Computer fan noise? Silent computers?

C

Chelonian

Member
I'm looking down the road of home recording and have wondered about the noise coming from one's computer (fan, disk access chittering, etc.). I would not call my old computer's fan loud, but it's audible and when you shut it off and the room goes silent, you realize just how audible it was.

For this reason, I'm wondering what I should do about this once I start recording. I guess options are to put the computer case in some kind of noise-blocking cabinet (however, issues with heat or the pro ones are ridiculously expensive) or just use a new fanless/silent computer.

How do you guys deal with this? I want to have the option at least to record very quiet things, like single notes on acoustic guitar, with as little noise as possible (and my room can get near-silent otherwise).

It seems like a fanless computer with an SSD should be silent and would be the way to go. Thoughts?
 
I don't think you will find many truly fanless coolers.

There are fans that are VERY quiet, using a large set of cooling fins and running at lower speed to move the same amount of air. When you are stressing a CPU, it will start to pull a lot of power, often 65 - 95 watts. That's the same as a lightbulb. It needs to keep cool under those conditions, hence the large CPU coolers and fans. Better designed fans will often have a low noise rating on them. A really good one might be 20-22dBa.

There are enclosures that will drop noise and still maintain some decent airflow. Plus remember that noise drops with distance, so keeping the computer away from your microphone is another step.

Definitely use an SSD. They are completely silent.
 
+1 to all of that.
Larger slower fans will be quieter than smaller fast fans, and the farther away the computer is from the microphones the better.

Are you looking for a new computer right now? TalismanRich is quite right about CPUs consuming more power under load but, depending on your needs, you could shop for something mobile with lower power consumption.
Maybe even something fanless?
Computer performance has come such a long way - There isn't the same need for large power hungry desktop machines anymore for basic audio work, unless you specifically need all the expansion, discrete GPU, etc for other reasons.
 
The quickest solution is to buy a modest laptop if all you need is two track recording and some post tracking editing.

I have an old HP i3g6 and even with a 5400 rpm HDD it is virtually silent, certainly 2mtrs from a mic the "house" makes more noise* than the HP! That will run 20+ tracks of Cubase Ess 4 at about 50% CPU grab.

My Win 10 laptop is a Lenovo T510, a refurb' cost me close to £400 but I had to go for a better spec than I really needed. SSD, 8G ram and i7 processor, I would have been happy with i5. I also needed a 15.6" screen (would have had a 17" but they are like rocking horse ***T) If you have young good eyes a 14" i5 and SSD will be alot less. SSD s also get pricey past about 240G and that is plenty for a basic recording laptop.

The T510 is TOTALLY silent. I guess if I loaded it up to 90% full chat the fan would be audible but I have never done that(nor will you)

What is and how juicy is the old groaner? If pretty good you could install an SSD, as well as being silent there is less heat to get rid of and the machine will boot faster and load stuff quicker. You can also look at fan control apps, those old machines just 'blew' whether the CPU was hot or not.

*Even on a very quiet night at 2am the ambient noise is higher than my system noise i.e if I set a dynamic mic up such tha "Mary had" hits about -20dBfs at 150mm then swap the mic for a screened load in my NI KA6 mic input the noise falls by about 6dB.

Dave.
 
'be quiet' cooling fans for your processor.

My desk top has a 1x be quiet fan on the processor. 2x cooling fans on the front case. 1x cooling fan on the back case. 2x small cooling fans on the graphics card. 1x cooling fan on the power box and there is even a tiny cooling fan on the motherboard. Thats 7 or 8 cooling fans.

I can hardly hear it even under load.
 
In addition to better fans and an SSD, check either your computer's BIOS or the manufacturer's webpage for their app to set the fan curve profile. Most modern motherboards allow you to "draw" in your own speed/temp curve so you can specify how fast the fans spin at any given temperature. Or some of them have preset profiles for quiet/balanced/performance/turbo/etc. that you can choose. Even the premium quiet fans will make too much noise if they're being told to spin at full speed.

Pair that with a hardware monitor app like hwmonitor to keep an eye on temperatures and keep tabs on the effects of your settings, and you can come up with a good balance between a cool system and a quiet system.
 
Fans, Schmans. Depending on the type of music you are recording, you may not need to worry about the noise. I kid you not. Unless it is really loud, it may not be heard. It would be a concern if you're recording a quiet instrument right next to your PC, but if you're recording rock or more contemporary music, the noise will get buried under everything else.

As an example:
When I first built my studio, I mounted a window A/C unit right into the wall. The thing was loud, so my plan was to turn it off when tracking vocals or acoustic guitars. Well, sometimes I would forget. I go back to listen to the freshly recorded track and the a/c would be there, but deep in the background. When mixed in with everything else (drums, bass, electric guitars, etc) it was lost. And during the quiet parts where I wasn't singing or playing, I edited out the a/c noise.

Another thing to consider is sound energy drops off by the square root of the distance. Meaning, if you double your distance from a sound source, the energy drops off by 4; triple the distance and it drops off by 9.

You can point the null side of the mic towards the sound source.

Or , like everyone else said larger fans.

Oh, and that loud a/c unit... I eventually replaced it with a mini split. Quiet as a church on Friday night, which means I can now hear the fans in my PC. Eh, not a concern for the crap I record.

Yeah man.
 
Whilst you CAN fit quieter fans you could be a bit stuffed like me. I have a computer in my living room that runs a printer and feed internet radio to my hi fi. It groans a bit. Problem is it is one of the fans in the power supply that is noisy! So I either need a new supply or replace the fan* Since the noise does not bother me I shall do neither but recording ac gut strung guitar would be problematic.

*I can do that but I do NOT advise anyone else to dive inside a mains supply. The internals of a PC tower are quite safe otherwise.

Dave.
 
TalismanRich said:
I don't think you will find many truly fanless coolers.
Click to expand...

I don't need a fanless cooler, I (maybe; maybe not) need a fanless PC. If I put "fanless PC" into Amazon, lots of options come up.

There are fans that are VERY quiet, using a large set of cooling fins and running at lower speed to move the same amount of air. When you are stressing a CPU, it will start to pull a lot of power, often 65 - 95 watts. That's the same as a lightbulb. It needs to keep cool under those conditions, hence the large CPU coolers and fans. Better designed fans will often have a low noise rating on them. A really good one might be 20-22dBa.
Click to expand...

I'll look into that as well. In the end, I need a decent computer for audio recording as well as regular computer use. But I've been using a dual-core Pentium with 4GB RAM for years now, so most things will feel like a step up.

Definitely use an SSD. They are completely silent.
Click to expand...

I assumed the hum I hear from my computer is the fan. I wonder now if some of it can be the HD spinning constantly? Maybe some is electronics hum?
 
" I need a decent computer for audio recording as well as regular computer use." But do you need a desktop?
Unless you spend a lot of money on a specialized audio computer with well designed noise reduction, a tower is always going to make 'some' noise IME.

As I said, chose the right laptop and it will be silent for all practical purposes. Ok, they are fiddly for extended work with a DAW but you alerady have a monitor, kbd and mouse and so the laptop can just be a 'processing centre' (or buy a cheap FSTV from a charity shop!)

The old PC can be used as a backup unit. If Win 7 you can fit a USB 3 PCIe card and a 2TB or bigger spinner and store your music off the lappy.

Dave.
 
I brought my laptop because of the same reasons, I had a lot of issues with my PC fan being in my recordings, I used to have to use noise removal software just to make them useable. I used to try and work around it but I failed miserably. Sitting outside of the room with the door shut to do some recordings, and then having to walk back to the pc everytime you failed a take, tryng to kill noise with blankets, using the mics (deaf sides) is pointless, it helps minimally. Either have a think about moving the pc practically into a closet or adjacant room and see if you can extend all of the cables for your monitor and get a hub for your I/O, Keyboard/mouse, or just go buy a laptop. Don't make the same mistakes as me, it will drive you up the wall, get a laptop..... unless you are close miking guitar cabs and recording heavier guitars.

If I could go back in time....... I'd still buy the laptop :) It's my cheat for mixing the midrange also. And plus I can take my laptop to different rooms in the house for a quick tracking session.

I keep it purely audio production, my desktop does all the other stuff, gaming/media center etc.
 
JamEZmusic said:
I brought my laptop because of the same reasons, I had a lot of issues with my PC fan being in my recordings, I used to have to use noise removal software just to make them useable. I used to try and work around it but I failed miserably. Sitting outside of the room with the door shut to do some recordings, and then having to walk back to the pc everytime you failed a take, tryng to kill noise with blankets, using the mics (deaf sides) is pointless, it helps minimally. Either have a think about moving the pc practically into a closet or adjacant room and see if you can extend all of the cables for your monitor and get a hub for your I/O, Keyboard/mouse, or just go buy a laptop. Don't make the same mistakes as me, it will drive you up the wall, get a laptop..... unless you are close miking guitar cabs and recording heavier guitars.

If I could go back in time....... I'd still buy the laptop :) It's my cheat for mixing the midrange also. And plus I can take my laptop to different rooms in the house for a quick tracking session.

I keep it purely audio production, my desktop does all the other stuff, gaming/media center etc.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same experience I had recording son on guitar. He is now in France and records classical guitar with a Mackie LDC and a 14" Lenovo laptop, there is NO computer noise.

I don't know what the OP is running on his Pentium but I doubt it could cope with Win 10? If not it would probably be prudent to keep it off the web? That at least is the recieved wisdom (DIRE THINGS! will happen we werer told) but I use my W7 i3 a few times a week and have not had a problem so far.

Dave.
 
Chris Drums said:
My desktop computer ha no moving parts, so it's completely silent.
Power supply is fanless.
The CPU cooler is a passive cooler from Nofan :: NOFAN Corporation :: Noiseless Computer, Noiseless Cooler, Noiseless Computer Case, Noiseless Power Supply, and other various noiseless computer components. Specialized Noiseless Computer hardware manufacturer.
Harddrive is SSD.

There are fanless laptops aswell.
Click to expand...

Yes Chris, can be done but how does the cost compare to the same specification standard grumbler?

My point is, OP can get a 'silent' stock laptop of adequate power for less* than a similarly specc'ed 'silent desktop. He also gets the advantage of portability, "anywhere working" but still retains a DT's advantages if he plugs in a bigger screen and keyboard/mouse(but get a wireless kbd with trackpad)

* A lot less if he goes the refurbished route. You are pretty safe if you buy from an Amazon dealer. In any case, many people want Deep Blue performance in an A4 magazine sized device and a 24hr battery life and pay for it. Get something the age of my T510 and you get all the perfromance plus a free workout when you take it off to your mate's place!

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Yes Chris, can be done but how does the cost compare to the same specification standard grumbler?

My point is, OP can get a 'silent' stock laptop of adequate power for less* than a similarly specc'ed 'silent desktop. He also gets the advantage of portability, "anywhere working" but still retains a DT's advantages if he plugs in a bigger screen and keyboard/mouse(but get a wireless kbd with trackpad)

* A lot less if he goes the refurbished route. You are pretty safe if you buy from an Amazon dealer. In any case, many people want Deep Blue performance in an A4 magazine sized device and a 24hr battery life and pay for it. Get something the age of my T510 and you get all the perfromance plus a free workout when you take it off to your mate's place!

Dave.
Click to expand...

I just swap parts when they break and mostly buy used parts. My PC cost very little.
 
ecc83 said:
Pretty much the same experience I had recording son on guitar. He is now in France and records classical guitar with a Mackie LDC and a 14" Lenovo laptop, there is NO computer noise.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave, that's a good data point. However, do you think that laptop is powerful enough to deal with multiple tracks (say, up to 20?), effects and plugins, etc.? I will be recording some acoustic guitar and singing but also whatever occurs to me (think progressive rock, I guess). I also need it to be able to record without the fans kicking on despite the increased CPU load of playing to a mix of multiple tracks.

I don't know what the OP is running on his Pentium but I doubt it could cope with Win 10? If not it would probably be prudent to keep it off the web? That at least is the recieved wisdom (DIRE THINGS! will happen we werer told) but I use my W7 i3 a few times a week and have not had a problem so far.
Click to expand...

I'm still using Windows 7 and haven't had an issue (other than the no more desktop images or control of desktop color bug) and think there is a very low probability that I will have one given how I use the Internet. I had an intuition that upgrading to 10 would be a mistake under the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" maxim.

My next computer will be much more powerful and have at least 8 GB of RAM (preferably more) and I'll go right to Win 10 (and promptly try to modify the interface to look more like Win 7).
 
I agree. My computer is a desktop PC, and I have no idea how many fans it has. It has one solid-state drive for the operating system and some data, along with a standard hard-drive of about a TB for most of the stuff stored on it. My experience has been that the good old "inverse square law" really works in your favor in this matter. My PC is at least three feet from where I might stand with an open mike, so the noise from the computer would be only 1/9 of what it is right by the case. Perhaps one could buy a fanless computer, but I'm sure that there is a trade-off somewhere. It might cost you BIG BUCKS for the processor that can run effectively at lower power consumption, or it might not have the "horsepower" you would find in a computer with a "hotter" CPU. The more CPU operations done per second, the more power it will likely use; hence, the more heat it will generate. For me, my HP desktop has been a good compromise to give me good performance at a reasonable price, and the noise from everything in it has been low enough to be acceptable to me. As others have said on this list, you should get along fine if your mike is a few feet away from your computer.
 
hautbois16 said:
As others have said on this list, you should get along fine if your mike is a few feet away from your computer.
Click to expand...

I'll try it out once I get set up with my interface, but I am not that hopeful. I am in a small (10x10) room and the noise is obvious to me, particularly once I shut off the computer. There is a sense of "Ahh..." when it goes to fully silent. Otherwise, there is an actual tone that I can hear. I don't know if that's from the fan, the HD, the electronics somehow, but it's annoying. It's subtle, but it's there, and I'd think a good condenser mic would just have to pick that up and add it to the recording. Nothing like delicate acoustic guitar notes with an annoying computer hum in the background!

If I were recording music like The Ramones, I wouldn't care. But I want the option to do really quiet, pristine stuff if I can.
 
i experienced pc-fan noise issues with several older desktop machines that i use for recording. I was able to find new replacement fans online at very modest cost. These machines both have SSD's and are super quiet now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top