Silent PC

i put in a Panaflo a couple weeks ago. it's MUCH much quieter than the one that came with my AMD XP 1700+ .... but unfortunately it just highlighted how loud my hard disk is!
 
Its a never ending battle. My friend just bought a dell computer that is literally 100 precent silent. The quietest computer i have ever heard period! I was completely un believeable you couldn't tell if it was on or not. Maybe it was an insulated case? I think it was like a few centimeters thick rubber.

But other than that, put it in a closest or another room.
 
yeah but dells suck. they prolly have a tiny little fan on it that just barely keeps the proc running. put any amount of prolonged stress on it (recording, mixing, etc) and it will frolly fuck up and make your com crash...
 
People say that MACS are the quietest computers. Pretty much, made to make music. I know many dance music producers use it, specially Techno producers due to the fact that they do songs in computers and not really in studios, they need quieter computers than per say 'rock producers'.
 
I struggled with this issue forever. I was finally able to put the CPU in another room. The dif is astounding. Any constant low level background noise will mask certain details of your mix. You can get a wireless keyboard and mouse for bet $80 and $100. I didnt need an extension cable for my monitor but you can get one.
 
Thanks to all for the suggestions. My PC is in a vented cabinet, and I just put in an Enermax PS. Boy is that baby quiet! The only sound still audible is the CPU fan.

Has anybody tried those fans that have the vertical oscillating fins as opposed to a circular blade? Just wondering if those might be quieter.

Thanks for the link James.


Twist
 
Twist-

I am in the process of putting together a new DAW...I took the advice of just about everyone online and got a Enermax PSU. But I'm finding that this thing is still pretty loud. I put a pen in and stopped both fans and it's still got this high pitched hum like other crappy PSU's I've had... what model do you have I got the EG465P-VE(FC)...any ideas?

I have heard from people at silentpcreview.com that a Nexus power supply is almost silent. But it's only 350w....any thoughts?

Thanks for any advice you have...perhaps I just got a bad unit?

Steven
 
lucid said:
yeah but dells suck. they prolly have a tiny little fan on it that just barely keeps the proc running. put any amount of prolonged stress on it (recording, mixing, etc) and it will frolly fuck up and make your com crash...
Click to expand...

Not so fast...

Dell is the only major manufacturer I know of that actually designs the cases, and fans, to be that quiet. They've dumped a ton of money into the research, as many foreign markets demand a quieter machine.

I've got three Dells ranging back four years... all running good... and quiet.

My editing station is the noisy one, with nine fans. :D
 
JuSumPilgrim:
I've got my PC in another room as well. I put it in an adjacent closet, and got monitor, keyboard, and mouse extender cables.

ps. I use a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop for recording outside of the studio. I use it with a Tascam US-428.
 
Cross, I assume you tried quieter fans first. Quiet fans are still noisy especially if youre going to be sitting 3-5 feet from the CPU while mixing. I now hear reverb trails better and all kinds of subtle stuff 10k and up that I didnt hear before. Its almost like a new pair of monitors.
 
got two pcs here, one DAW, one internet/office use. the DAW is fairly quiet with about 300€ invested in material (enermax psu, zalman cpu and northbridge cooler, akasa damping mats, fanless video card).

Just finished building a 600x600x550mm MDF box lined with some cheap foam for about 50€ though. Only drawback is my cpu gets 20°C hotter :eek: :eek:
I have four 120mm fans lying around, gonna install two at the lower back as inlets and two at the higher back as outlets, hope that'll help.

BTW: I want to power the fans with a small 12V adapter, rated 500mA. One fan is rated 0.27A and the others 0.14A.. summing that gives 690mA.. Will they rotate slower or will they burn the adaptor ?? (I'm no electronics wizz) If they'll blow the adaptor, I'm gonna have to use the pc's power, but that's not very handy...


Herwig
 
Herwig,

Wallwarts generally have no voltage regulation built in, rather they just saturate somewhere around their rated current output.
If you overload it, it's output voltage will drop below 12 volts and it will run a bit warm possibly causing the transformer to eventually fail. You should be able to find one rated at 1 amp that would fill your needs.

Sbruse, as you might guess stopping the fans with a pencil is not the solution to your problem. It's not good for the P.S. I bought the 365 with fan control. It's quite adequate for my needs, and my machine has 3 hard drives. I'd contact Enermax. I suspect that when you buy a premium P.S. rated at 365 you actually get 365. An el cheapo P.S. rated at 350 may not be cabable of sustaining 350 watts out for an extended period. Just my guess.


Twist
 
twist-

thanks for hte info. Just to clarify, I only stopped the fans for a sec to see if that what was generating the noise...it isn't...it's coming from the PSU itself (not fan noise). I also quickly stoped the CPU fan to make sure it wansn't that. So perhaps, if everyone else around here says the Enermax is really quiet, I may have just got a bad unit. This one sure ain't "whiper" :=)

S
 
p.s. most "audio" sites I've visited say that you need at least 400 w of power for DAW...but almost all the other "non-audio" sites (silentpc, etc.) say that 300 is plenty. Anyone have any solid advice on this? I would love to get that Nexus PS that is supposedly virtually silent, but it's only rated at 300w.

FYI...
Here are the specs of the DAW I am building:

Gigabyte GA-8PE667 MOtherboard
P4 2.4B
512MB Corsair memory
Zalman CNPS6500B-AlCu to replace stock Heatsink/fan
4 space rackmount case
Matrox G450 video card
2 Maxtor HD's (16G OS/programs/60G audio)
Plextor SCSI CD-R (old, but still works)
Enermax EG465P-VE(FC) - but I am gonna return this...it is way to loud...thoughts?

MAudio Delta 66 w/ Omni
SONAR 2XL
 
???

Riff_hunter said:
People say that MACS are the quietest computers. Pretty much, made to make music. I know many dance music producers use it, specially Techno producers due to the fact that they do songs in computers and not really in studios, they need quieter computers than per say 'rock producers'.
Click to expand...

Why would someone who uses samples and keyboards need a quieter pc than someon who was recording a rock album? I would assume the rock would need more open mic's.

dlv
 
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