Is a true silent system achievable?

sawii · Post by **sawii** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 8:23 am

Simply put - is it conceivable that a system (approximately similar to current system specs, so not a 486) can be built that would be wholly inaudible at ~ 2m from distance from case in a totally silent environment? I would need to use a hard drive (I have a Barracuda V) so it would not be possible to eliminate moving components altogether. Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide assistance

(I appreciate this may come up frequently but searching for 'silent system' here is probably futile)

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:32 am

yes it is possible, probably not with off-the-shelf parts and definitely not with "bleeding edge" CPUs. Many ways. See fmah's article on a Fanless Heatpipe CPU Cooling System for one -- add isolated suspended HDD and fanless or super low noise PSU. More conventional approaches can also yield <20 dBA/1m systems. I have one that's 16 dBA/1m.

What is your intended app? A "totally silent" environment is curious. Very few spaces can be called totally silent.

wussboy · Post by **wussboy** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:35 am

I would say "Yes". But you're going to need to spend some money buying components. Check through the "Recommended" section and the other articles here (they're linked off the main page) for ideas about how to quiet the individual components of your system. If you are building a new system, plan your components carefully (check the "General" forum for posts by other people planning new systems...they're chock full of info). If you are gonna tweak your current, then break open your case and find the loudest component and start from there. It's definitely do-able. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

Damn you MikeC! You posted while I was typing.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:38 am

wussboy wrote:Damn you MikeC! You posted while I was typing.

So I guess something like"

" or "ha-ha" is an appropriate respnse?

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:55 am

If you have enough money almost anything is possible. and I guess the more you spend the more silent it can become.

splice · Post by **splice** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 9:58 am

well, lets not forget about the silent P4 2.8 hush-pc. you just plug it in and you're in business. in absolute silence.
It should be available for purchase within the next several weeks from
http://www.logicsupply.com/

Of course this is no budget solution. But at msrp of about US$1,200 it is not much more than your average middle-to-high end consumer system.

Granted this takes the fun out of building yourself crazy contraptions to eliminate heat and noise. But it is without a doubt the simplest solution available.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 11:13 am

The only serious lack in the hush-pc is HDD noise. They use a quiety drive, I think a 'cuda, but it is not really mechanically decoupled AFAIK. This means that both seek and ilde noise will be a lot more audible than any of the suspension systems lots of us SPCRs use.

NOTE: I was involved in the acoustics spec validation testing for the hush mini-ITX system at the UBC acoustics lab, and am assuming (for now) that the hush-pc uses the same drive mounting. That hush mini-ITX has an idle noise of <20 dBA, very quiet, tho the drive still can be heard. But the seek noise is plainly audible to me.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 5:32 pm

Well it's possible to get almost everything quiet, from CPU (specialized chassis or other device) to power supply (SilentMaxx) to AGP graphic card (Sapphire stuff), except the hard drive. I'm doing preliminary testing on my own design for that.

Black Jack · Post by **Black Jack** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 6:01 pm

I think IT IS possible but it would be expensive. I should be something like this:

Cpu -> Fanless Heatpipe CPU Cooling System
PSU -> Fanless
HD -> Solid state hard drive (No moving parts, no noise, no heat, and FAST)

With that setup i think you won't be able to know if the computer is on (from hearing)

splice · Post by **splice** » Thu Oct 16, 2003 7:50 pm

Black Jack wrote: HD -> Solid state hard drive (No moving parts, no noise, no heat, and FAST)

sadly a paltry 4GB ram-based solid state drive currently goes for around $5000. here is one

http://www.cenatek.com/product_rocketdrive.cfm

cheap flash-based solid state drives will not work as a system disk. if you have 5 grand to blow then go for it, 4GB is enough to run the OS. Heck for only five grand apeice, may as well install five or six of these babies. Your system would not only be silent but it would be insanely fast.

But just don't accidentally unplug the dc power backup to the drives

dago · Post by **dago** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:26 am

For the HDD topic, it seems to me that some laptop HDD are really quiet (e.g. Fujitsu).

Now, they should perfectly fit into a silent drive ... wouldn't that be (near) silent) ?

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:42 am

dago wrote:For the HDD topic, it seems to me that some laptop HDD are really quiet (e.g. Fujitsu).

Now, they should perfectly fit into a silent drive ... wouldn't that be (near) silent) ?

Well the good thing about laptop HDD they produce very little heat. In laptops they are usually confined it tight areas and with no airflow. I can take out laptop HDD after hours of use and they are only a little warm to touch, compared to a desktop HDD which feels like it has been in a hot stove, even with good ventilation.

I think laptop HD has the potential of being inaudible with a good enclosure. Maybe sidesinks and a completely sealed foam box.

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:17 am

ez2remember wrote:I think laptop HD has the potential of being inaudible with a good enclosure. Maybe sidesinks and a completely sealed foam box.

I would actually recommend against using a laptop harddrive. I recently had to distribute some 3d rendering across my desktop and my laptop (complicated scene, time constraints) and as my laptop only has 256mb of ram it was swapping out to disk almost all the time. After a few days of hard rendering, my laptop's hdd is now dead and in need of replacement.

Quite amusing though

I heard it crackle and die.

btw it's a Dell.

dago · Post by **dago** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:28 am

I'm going slightly off toooppic ... ((c) Queen)

chylld wrote:btw it's a Dell.

Dell doesn't make HDD. Most of dell laptops' drives are Hitachi (IBM).

But you just went on a slippery slope ... I can say exactly the same of IDE drives against SCSI drives.

to fix things up :
Fujitsu laptop : 300 kh
'cuda IV : 600 kh
Cheetah : 1200 kh

Kostik · Post by **Kostik** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:53 am

By the way Dago, you do have a completely silent system don't you ?

It's folding, but you can't hear it, you can't even say where it is

.

ez2remember · Post by **ez2remember** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:03 am

chylld wrote: I would actually recommend against using a laptop harddrive. I recently had to distribute some 3d rendering across my desktop and my laptop (complicated scene, time constraints) and as my laptop only has 256mb of ram it was swapping out to disk almost all the time. After a few days of hard rendering, my laptop's hdd is now dead and in need of replacement.

Quite amusing though I heard it crackle and die.

btw it's a Dell.

It might have been on the last legs, I have used plenty of laptops and never had a HDD die on me.

Maybe luck was not on your side.

Tobias · Post by **Tobias** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:31 am

Well, I can imagine a combination of a 64bit CPU and MRAM. Since the CPU can keep track och multiple TB of memory and the MRAM doesn´t loose the information upon powerdown, I´d say it makes for a very intresting ramdrive-combination:)

wussboy · Post by **wussboy** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:32 am

Kostik wrote:By the way Dago, you do have a completely silent system don't you ?

It's folding, but you can't hear it, you can't even say where it is .

Ha ha. That's funny, Kostik.

sbabb · Post by **sbabb** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:55 am

You could go theBladerunner route and watercool everything with a huge buried water tank as your radiator. With your disk drives in a sound isolation box, you'd probably achieve something very close to silence, except for any errant coil whines and hums. Not cheap, though.

dago · Post by **dago** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 11:09 am

As to reply to well-named kostik, yes ... (and I found it back, btw - got to post on the other topic)

In fact, another way to achieve not a silent PC but a silent computer working place is to put the main tower far away from the display, keyboard and mouse you're using.

Apart from network-based solution (remote terminals), put your computer(s with a KVM) in one room and route the cables trhough the wall.
- Keyboard+mouse : ps/2, I'm using 10m cables without any problems
- Video : with DVI : quality doesn't vary (digital vs analog)
- Optical drive : ev. Firewire/USB2.

Now, if you are still a student or, like me, living in a 2-room flat, it's not possible

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 12:28 pm

My last job we got a new Dell server, and I had to share my office/storage room with it. The damn thing was the loudest computer I've ever heard. Dual redundant PSU's, SCSI 10K RPM drive etc. The fan noise was unbeleivable.

I just KVM'd it into the closet. 2 Sheets of 5/8 sheetrock makes a big difference. I could still hear the beast easily, but for a regular PC, this would work just fine.

grandpa_boris · Post by **grandpa_boris** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:12 pm

Black Jack wrote:I think IT IS possible but it would be expensive. I should be something like this:

Cpu -> Fanless Heatpipe CPU Cooling System
PSU -> Fanless
HD -> Solid state hard drive (No moving parts, no noise, no heat, and FAST)

With that setup i think you won't be able to know if the computer is on (from hearing)

except for the 60Hz humming of the power supplies (50Hz for our friends accross the ocean), the high-pitched squeal of the flyback transformer on your CRT or the equally annoying squeal of the flat-panel's fluorescent tube....

face it, the only way to make it really silent is to actively go after every noise wavelet and mercilessly squash each and every one of them: http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-9w ... c=01&avf=N

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:00 pm

dago wrote:Dell doesn't make HDD. Most of dell laptops' drives are Hitachi (IBM).

Yep sorry my mistake, I took it out of my laptop and it says 'IBM' on it.

And it's not exactly an old hard drive.. it's only about 18 months old.

And I think it wasn't the lack of luck, it was probably just foolishness on my part, running programs that really shouldn't be running on laptops

Zhentar · Post by **Zhentar** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:18 pm

I'll second sbabb's suggestion- with long tubes, you could have the pump/radiator in a different room, and really dampen a watercooled drive.

Or, another route- put the whole computer in a different room, with good KVM cables running to your work room.

grandpa_boris · Post by **grandpa_boris** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 4:59 pm

Zhentar wrote: Or, another route- put the whole computer in a different room, with good KVM cables running to your work room.

somewhere i've seen a device that took KVM inputs and passed them over a CAT5 as simple IP traffic. or you could just use a silent Xwindows workstation and run VNC to export your windows desktop to it. the old NCD Xterms were fanless and diskless... too bad the company doesn't make truly silent hardware anymore.

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:02 pm

my laptop only has 256mb of ram

Geez, you can get a 512mb SO-DIMM for under a hundred bucks. Go ahead, live a little. Particularly on a laptop, where performance is already constrained-- more memory is a no-brainer.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:31 pm

grandpa_boris wrote:
Zhentar wrote: Or, another route- put the whole computer in a different room, with good KVM cables running to your work room.
somewhere i've seen a device that took KVM inputs and passed them over a CAT5 as simple IP traffic. or you could just use a silent Xwindows workstation and run VNC to export your windows desktop to it. the old NCD Xterms were fanless and diskless... too bad the company doesn't make truly silent hardware anymore.

Here is the type of thing you're talking about

http://www.magenta-research.com/video_d ... ew450.html

They have various type of KVM equipment.

al bundy · Post by **al bundy** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:56 pm

dago wrote:For the HDD topic, it seems to me that some laptop HDD are really quiet (e.g. Fujitsu).

Now, they should perfectly fit into a silent drive ... wouldn't that be (near) silent) ?

That's exactly what I did with my Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 laptop drive. See my sig below for all details.

After trying out several different laptop drives, the one below (5400rpm, 8mb cache) is the quietest I've ever found yet and "feels" as fast as my old BIV drives during normal use. It is completely inaudible in the Silent Drive enclosure. A 2.5" to 3.5" adapter (with side brackets) was used as well, before putting the drive into the enclosure.

grandpa_boris · Post by **grandpa_boris** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 11:16 pm

fmah wrote:Here is the type of thing you're talking about

http://www.magenta-research.com/video_d ... ew450.html

They have various type of KVM equipment.

that's pretty much it. 450' without a switch. at that distance, even an average noisy PC will be tolerable

Scorpius · Post by **Scorpius** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 11:07 pm

sawii wrote:Simply put - is it conceivable that a system (approximately similar to current system specs, so not a 486) can be built that would be wholly inaudible at ~ 2m from distance from case in a totally silent environment? I would need to use a hard drive (I have a Barracuda V) so it would not be possible to eliminate moving components altogether. Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide assistance

(I appreciate this may come up frequently but searching for 'silent system' here is probably futile)

Yes, it is, and it not that hard.

My totally inaudible system:

CPU: Thinderbird 1333 1.75V -> 1000 1.35V idle 43'C / stress 46'C
HS +Cooler: Spire Falconrock 2 + Y.S. Tech Super Silent @ 6V
GPU: Radeon 64M ViVo DDR fanless
2 case fans: Y.S. Tech Super Silent @ 5V
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint V80 with silent seek times
PSU: Be Quiet 1.3 350W

Samsung HDD's are probably most silent HDDs in the world.

An yes, Be Quiet is totally inaudible even if you listen it from 1mm distance, hence its 1000 better choice that Seasonic SS or whatever.
It has all protections as fortron PSUS so it is good stuff, believe me.
BTW, its 2 fans are running at approximately 300-600RPM, so there is no noise.

As you see, my investements for totally inaudible PC is virtually nothing compared to you guys who spent like zillion to get silent systems.

And you do NOT need any fanless heatpipe HS system, because its more reasonable to cool HS with inaudible fan running at 5V. And its cheaper.

Is a true silent system achievable?

Is a true silent system achievable?

Re: Is a true silent system achievable?