Desktop vs Laptop Fan Noise

[chad kennith]

I've never noticed any problems recording before, but was wanting to buy a laptop, and I seen a lot of post talking about fan noise etc... Is there any difference between desktop vs laptop? Also, I heard someone had noise on a laptop with their power supply??? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Steenamaroo]

You can get noisy desktops and laptops, and quiet ones.
The big difference is that you can really do something about it with a desktop.
You can move the box to a different room, usually you replace the fans with larger, slower ones, or you can even go with water cooling.

Fan noise isn't usually a big issue for me, but I use a fan speed control program to have the fans kick in earlier.
Basically, instead of sitting silent until a certain temperature then kicking in at 3500 rpm, I have mine running at, a barely audible, 1800rpm from boot.
That way the computer never really gets hot enough to need any more fan speed.

Those numbers are just examples.


Your best bet is to research particular models of laptop. Some will have better airflow and cooler running components than others,
but you can be assured if a certain laptop's fans are loud, people on internet forums will be bitching about it.

 

[Dave Holmes]

My last laptop (Samsung) had a really noisy fan... I never noticed really til I got my present laptop (Dell) which is practically silent in comparison.
My desktop at work is noisy as hell! We have 5 different desktop computers in the office, stand in the middle of the room and you only hear mine!
There's definitely more you can do to resolve fan noise in a desktop but I do think laptops have been getting quieter over the last few years anyway...
Mucho-muchness!

 

[CrowsofFritz]

My PC has two fans. I really only need one for audio recording, and that one is deathly silent. The case fan is OK, and I really need that for gaming, so I prefer to keep it on. I find my AC unit makes MUCH more noise than the fan on my desktop.

 

[pikingrin]

Fan noise isn't usually a big issue for me, but I use a fan speed control program to have the fans kick in earlier.
Basically, instead of sitting silent until a certain temperature then kicking in at 3500 rpm, I have mine running at, a barely audible, 1800rpm from boot.
That way the computer never really gets hot enough to need any more fan speed.

What did you use to and how did you program your fan speed?

 

[Steenamaroo]

I'm on apple computers so I don't know how useful this is to you.
On the MBP I have 'macs fan control' with a minimum speed of 2000, set to increase between 40 and 80 C.
On the Mac Pro I have SMC fan control but I'd need to take a screen shot tomorrow, if you want it.
There are at least 6 fans in it.

 

[pikingrin]

I'm on apple computers so I don't know how useful this is to you.
On the MBP I have 'macs fan control' with a minimum speed of 2000, set to increase between 40 and 80 C.
On the Mac Pro I have SMC fan control but I'd need to take a screen shot tomorrow, if you want it.
There are at least 6 fans in it.

Dang. Wife and I have 3 macs between us but I record on PC to save cost. I will do some digging in win7 to see if there are any fan control options. Thanks anyway though!

 

[Steenamaroo]

No worries. I think 'speedfan' is cross platform. Give that a google.

 

[delirium trigge]

Computers are powerful enough today to suit most people's needs with recording audio, even at very high quality with a ton of plug ins. I have two Macbook pro's both have 16gb of ram and Quad Core i7's. However, I could get away with much less. The only time fan noise comes in is when I'm exporting something honestly.

 

[ecc83]

About 6 years ago I bought my first W7/64 bit desktop. An HP CQ5304UK. 2core 2.7G AMD and I was staggered how quiet it was! The only noise was a low level, low frequency rumble when stood on a hard surface so I made a foam "decoupled" bas for it and then recording acoustic guitar in the same room with a capacitor mic became perfectly possible.

When, a few years later my wife offered to treat* me to a laptop I naturally went HP! I type on it now, an i3 Pavillion g6 and it is very quiet indeed. Not of course a Deep Thought speed monster but handles 20 or so Cubase tracks at about 50% CPU hit iirc.

A year ago I bought grandson a refurbed Lenovo Netbook (they call them "ThinkPads"!) and that too was very quiet (and ran the KA6 without a blip but then that is the KA6 for you!).

"Power supply" was mentioned? A very common problem with laptops when hooked up to other gear, usually active monitors, is a hum (aka ground) loop that causes nasty buzzing and often "zipper" noise when operating mics,pads or keys. This is due to the PSU carrying the mains earth thru to the laptop. The very best solution is to find a PSU that is "Class ll" insulated and therefore does not need an earth connection but if you can't there are other fixes...DO NOT however even THINK of removing the earth from an existing supply!!!

*What she ACTUALLY did was allow ME to spend up to 500 quid of MY pension lump! But yer gotta love 'em!

Dave.

 

[DM60]

Dang. Wife and I have 3 macs between us but I record on PC to save cost. I will do some digging in win7 to see if there are any fan control options. Thanks anyway though!

Fan speed is usually a function of the BIOS. You may find the MB manufacturer has a OS app to control the fan speed, but if it can be set, look in the BIOS setting.

 

[miroslav]

... I use a fan speed control program to have the fans kick in earlier.

Details....

I'm using a tower for my DAWs, and I have it enclosed/isolated to a degree, but it's still in the studio for ease of connectivity/use, and yeah, on warm days when the studio temp gets up a bit and when the computer's been running for hours, I will get that second speed thing going. It's not really interfering with recording, but when I'm editing/mixing, at some point I become conscious of the fans.

I've got a "new" tower coming together, just need to install all my apps....and it is noticeably quieter than the old one, so it shouldn't be even better.

There are some super-quiet fans out there that can replace existing tower fans.
I have a couple from this company: Cooling - antec.com - the TrueQuiet 120 that I use on my 2" MX-80 tape deck which be design has no fans, which makes them great for in-studio use, but I noticed that they will warm up a bit more in the summer months, and the heat rises up where the reels of tape are, so it could potentially change the transport consistency of the tape compared to cool tape. I rigged the fans at the back tp suck the air out of the unit and that pulls cool are through the port at the top of the unit. They do a great job of cooling it...it's now always at room temp, never warmer. I don't even hear them running unless I stand at the tape deck and put my head down toward the back of the unit.

They have all kinds of cooling options on their website.

Not sure what you can do with a laptop to change/improve the cooling....?

 

[okovoko]

My old G5 tower was very noisy, but latest Macbook with solid state drive is basically silent for most of the time, the fan only kicks in (quietly) on very rare heavy processing requirements, and only if the environment is warm too. Solid state saves you a lot of fan time.