Computer fan noise? Silent computers?

[CoolCat]

all great info, and the pc fan and noises can be the worst (especially with sensitive mics).

i tried silent fans but to get it silenced I ran it in another room and added a long USB cable through the wall. (its my house)

when I upgrade next time it will be the SSD and fanless gear...like Chris and ECC and others mentioned.
I still laugh at myself when I finally got a clue it was the fans sounding like a 747 jet engine with my headphones on, then Id take off the headphones and couldnt hear any noise... crazy.

 

[ecc83]

" 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."

Yes but, if you are playing back 20+ tracks you will be listening at 75-90 dB on monitors (if cans obviously no brainer) and even on full blow laptops don't make THAT much noise.

As for computing power, I have just run 8 tracks (dldd from SoS) in Samplitude Pro X 3 and Task Manager showed a CPU hit of no higher than 7% on my i3 HP. Ram usage was 27% of 8G and that uses a 5400 spinner HDD! I would suggest an i7 laptop with 8G of modern fast ram and a 240G SSD would run 20 tracks without breaking a sweat. 4k video as well might be a problem.

Go for 16G ram if you like but it will run hotter and eat the battery.

If the Ole'Tower is running Win 7 then you can certainly load it up with a usb 3.0 card and fit a 2TB+ spinner for backup.

Dave.

 

[Chelonian]

" 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."

Yes but, if you are playing back 20+ tracks you will be listening at 75-90 dB on monitors (if cans obviously no brainer) and even on full blow laptops don't make THAT much noise.

I meant if I am recording the 21st track of a piece, I have to play 20 tracks so I can play to it (well, I don't have to...I could always just play to 1-2 of those tracks, but I might want to). So, the CPU will be dealing with playing 20 tracks, I'll be listening through headphones and playing guitar...but the mic will be picking up whatever's in the room. If the fans kick on to deal with playing 20 tracks, the mic will pick up that fan noise. (If it struggles to render the 20 tracks).

As for computing power, I have just run 8 tracks (dldd from SoS) in Samplitude Pro X 3 and Task Manager showed a CPU hit of no higher than 7% on my i3 HP. Ram usage was 27% of 8G and that uses a 5400 spinner HDD! I would suggest an i7 laptop with 8G of modern fast ram and a 240G SSD would run 20 tracks without breaking a sweat. 4k video as well might be a problem.

Thanks for the datapoint!

 

[ecc83]

I meant if I am recording the 21st track of a piece, I have to play 20 tracks so I can play to it (well, I don't have to...I could always just play to 1-2 of those tracks, but I might want to). So, the CPU will be dealing with playing 20 tracks, I'll be listening through headphones and playing guitar...but the mic will be picking up whatever's in the room. If the fans kick on to deal with playing 20 tracks, the mic will pick up that fan noise. (If it struggles to render the 20 tracks).



Thanks for the datapoint!

Wel...Yeah but, why would you want to play 20 'king tracks WITH all the CPU sucking plugs? Plus, as I say, laptops do not sound like a desktop even when working hard and surely you could place the laptop well away from the mic in that extremly unlikely scenario?

But, download Reaper, it has a pretty big demo track in it. See how much of a hit that is on the present incumbent. Another demo will come with Samplitude Pr0 X5 which you can use till January 2021!

Dave.

 

[ecc83]

It is funny, barely three years ago, if someone were asking about a computer for music production I would always try to put them off a laptop. For years, Towers were the best bang for buck for raw power and usability (many laptops had CPU throttling controls you could not defeat. The situation is now quite different IMHO. Laps are more than powerful enough fro even quite serious audio work.
Desktops still have the edge for the last word in CPU grunt and of course are much more easily upgraded. They are of course very expensive IF you want a truly silent one...grunt for grunt.

Dave.

 

[TalismanRich]

I'm typing this on my Ideapad S340. I7-1065G7 at 1.3GHz. 8G ram and 750GB of SSD. I've also got Reaper running in the background with a 14 track recording from 2017 of a show that was 1hr 18 mins long. Each track is 466MB in size. I just loaded it up and started throwing plugins on each channel. I threw on compressors, EQ, an oscilloscope, ReaTune and a Reverb. All told, I have 37 plug ins total running. The Performance meter for tracks is bouncing between 3 and 7% cpu use in Reaper. The FXs are adding another 7-8%.

I also pulled up Task Manager, and it was showing Reaper as pulling about 20-22% CPU time and the CPU has kicked up to about 3.2GHz. Total system usage is about 30% with Reaper, TaskManager, Firefox running (7 windows open at this time). Firefox is pulling about 5-6% by itself. Memory usage is listed at 50%

I don't know what Reaper using to calculate CPU usage, but it looks a bit suspect.

Still, there's no way that this thing wouldn't handle 20 tracks all by itself.

 

[Chelonian]

I'm typing this on my Ideapad S340. I7-1065G7 at 1.3GHz. 8G ram and 750GB of SSD. I've also got Reaper running in the background with a 14 track recording from 2017 of a show that was 1hr 18 mins long. Each track is 466MB in size. I just loaded it up and started throwing plugins on each channel. I threw on compressors, EQ, an oscilloscope, ReaTune and a Reverb. All told, I have 37 plug ins total running. The Performance meter for tracks is bouncing between 3 and 7% cpu use in Reaper. The FXs are adding another 7-8%.

I also pulled up Task Manager, and it was showing Reaper as pulling about 20-22% CPU time and the CPU has kicked up to about 3.2GHz. Total system usage is about 30% with Reaper, TaskManager, Firefox running (7 windows open at this time). Firefox is pulling about 5-6% by itself. Memory usage is listed at 50%

I don't know what Reaper using to calculate CPU usage, but it looks a bit suspect.

Still, there's no way that this thing wouldn't handle 20 tracks all by itself.

Thanks for this datapoint!

How loud/quiet is that computer when it's doing all that? Also, do you have a ballpark on the price for that system?

Also, why is it listed at 1.3 GHz but then you say it "kicked up to about 3.2Ghz"?

 

[TalismanRich]

It was sitting on my lap and I could hear the fan making a bit of hiss. From 10 ft away, I can't hear a thing.

This is the computer. Lenovo S340. I added a 500gB Evo drive for another $55. Its a simple upgrade with this model. Instructions are on Youtube.

All Intel processors have a base speed and a turbo speed. While running just the browser and one window, its running at 1.3G. As it takes on more tasks, it ups the processor speed. Maximum speed is 3.9GHz. They do that to cut energy use and increase battery life.

 

[ecc83]

I am something of a PC numpty Rich but I also understand that whilst an idividual core can be rated at only 1.3G there are 8 of them in an i7?

"Speccy" tells me my lil HP i3 has two, 2.4G cores but Hyperthreading* doubles that to 4 cores. I also understand that not all programs, e.g. DAWs can access all cores but that Reaper is one that can?

*which I do not understand AT ALL!

Dave.

 

[Orson]

It is funny, barely three years ago, if someone were asking about a computer for music production I would always try to put them off a laptop. For years, Towers were the best bang for buck for raw power and usability (many laptops had CPU throttling controls you could not defeat. The situation is now quite different IMHO. Laps are more than powerful enough fro even quite serious audio work.
Desktops still have the edge for the last word in CPU grunt and of course are much more easily upgraded. They are of course very expensive IF you want a truly silent one...grunt for grunt.

Dave.

How much is 'expensive' Dave. I built my own top spec 12 months ago and it was £1300. It is super quiet with 7 fans running continuously.

 

[ecc83]

How much is 'expensive' Dave. I built my own top spec 12 months ago and it was £1300. It is super quiet with 7 fans running continuously.

'KING expensive mate! My i7 Lenovo was under £400. While I am here! Will say the ram in the at least 7 yr old HP is DDR3 and 532MHz. I read that later memory is much faster? That means my 8G could be double that effectively in a more modern i7 PC?
I also read that SSDs give you a blindin' swap file? (but again, numpty.)

Dave.

 

[ecc83]

11th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 Processor
Windows 10 Home 64bit
8GB, 1x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz
512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive
15.6-in. display

I just grabbed that spec out of the air for a new Dell. That would set you back over £700, say $1000 US? On the face of it a very powerful machine and one that would run almost anything the home recordist would throw at it?

I went for a refurbed machine because I had a budget of ~£400 but wanted a specific spec. Had to be 15.6" screen, minces are poorly, SSD and 8G ram. Would have been happy with an i5 but the i7 was on special offer and I could not find an i5 at the time.

N.B. Dell do a lot of AMD variants, I have a desktop home build with an AMD 3.0 6 core Black and 6G of ram and that is pretty bloody swift!

Dave.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Also, why is it listed at 1.3 GHz but then you say it "kicked up to about 3.2Ghz"?

A lot of modern chips have dynamic clock speed. It's particularly important in mobile devices where battery life and heat are major concerns.
It might sit at 1.3ghz when idling then ramp up to its max clock speed when under load.
If heat reaches a certain point it can then throttle back slightly in an attempt to pull the temperatures back but still maintain decent performance.

 

[TalismanRich]

I am something of a PC numpty Rich but I also understand that whilst an idividual core can be rated at only 1.3G there are 8 of them in an i7?

"Speccy" tells me my lil HP i3 has two, 2.4G cores but Hyperthreading* doubles that to 4 cores. I also understand that not all programs, e.g. DAWs can access all cores but that Reaper is one that can?

*which I do not understand AT ALL!

Dave.

This version of the I7 has 8 cores. If you go under the system resources, you can watch the individual cores and how much each is running. Its not unusual to hae one core just sitting, while another is running about 20% while it downloads stuff in the background.

Reaper is supposed to use hyperthreading, which gives it more processing abilities. All I know is that I didn't have a hiccup with 14 tracks and 40+ plugins running while I was browsing the web and running taskmanager at the same time. I haven't done anything to optimize this, either.

 

[Orson]

'KING expensive mate! My i7 Lenovo was under £400. While I am here! Will say the ram in the at least 7 yr old HP is DDR3 and 532MHz. I read that later memory is much faster? That means my 8G could be double that effectively in a more modern i7 PC?
I also read that SSDs give you a blindin' swap file? (but again, numpty.)

Dave.

I know Dave but my pc does anything and was for video and is super quiet and also future proof for at least 5 years possibly. My other for the sound booth is a much lower spec and now 6 years old.

 

[ecc83]

I know Dave but my pc does anything and was for video and is super quiet and also future proof for at least 5 years possibly. My other for the sound booth is a much lower spec and now 6 years old.

Yes Orson but the point is the OP just wants a silent computer for MUSIC work and I maintain a laptop will give him that at lower cost than a desktop because the latter takes costly mods to shut the fekker up!

Cost will also be lower if he goes the refurbished route (this T510 is built like a BSH, mainly a diecasting not flimsy ABS I did not need slim and portable) and I really like the idea of recycling everything we can.

Dave.

 

[Orson]

Yes Orson but the point is the OP just wants a silent computer for MUSIC work and I maintain a laptop will give him that at lower cost than a desktop because the latter takes costly mods to shut the fekker up!

Cost will also be lower if he goes the refurbished route (this T510 is built like a BSH, mainly a diecasting not flimsy ABS I did not need slim and portable) and I really like the idea of recycling everything we can.

Dave.

We may have met along the way. I know what he wants Dave but as an old git I made this myself after running spec past the online sellers and I can honestly say the 'be quiet' processor fans are so quiet you cant hear then except when rendering a large video. For rendering an audio file I doubt if they would move from idle speed. But would a laptop do the same?

As an after thought would a 'be quiet' processor fan work fitted to the ops existing processor. The radiator is a big bulky but its a cheaper idea?

 

[ecc83]

We may have met along the way. I know what he wants Dave but as an old git I made this myself after running spec past the online sellers and I can honestly say the 'be quiet' processor fans are so quiet you cant hear then except when rendering a large video. For rendering an audio file I doubt if they would move from idle speed. But would a laptop do the same?

As an after thought would a 'be quiet' processor fan work fitted to the ops existing processor. The radiator is a big bulky but its a cheaper idea?

1) Another old git here.
2) OP's existing machine is slow I think, certainly not "20 tracks + plugs" capable.
3) Even if (and I say it ain't so) a laptop gets noisy at full rant the noise is less than a standard DT and you can easily MOVE a lappy!
4) he can sit quietly anywhere and edit stuff to his hearts, drag it round a mate's, record the local Open Mic night.

Dave.

 

[Big Thier]

You can get pretty silent fans for cheap.

+1 for an SSD

 

[skywaveTDR]

We had the same concerns in the Radio studio situation where the larger computers would make some noise but the solution was to put them in another room where an extension KVM cable and box was used- then it was not in the studio to make any noise. In essence the Radio world now day are all control surfaces and Network cables so there are not really computers in the studios anymore but there are 1 rack interfaces in there but they don't have noisy fans.
There were some computer supplies that used large diameter fans that turned slowly and therefore moved air but it was quiet. The noise then will come from CPU fan and maybe video cards that some of them have 3 fans on them. This is all gaming type requirements so in a regular computer there should not be the need for these but of course people go overboard with 16 core processors and all kinds of stuff in a computer and it will get noisy that way. I worked as an Engineer for small companies and large like ESPN in Chicago so in building entire radio stations we addressed this from the start.