive bay covers. You can't overdo it or you'll ruin the cooling air paths in the case. So you still need quiet fans/psu.

I don't think I'll get an ali case again - it looks good, but the panel locate tabs keep working loose (ali has no self-spring like steel or plastic!).
A good quality plastic case would be inherently quieter.
That said, my pc is quiet enough now, also helped by Seagate Barracuda hard drives.

 

[Humbucker]

Thanks for your input - much appreciated. Actually, after thinking more about it - the problem isn't so much a recording one because I can go in the next room for vocals/acoustic guitar. It's more it's just slightly irritating. I wouldn't say it's massively loud, just loud enough so that it can irritate you if you let it. I have a display unit on the front where you can turn down the fan voltage which is supposed to reduce the speed. I can't say I notice much of a difference when I do though. I think it's just something I'm gonna have to learn to live with - it's only started to bother me in the last 2 weeks and I've had this PC 6 months. I think I'm just the kind of person that is always looking for something to 'fix' or obsess about hehe. I appreciate the input though.