Reducing Fan Noise (notebook PC & others)

[markyoung]

My HP zd8000 runs sooooo HOT!!! the fan is on very often.

What are some of the best tricks/strategies for controlling this noise (other than having the PC in another room)???

Do people often construct a sound-proofing/confining box for their notebook?

Sample the sound and remove it digitally?

Use a 'TransPorter', and move the notebook farther away from the mic?

Also, I saw a notebook "cooling pad" that works like a refrigerated heatsink underneath the notebook. Probably pricey, and I wonder if they make noise also?

Thanks,

Mark

 

[studiomaster]

I dont think u can do much for quietening a notebook. i dont know if putting foam or something dense under the notebook will help or not...

 

[Slowjett]

Best way to quiet a notebook, buy a centrino based notebook instead.. Ive about had it with my p4 notebook.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I dont think u can do much for quietening a notebook. i dont know if putting foam or something dense under the notebook will help or not...

This is something you have to be really careful about; in general it's not a good idea. Anything that could block airflow around the fan is just going to cause an already hot laptop to burn up and burn out.

It's good advice to move off of a P4-based laptop, as they rum hottest of all chips. I think slowjett may have meant to say "Celeron" instead of "Centrino", though; "Celeron" is the baby brother CPU chip to the P4 which tends to run a bit cooler (and can potentially allow for a quieter fan.) "Centrino", OTOH, referrs to those laptops with built-in Intel-brand wireless capability.

You can build a gobo or hang some moving blankets or something like that between your laptop and what you're recording to help minimize the sound (don't forget to trap the direct reflections on walls, and maybe even ceiling, too.) Depending on your room and your setup, this may or may not be effective enough for you; you can only try it to find out for sure.

Other than actually moving it into another room - which, if possible, is what I'd recommend the most - there's not much else you can do with the laptop. With a desktop or tower there is another option; replace the fans(s) with low-noise fans, which are available on the 'net. The caution here is you have to make sure your low-noise replacement is rated to push the same amount of air as the original; deviations fom that spec can caus your computer to get too hot.

G.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I dont think u can do much for quietening a notebook. i dont know if putting foam or something dense under the notebook will help or not...

This is something you have to be really careful about; in general it's not a good idea. Anything that could block airflow around the fan is just going to cause an already hot laptop to burn up and burn out

It's good advice from showjett to move off of a P4-based laptop, as they rum hottest of all chips. I think slowjett may have meant to say "Celeron" instead of "Centrino", though; "Celeron" is the baby brother CPU chip to the P4 which tends to run a bit cooler (and can potentially allow for a quieter fan.) "Centrino", OTOH, referrs to those laptops with built-in Intel-brand wireless capability.

You can build a gobo or hang some moving blankets or something like that between your laptop and what you're recording to help minimize the sound (don't forget to trap the direct reflections on walls, and maybe even ceiling, too.) Depending on your room and your setup, this may or may not be effective enough for you; you can only try it to find out for sure.

Other than actually moving it into another room - which, if possible, is what I'd recommend the most - there's not much else you can do with the laptop. With a desktop or tower there is another option; replace the fans(s) with low-noise fans, which are available on the 'net. The caution here is you have to make sure your low-noise replacement is rated to push the same amount of air as the original; deviations fom that spec can caus your computer to get too hot.

G.

 

[tenkas]

He did mean CENTRINO and not CELERON. Centrino uses Pentium M processors, which run much cooler then the pentium 4 and they perform very well (I use a 2ghz pentium M centrino and it can handle ANYTHING as well as a pentium 4 3.2ghz)

You can also build a vented box with isolation pads in it... you can search google for COMPUTER ISOLATION BOX

 

[studiomaster]

He did mean CENTRINO and not CELERON. Centrino uses Pentium M processors, which run much cooler then the pentium 4 and they perform very well (I use a 2ghz pentium M centrino and it can handle ANYTHING as well as a pentium 4 3.2ghz)

You can also build a vented box with isolation pads in it... you can search google for COMPUTER ISOLATION BOX

I have never seen any isolation box for notebooks.

 

[zenpicker]

I struggled with this one too, as I have a Vaio P4 that sounds like a window air conditioner on a Manhattan August night. What I wound up doing is this: I put the monster in an adjacent room, then run a little Ethernet LAN through a router to my ultra-quiet Dell laptop; this is the one I keep next to me when recording. I use UltraVNC to control the big guy remotely. Works perfectly - but then, I already had a quiet notebook PC and a router lying around.

If you happen to have a way to snag a cheap and low-powered (but quiet) machine, you could use it as a slave to the real one. Just another way to skin the cat.

I did look all over the web to find a solution for this problem, and grew convinced that there just isn't one. That fan is going to kick on periodically even with a cooling pad under it, and it's going to run loud, and that's going to ruin your take at some unpredictable moment of musical inspiration.