umm, well thier is two types of noise i worry about....
(1)EMF or electromagnetic-interference
EMFis a problem when ur like me (the 14 yr. old whose dad wonders if his son is smokeing crack or breking in to a private defense contractor and chargeing an attack helicopter to his charge card druing the long hours he spends in the basement....) and u have cables that have to be duck taped to a peice of equipment, just to complete a connection(much less have good shielding).
The fixes are:
(1)i used to keep the cover of my case, before "the upgrade" (no on that later) because it was better for cooling. Don't do that, the cover is BIG shield of EMF.
(2) Anything and everything MUST be properly grounded. Other wise ur making a big monkey-wrench to dink up the plumbing
(3)turn the monitor off... ever play gyuitar near one? the niose produced is a wall of sonic nosie...
(2)Audiable Nosie
Well this is due t dig/fast HD, loud power supplies and other various factors:
"The Upgrade": 2 fans in two PS,8 cooling, 8 HD cooling,4 cpu, and 2 cuirculating fans.... as u can see there is many options that will increase noise exponetialy. Add in the occasinal CD-ROM spin up, zip nioses and it a miryad of problems....
The fixes...
(1)if u can, incress the amount of time ur HD, CD-ROM, ZIP/JAZ take to spin down
(2)put it in another room. OPTIONAL: they sell cbles the add length to moitors, KB, and mouses... goto ur local COMP USA and pump the tech at the service desk for info. now that steel box that makes more noise han child birth is outa the picture.
(3) get ball-bering fans.... don't skimp on the quality of ur cooling if u build the system urself or modify it. BB is more reliable, allows faster speeds(more airflow; more cooling) and is quiter
(4)the hd matters. if u ever hear a 7200rpm dirve, u might know it. 10000rpm, u gotta be deaf. any faster... well.... on the pages of the specs of allmost all modern hd's the have a few sound mesurments...(idle, seek, ect...) another trick is to get "shock bays" these little toys(if ur HD is 5 1/4, forget it... and it eats up one 5 1/4 space per 3.5 drive) has an adapter that moutnts on rubber feet inside the encolser... very cool, good dampening effect..,.
Put simply, its all in the componets, not the box itself.
well thats all i can think of atr current time.... anyone need any more help, this is my specialty(computers and hardware) i'm new at recording too so i know ill be asking a ot also... drop me a line if u can tink of any thing else or have questions or comments