Time to build a rack mount slient PC

Danger · Post by **Danger** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:25 pm

Time to build a rack mount slient PC any one have any sugestions?

Athlon Powers · Post by **Athlon Powers** » Wed May 28, 2003 6:25 pm

How small? If you are thinking 1U then I dont think there is a real way to make it quiet except say for padding the outside with Melamine. You couldnt fit any quieter fans in it or anything...

Zhentar · Post by **Zhentar** » Wed May 28, 2003 6:38 pm

actually you'd just have to use a lot of slow 60mm fans or get some good slot blower type things

Athlon Powers · Post by **Athlon Powers** » Wed May 28, 2003 6:44 pm

Zhentar wrote:actually you'd just have to use a lot of slow 60mm fans or get some good slot blower type things

I am a little inexperienced in server hardware so correct me if im wrong but, arnt blowers REALLY loud?

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Wed May 28, 2003 9:22 pm

Go with 3 or 4U, unless you don't have space. That way the inside will have space for dampening sounds and suspending drives.

art.doppleganger · Post by **art.doppleganger** » Wed May 28, 2003 10:23 pm

I'll share with you my experiences from the last year-and-a-half. In a nutshell, I determined that a silent 1U is essentially impossible unless you have an extremely high threshold for pain. Here's what I've tried:
- Dynamatted the interior of the case (less vibration/cavitation)
- Rubber grommets and nylon screws for mounting everything
- Replaced the 40mm x 20mm PSU fan with a quieter 40x10
- Undervolted the PSU fan with one of Zalman's inline resistors
- Bought a nice quiet Seagate Barracuda IV (a beauty)
- Watercooled the hard drive and processor (just finished that this past week, the exterior radiator uses a large, slow-turning Enermax 120mm fan; enabled me to pull out the front fans and the processor fan)

In short, I've done just about everything that is humanly possible. The only two fans that are left are the external watercooler fan (which realistically I can't get rid of), and the PSU fan. With respect to the PSU, the only options available are to replace the PSU with an open frame/fanless PSU (sort of risky, and max power can't be above 100W) or watercool the PSU (even riskier). Neither option is appealing, so I've concluded that...

... you can't silence a 1U. What I have is quiet (a lot less noise than a stock 1U), but it isn't silent.

I agree with one of the other poster regarding 4Us. That's a better choice if you want to go the rackmount route, because you have a lot more space to put in larger fans and deadening material.

But if you are going to go to all this trouble for what I assume is a server, why not just get a Hush Technologies PC or an OpenBrick? I just got a Hush, and it is a wonderful home server.

Danger · Post by **Danger** » Thu May 29, 2003 3:18 am

I think the size I want will be a 3 or 4 u rackmount.

However it will not be a server It is for use in a recording studio.

Danger · Post by **Danger** » Thu May 29, 2003 3:21 am

I am limited in my selection to PC cases that can use a full size sound card made by Lynx digital Labs.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Fri May 30, 2003 7:27 pm

I think most rackmounts 3 and 4U will support full size cards.

Time to build a rack mount slient PC

Time to build a rack mount slient PC

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