Wood floors, vibration, and echos

[jasonb885]

The referenced shock mount page applies mainly to a different situation,Arcade Games with internal computers that need to be shipped under some possibly extreme circumstances. These need to arive in a plug and play state. You have stationary stuff in a house and the CLASSIC issue of seeks resonating and amplifying via the case. Apples and Oranges.

There are a number of HD isolation or suspension methods that have been often used without creating problems. At this moment my main HD rests on a piece of backpacker foam,totally not fastened to a thing. That's a temporary situation,yet I'm not having trouble from it. The rubber grommet mount thing is not the most effective isolation,but the drives are secure,and vibration transmission is reduced.

The article covers a number of things.

However, you can't dispute that when the disk head seeks in one direction, the disk physically moves in the opposite direction. Hold a live hard disk in your hand while it's retrieving data and see for yourself.

http://www.arcade-tech.com/arcade/ap-sh ... k-Dynamics

Sounds pretty definitive to me.

[qviri]

There are a number of HD isolation or suspension methods that have been often used without creating problems. At this moment my main HD rests on a piece of backpacker foam,totally not fastened to a thing. That's a temporary situation,yet I'm not having trouble from it. The rubber grommet mount thing is not the most effective isolation,but the drives are secure,and vibration transmission is reduced.

Clearly the OP's priorities with regards to hard drives are different than ours. Not that it's a bad thing; a claim could be made that most SPCRers have their priorities totally out of whack

So stop convincing him about his hard drives already.

I'd agree about the consolidation into one or more slightly more recent machines, though. At least put the router and file server in one box and the workstation and gaming machine in another. Getting an Althon XP setup and a decent heatsink together just might be cheaper than trying to upgrade the heatsinks on all your Socket 370s

You said that Celeron 333 box is making the most noise? My dad bought us a Celeron 300A machine back in 1998. I'm known for using old hardware, but this is possibly a bit too old to be useful (and spent money on). Power to the frugal, but convince yourself and toss it.

But yeah, try the mechanical decoupling (towels) first.

[jasonb885]

Get some fairly thick carpet,put all the machines on it. You could put foam or even bubblewrap underneath. Get the machines lined up and do a carpeted plywood panel to put on the wall behind them all.

Excellent.

It is SERIOUSLY time to consolidate. You could assemble a setup with a multi-terrabite raid,or dual raids on a Venice or Opteron. The ECS KV2 or KN-1 mobos support a 4 disc SATA raid,A 2 disc SATA raid,and some IDE with,on the NF4 board the ability to do a mixed SATA-IDE Raid. Get it set up to where you can start transferring all that data,files etc to the new machine. The OLD dual pentium rig wont last forever,there is a lifespan,and much of it's is used up. Odds are you have quite a few OLD HD's that are 5400 rpm and small by modern standards. I have seen a major improvement in HDD reliability and lifespan from 4-5 yrs ago.

Sure, I could. I don't really understand why I would want to do that, though. The machines are already as consolidated as is practically possible.

1) Workstation -- This one's obvious; It's my 24/7 desktop and development platform

2) Gaming system and only Microsoft Windows box; I hate dual booting

3) Router; Could be consolidated onto something like a Linksys WRT54G, but I prefer the flexability of a full Debian GNU/Linux install for my router; It has a four port NIC for added network flexability (Internet / WLAN / LAN / Testin)

4) Dedicated file server sharing out files via NFS and CIFS for Windows laptops and desktop; Handles all email; accessible remotely via IMAPS/SquirrelMail; Internal DNS; p2p; ect

5) Dedicated backup server; Backups up all the above; handles secondary DNS; Potential failover for 4); Physically separate box with dedicated storage for backup (running Dirvish, actually)

I can't think of any better way to consolidate the configuration above. I hate dual booting, so migrating my workstation to the Windows gaming box is out.

I also don't believe in performing backups to a disk array in the same system that you're primarily backing up. I could setup an external USB2 based RAID array, but that's expensive and the fileserver would need a USB2 card.

I like the flexability of my dedicated Debian GNU/Linux router and don't want to give it up, as it handles traffic shaping, firewalling, and miscellaneous network play toys. Best consolidation for it would probably be a solid state disk as I can log to a network logger or RAM disk and I don't need any storage capacity at all. (It runs a 4GB SCSI.)

You have,I think,convinced yourself that this sprawling collection of old gear is somewat nessecery. It is not. You CERTAINLY can reload everything into 2 machines,maybe one. You DO NOT NEED 10+ chattering HDDs and a half dozen funky 5000 rpm fans and a bunch of old 250 w PSUs and gawd knows how many generic case fans scrambling up the peace and serenetity of your world. Now BASIC CHEAP ENTRY-LEVEL stuff vastly outperforms those oldies anddoes so at less power comsumption,less noise...by far.

It's certainly possible, but I don't believe that's an approach I want to take. See above.

Actually, the stuff isn't old, either.

The newest box is the gaming box, which is an inexpensive Socket 754 based Sempron 64-bit CPU based running on a Biostar board. It has an -- unfortunately -- fanned 6600GT from eVGA. This system need not always be on, though.

My workstation is still a solid running XP 1800+ box with 1GB of PC2700. It does have a 9GB SCSI system disk I am considering consolidating into a RAID 1 2 x 40GB Linux software RAID configuration, but this is more for redudancy and performance than noise. (Running a SCSI controller on the same legacy PCI bus as the ATA controller is a bit silly.)

While somewhat older, the other three systems are well suited to their dedicated tasks. (Anyone that thinks a firewall can be consolidated onto a single machine is nuts.) I don't need a brand new, entry level Socket 754 box to serve as a firewall. That's just nuts.

What's more, short of a PCIe solution, any modern system still running legacy PCI (but not PCI 64/66 or PCI-X) will get easily toasted by my ServerWorks IIILE based fileserver for I/O peformance. I have a dedicated 64/33 slot running the 3Ware 7500-4 PATA controller backed by four WD 120GB disks in a RAID 5 configuration.

The backup server, while an outdated P3 slot 1 design, need only pull files from each machine, nightly, and back them up to my dedicated backup array. The machine is seperate so an electrical failure in any one machine won't compromise it. If the backup system is compromised, I still have DVD-R backups and the running systems themselves. Obviously, a catastrophic failure might still destroy all data, but none of it's so important as to keep off-site backups...

In any event, I appreciate the suggestions, but I have already ruled out reducing the quantity of machines in my existing setup. I am happy with the setup as it is. As I stated in the OP maximum noise reduction is not the objective, but rather a reasonable reduction in noise to the previous levels in my carpeted house, albeit quite loud at even that level.

Thanks to everyone who's offered a solution or suggest thus far!

[jasonb885]

There are a number of HD isolation or suspension methods that have been often used without creating problems. At this moment my main HD rests on a piece of backpacker foam,totally not fastened to a thing. That's a temporary situation,yet I'm not having trouble from it. The rubber grommet mount thing is not the most effective isolation,but the drives are secure,and vibration transmission is reduced.

Clearly the OP's priorities with regards to hard drives are different than ours. Not that it's a bad thing; a claim could be made that most SPCRers have their priorities totally out of whack

So stop convincing him about his hard drives already.

I'd agree about the consolidation into one or more slightly more recent machines, though. At least put the router and file server in one box and the workstation and gaming machine in another. Getting an Althon XP setup and a decent heatsink together just might be cheaper than trying to upgrade the heatsinks on all your Socket 370s

It's actually just three HSFs at $7.99 * 2 + $10 or $15 for shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835166032

Of course I need to investigate case fans thereafter. One of the 8cm fans behind my H700A drive cage is getting noisy at power on, probably due to the strain of having only 1/8" of space behind the in-take. Silly AOpen case.

You said that Celeron 333 box is making the most noise? My dad bought us a Celeron 300A machine back in 1998. I'm known for using old hardware, but this is possibly a bit too old to be useful (and spent money on). Power to the frugal, but convince yourself and toss it.

But yeah, try the mechanical decoupling (towels) first.

Yeah, I inherited it from a friend a couple of years ago. It replaced a Pentium 150MHz configuration that was _Baby AT_ based. I didn't want to deal with trying to find a compatible PSU replacement for _that_ system, so I gladly dumped it. Plus it was one of those nasty Gateway 2000 desktop cases and it had been dropped by UPS during shipping. (CPU actually became unseated.)

I would say the Celeron machine is making a distinctive enough noise to unique complement the sound from the H700A file server. (I haven't even moved the gaming system and backup system upstairs yet -- I don't know how they add to the symphony up there yet.) It's a high whine, so I am fairly certain the HSF is at fault. And I think I can run it entirely passive and even undervolt it. I don't need most of the CPU cycles as its just a router and firewall.

I think it's probably more wasteful to spend money on a brand new system with quiet components to merely serve as a firewall. To make that practical, I would need to rotate all my systems down-the-chain in terms of tasks. I'd probably then make my 'workstation' the firewall, I guess. And an XP 1800+ is _way_ overkill for that.

[qviri]

Yeah, I read your rationalization right after I posted my "consolidate" recommendation. Your logic seems reasonable; pardon my minimalistic tendencies, they just come to me naturally as a single-room-dwelling student.

... I wish I could have five computers.

edit: That probably isn't very relevant, but I ran a Pentium-133 at 233 MHz (it overclocked itself... a mystery for me too...) with CPU loads at least 40% (playing music) all the time, all that with a ghetto-modded stock heatsink (glamour shot, the fins are from a busted PSU ) with the fan removed, no thermal interface material whatsoever, and the contact with the CPU severely diminished because one of the tongs on the socket broke off; it was basically just sitting on top of the CPU, when I got it the heatsink was tied to the board with a string. Oh, and did I mention that there was no case fan (no case either), and the only airflow in the vicinity was generated by the PSU fan that was pointed the other way?

This ran for about six months with no stability issues before I retired the machine. (For enjoyment, more pictures here.)

My old Dell laptop had its CPU fan programmed to come on when CPU temperature hit 85*C.

These old CPUs are tough. I'm confident that you'd be able to run that Celly fanless.

[jasonb885]

Yeah, I read your rationalization right after I posted my "consolidate" recommendation. Your logic seems reasonable; pardon my minimalistic tendencies, they just come to me naturally as a single-room-dwelling student.

... I wish I could have five computers.

It's loud

edit: That probably isn't very relevant, but I ran a Pentium-133 at 233 MHz (it overclocked itself... a mystery for me too...) with CPU loads at least 40% (playing music) all the time, all that with a ghetto-modded stock heatsink (glamour shot, the fins are from a busted PSU ) with the fan removed, no thermal interface material whatsoever, and the contact with the CPU severely diminished because one of the tongs on the socket broke off; it was basically just sitting on top of the CPU, when I got it the heatsink was tied to the board with a string. Oh, and did I mention that there was no case fan (no case either), and the only airflow in the vicinity was generated by the PSU fan that was pointed the other way?

This ran for about six months with no stability issues before I retired the machine. (For enjoyment, more pictures here.)

My old Dell laptop had its CPU fan programmed to come on when CPU temperature hit 85*C.

These old CPUs are tough. I'm confident that you'd be able to run that Celly fanless.

Sweet. Those pics are totally ghetto rider!

I had my P3 slot 1 system setup like that once because I was too lazy to put it in its case. Shorting the pins on the mainboard to get it to turn on, off, reboot, and such is priceless.

[qviri]

Yeah, I read your rationalization right after I posted my "consolidate" recommendation. Your logic seems reasonable; pardon my minimalistic tendencies, they just come to me naturally as a single-room-dwelling student.

... I wish I could have five computers.

It's loud

I would then proceed to quiet them down

edit: That probably isn't very relevant, but I ran a Pentium-133 at 233 MHz (it overclocked itself... a mystery for me too...) with CPU loads at least 40% (playing music) all the time, all that with a ghetto-modded stock heatsink (glamour shot, the fins are from a busted PSU ) with the fan removed, no thermal interface material whatsoever, and the contact with the CPU severely diminished because one of the tongs on the socket broke off; it was basically just sitting on top of the CPU, when I got it the heatsink was tied to the board with a string. Oh, and did I mention that there was no case fan (no case either), and the only airflow in the vicinity was generated by the PSU fan that was pointed the other way?

This ran for about six months with no stability issues before I retired the machine. (For enjoyment, more pictures here.)

Sweet. Those pics are totally ghetto rider!

I had my P3 slot 1 system setup like that once because I was too lazy to put it in its case. Shorting the pins on the mainboard to get it to turn on, off, reboot, and such is priceless.

Oh, no, that was a Baby AT board and AT power supply... The power button was wired directly to the PSU, which had its benefits. In moments of frustration, when with ATX pushing the power button would do nothing if the OS is frozen, the PSU's power button always works and is easier to reach than yanking the cord out of the back of a case.

I'm running the current computer caseless as well. I don't have any junk ATX cases on me, and I can't be bothered to go and buy one. It's running two-level on a shoe shelf. I don't have to worry about case fans

[IsaacKuo]

Celeron 333MHz? Slot 1 Pentium III? Oh boy, I am all over this topic!

I have quite a bit of experience doing extreme budget silencing modifications on slot1 computers. I prefer to spend no money at all on them.

You can acheive tremendous reductions in noise without spending any money. You don't have to buy a new heatsink, chances are the one that you have already can work fanlessly even without special ducting (reliability may suffer without ducting, though).

My prefered slot-1 solution involves the following steps:

1. Remove CPU fan (very whiney and loud!!!). Remove heat sink casing, if it exists.

2. Flip the 80mm fan in PSU, and undervolt to 5 volts. Remove the fan grill.

3. Duct airflow from the PSU toward the CPU (often this is not necessary, because the PSU's "exhaust" is already pointed vaguely at the CPU).

4. Remove all PCI/ISA slot covers, so plenty of air can exhaust out of them.

5. Suspend hard drive in my cheapo bubblewrap/plastic jar tube, incorporating a 5v ventilation fan blowing into the tube for reliability.

Anyway, I have plenty of tips and experiences with silencing old slot-1 hardware.

[jasonb885]

Celeron 333MHz? Slot 1 Pentium III? Oh boy, I am all over this topic!

Yes, I just discovered the Celeron 333MHz is also Slot 1. I had forgotten. It was in operation for over a year before I finally took it offline as I just moved last weekend.

I actually just yanked the plug on the front 6cm fan in the case and the nasty 2cm fan on the Celeron's HSF. So far, so cool. Too bad that thing doesn't have a temperature sensor in it. The only fan now is the 8cm in the Enmax PSU that I got second hand. I could replace the fan, but the noisiest component is, unsurprisingly, the 4GB IBM SCSI disk. I might swap it for a 6GB Fujitsu ATA disk. Not sure. The Celeron is pretty silenced at this point versus the file server.

I have quite a bit of experience doing extreme budget silencing modifications on slot1 computers. I prefer to spend no money at all on them.

You can acheive tremendous reductions in noise without spending any money. You don't have to buy a new heatsink, chances are the one that you have already can work fanlessly even without special ducting (reliability may suffer without ducting, though).

I didn't bother to duct the Celeron system. Not entirely sure how I'd do that, anyway. How do you 'duct' a system like Dell's older P3 and their P4 systems?

My prefered slot-1 solution involves the following steps:

1. Remove CPU fan (very whiney and loud!!!). Remove heat sink casing, if it exists.

2. Flip the 80mm fan in PSU, and undervolt to 5 volts. Remove the fan grill.

Flip? As in have it blow air into the system, er?

3. Duct airflow from the PSU toward the CPU (often this is not necessary, because the PSU's "exhaust" is already pointed vaguely at the CPU).

4. Remove all PCI/ISA slot covers, so plenty of air can exhaust out of them.

5. Suspend hard drive in my cheapo bubblewrap/plastic jar tube, incorporating a 5v ventilation fan blowing into the tube for reliability.

Anyway, I have plenty of tips and experiences with silencing old slot-1 hardware.

Yes, that silly Slot 1 HSF is terribly noisy.

My P3 Slot 1 is actually from a Dell system, so I already had to rip off the original Dell HSF configuration and replace it with some SECC2(?) HSF I bought off Ebay a few years ago. With a 2cm fan it's not especially quiet, but easily drowned out by my fileserver monster.

You should post some photos of your setup, if you haven't already.

[mattthemuppet]

If vibration from the PCs are the problem then you can either:

1) isolate the vibration causing components from the PC case, or

2) isolate the PCs from the floor

No. 2 would be the easiest and cheapest (put them on foam, suspend them on bungees from the ceiling, attach lots of helium balloons to the top of each case so they float etc), but wouldn't do anything about the noise of the PCs.

If the PCs are too noisy, then quieting them down should also reduce the vibration issue. Personally, I'd go through each of the PCs identifying which is the noisiest component and then try quieting that down on the cheap (eg fanmates/ variable resistors for fans) to see if you can get the noise floor low enough. Then look into whether buying replacement components would be worth the expense to noise trade off for you.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about the side effects of suspending your hard drives unless you're intending to move the PCs around/ drop them frequently. The article you linked to was specifically referring to the sharp G-force a HDD would be exposed to if it was isolated and was jolted hard enough that it used up all the available suspension and hit another component or the case (eg. in the back of a stiffly sprung pickup, perhaps a sedan would be okay?). Also note that this is far more of an issue if this happens when the HDD is working - HDDs have far higher G-force limits when they're off. Either way, if you want a very cheap and extremely effective method for reducing HDD noise and vibration, seriously look into suspending them - you'll be silencing with 1 hand tied behind your back otherwise.

[datapappan]

Ok jasonb885, some answers to your post (way) above:

Any thoughts on stuff like this mentioned in this thread?
http://www.quietpc.com/uk/caseacc.php#afeet
Or would that be too weak and gimmicky?

On the contrary, they might even be too sturdy. As per the posting above, suspending the case in helium baloons would be the ultimate in breaking the vibration transmittance trail - so, the softer the better (cf. the other end of the scale, rigid mounting). This seems counter-intuitive at first, but it's the way to go. You also discovered about your (solid state...) UPS that loading it lowered vibrations, as also did pressing down on it, but that''s the issue of making the case panels more rigid, i.e. less prone to vibrate.

Which brings me to your next question:

The cellfoam seems more popular. Any reason for the rubber/asphalt stuff? Is it heavier?

Yes, it's heavier, and it also has high internal dampening charasteristics. It adds to panel weight (harder to make vibrate) and also to resonace frequency changning for the better (up?) plus vibration energy absorbance vie the internal dampening. Cellfoam can bee good for air borne noise, but my experience is that you need thick (10 cm!) material to effectively make a difference (leaving you no space inside the case...)

/ datapappan

[IsaacKuo]

I actually just yanked the plug on the front 6cm fan in the case and the nasty 2cm fan on the Celeron's HSF. So far, so cool. Too bad that thing doesn't have a temperature sensor in it.

I'm perhaps the only SPCR'er who has no idea what the temperatures on any of his equipment is like. I use "the finger test". If it's too hot for me to touch with my finger, it's too hot.

The only fan now is the 8cm in the Enmax PSU that I got second hand. I could replace the fan, but the noisiest component is, unsurprisingly, the 4GB IBM SCSI disk.

I'm not surprised. Hard drives are the bane of the older computer silencer.

Anyway, buying a new fan is not necessary. I'm possibly the only SPCR'er who has never bought a computer fan. Instead, I scrounge up all the 80+mm fans I can get my hands on and test them out at 5v. Some don't spin up or don't spin reliably. Others do spin, but exhibit excessive "clickiness" or other noise. Some spin silently, but provide pitifully little airflow (doesn't stop me from trying to cool an entire Northwood system with one of them).

It's easy to set up a crude fan testing rig using an old AT power supply. Just remove the fan from the PSU and connect some terminals to the red/black wires (for 5 volts).

I didn't bother to duct the Celeron system. Not entirely sure how I'd do that, anyway. How do you 'duct' a system like Dell's older P3 and their P4 systems?

I usually make a duct out of a clear plastic fruit cup or food container. I also use plastic juice bottles, but these tend to be made out of thicker plastic that's more annoying to cut.

Usually, my duct is attached to the PSU, so that air blowing from the PSU is directed in the direction toward the CPU heatsink. Air being blown out from a duct has some "directionality", so it doesn't need to be a perfect fit. This is in contrast to the typical CPU duct, which "sucks" air from the CPU heatsink. Since sucking air into a duct has no directionality, it needs to have a very good fit to be effective.

Flip? As in have it blow air into the system, er?

Yes. It makes the duct work easier and simpler. Also, it utilizes a fan's airflow more efficiently than a PSU exhaust fan. The airflow exiting from a fan has a helical component which is "wasted" in an exhaust fan. With an intake fan, this swirling airflow can be used to circulate air more effectively.

My P3 Slot 1 is actually from a Dell system, so I already had to rip off the original Dell HSF configuration and replace it with some SECC2(?) HSF I bought off Ebay a few years ago.

You know those plastic support thingies on the motherboard? You can just rip them out. It neatly gets rid of all those physical compatability issues. My slot-1 processors are held in by slot friction alone. The slot depth ensures a good reliable grip.

You should post some photos of your setup, if you haven't already.

Here are a couple examples of my slot-1 handiwork:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=22837

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=22838

[jasonb885]

I actually just yanked the plug on the front 6cm fan in the case and the nasty 2cm fan on the Celeron's HSF. So far, so cool. Too bad that thing doesn't have a temperature sensor in it.

I'm perhaps the only SPCR'er who has no idea what the temperatures on any of his equipment is like. I use "the finger test". If it's too hot for me to touch with my finger, it's too hot.

That's certainly true. If it burns you, there's a problem. The only exception is probably a GPU when actively performing heavy 3D operations.

I touched the Celeron after powering it on and then a few hours later. It was fine. It didn't even feel warm. I haven't ripped off that junky mainboard stabilizer to keep it the SECC2 in its slot. As you mention below, it's actually okay with out that plastic junk. My P3 is mounted entirely via the force into the slot itself, since I ripped off Dell's mounting stuff and moved the mainboard into a real case. (The Dell case really sucked and I didn't have the original OEM mounting rails!)

It's worthwhile to note that you really need to ensure that the SECC2 CPU is fully mounted. I had mine exhibit some very funky problems or it simply failed to boot until I reseated it a few times. It's been fine since and I hadn't moved the case since then. I may need to reseat it since I drove with the thing in my car for two hours last week.

The only fan now is the 8cm in the Enmax PSU that I got second hand. I could replace the fan, but the noisiest component is, unsurprisingly, the 4GB IBM SCSI disk.

I'm not surprised. Hard drives are the bane of the older computer silencer.

Yes, especially SCSI disks. They have this amazing whine to them. My favorite is SCSI disks, when they start to near death, making this extremely loud whining noise you can hear miles away, or something.

But more on that later...

Anyway, buying a new fan is not necessary. I'm possibly the only SPCR'er who has never bought a computer fan. Instead, I scrounge up all the 80+mm fans I can get my hands on and test them out at 5v. Some don't spin up or don't spin reliably. Others do spin, but exhibit excessive "clickiness" or other noise. Some spin silently, but provide pitifully little airflow (doesn't stop me from trying to cool an entire Northwood system with one of them).

It's easy to set up a crude fan testing rig using an old AT power supply. Just remove the fan from the PSU and connect some terminals to the red/black wires (for 5 volts).

Sweet. I don't think I brought any spare PSUs with me. Your setup is incredibly cool, though.

I didn't bother to duct the Celeron system. Not entirely sure how I'd do that, anyway. How do you 'duct' a system like Dell's older P3 and their P4 systems?

I usually make a duct out of a clear plastic fruit cup or food container. I also use plastic juice bottles, but these tend to be made out of thicker plastic that's more annoying to cut.

Usually, my duct is attached to the PSU, so that air blowing from the PSU is directed in the direction toward the CPU heatsink. Air being blown out from a duct has some "directionality", so it doesn't need to be a perfect fit. This is in contrast to the typical CPU duct, which "sucks" air from the CPU heatsink. Since sucking air into a duct has no directionality, it needs to have a very good fit to be effective.

Most impressive.

Flip? As in have it blow air into the system, er?

Yes. It makes the duct work easier and simpler. Also, it utilizes a fan's airflow more efficiently than a PSU exhaust fan. The airflow exiting from a fan has a helical component which is "wasted" in an exhaust fan. With an intake fan, this swirling airflow can be used to circulate air more effectively.

My P3 Slot 1 is actually from a Dell system, so I already had to rip off the original Dell HSF configuration and replace it with some SECC2(?) HSF I bought off Ebay a few years ago.

You know those plastic support thingies on the motherboard? You can just rip them out. It neatly gets rid of all those physical compatability issues. My slot-1 processors are held in by slot friction alone. The slot depth ensures a good reliable grip.

Yes, I did my P3 that way. I left the Celeron alone since it bore the generic plastic mount and not Dell's proprietary mount that was worthless without a Dell case.

You should post some photos of your setup, if you haven't already.

Here are a couple examples of my slot-1 handiwork:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=22837

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=22838

Dude, that is super cool.

On the matter of noisy SCSI disks, I made an interesting discover last night while messing around with my systems. I powered them all down, save one. I left the one with the countinues, irritating, make-me-one-fry-short-of-a-happy-meal noise running. It makes this predictable, perpetual,

rrrrrrrrrooommmmmm
rrrrrrroooommmmmm
rrrroooommmmm

It echoes through all the walls, the floor boards, everything. It's not a harmoneous, continuous whormmmmmm like any other sane system (ignoring the clicking from disks), but this constant slap in the face while I'm trying to sleep two rooms down every four seconds or so. Ugh.

Anyway, I went to power down the above system with the usual 'shutdown -h now' which initiated the process. Towards the end of the shutdown sequence, the disks are umounted, the kernel buffers flushed, and the disks sync. Then, before the system shuts down (all fans still running), the disks park.

And the noise was gone.

Then the system shutdown about five seconds later, taking the fans with it.

Apparently one of my six disks is responsible for this continuous, revolving, thunking noise.

It actually reminds me of a light house, the way it works. The light goes around in a 360, always blinding you at the same time. Same deal, and just as continuous and predictable, but with sound.

Ugh -- Makes me nuts.

I'm going to figure out _which_ disk tonight.

[jasonb885]

Apparently one of my six disks is responsible for this continuous, revolving, thunking noise.

It actually reminds me of a light house, the way it works. The light goes around in a 360, always blinding you at the same time. Same deal, and just as continuous and predictable, but with sound.

Ugh -- Makes me nuts.

I'm going to figure out _which_ disk tonight.

Wow. It's the 30GB Quantum Fireball I bought in 2000 for about $115.

It seems to be causing huge vibrations because I have it mounted in the lower drive cage, which is not welded into the case. Instead, it comes loose for easy of drive insertion. I have the floppy in there as well.

Pressing firmly against it seems to cause the noise to abate somewhat, which indicates to me it's the root cause of the most annoying noise. I stopped each CPU fan in turn, just to verify, but they aren't the problem.

I suppose I could mount it in one of the 5.25" bays. I could possibly do without it, also, although it is my temporary storage disk. A nice, full 30GB of temporary space. I prefer that to have the RAID 5 hit constantly for small reads and writes, which may adversely effect performance.

I guess I'll have to think about it...

Meanwhile I brought the backup server online and its 9.2cm fan makes a bit of a whooshing sound. Now that I could definitely try undervolting to +5V. The PSU fan is a bit clicky, but that's entirely masked by the fileserver's six disks. Heh.



Wow, sweet.

If anyone is running Linux and wants to see which ATA disk is causing issues, you can issue a

Code: Select all

nebula:~# hdparm -C /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 drive state is:  active/idle
nebula:~# man hdparm
Reformatting hdparm(8), please wait...
nebula:~# hdparm -y /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 issuing standby command

And it may power your drive down. It powered my noisy Quantum Fireball down, verifying that is indeed the most annoying noise generating component of all my setups. The room-to-room vibration is mostly gone when the drive is asleep.

Too bad it can't operate this way.

[IsaacKuo]

You may or may not be able to power down a drive that way if it's mounted. In particular, an ext3 partition may be receiving periodic journaling updates on a rapid basis.

When it comes to identifying sources of noise, the ideal thing is to power EVERYTHING off except for just one component at a time. This is often difficult/impossible to arrange, of course, but it helps to try.

It really helps to have an old AT power supply with its fan stripped out. Unlike an ATX power supply, you simply toggle the power switch to turn it on/off instantly.

For hard drives, you can determine the idle noise by simply plugging the AT power supply into it. You can easily power up just one hard drive that way, without even removing it from the case (unless the power connectors are difficult to access).

[jasonb885]

You may or may not be able to power down a drive that way if it's mounted. In particular, an ext3 partition may be receiving periodic journaling updates on a rapid basis.

I'm running XFS, or, it would indeed power up when the journal comes due, assuming ext3 actually needs to hit the disk.

When it comes to identifying sources of noise, the ideal thing is to power EVERYTHING off except for just one component at a time. This is often difficult/impossible to arrange, of course, but it helps to try.

It really helps to have an old AT power supply with its fan stripped out. Unlike an ATX power supply, you simply toggle the power switch to turn it on/off instantly.

For hard drives, you can determine the idle noise by simply plugging the AT power supply into it. You can easily power up just one hard drive that way, without even removing it from the case (unless the power connectors are difficult to access).

While that's certainly an excellent approach, I wouldn't discount the value of killing each drive from a Knoppix boot, which actually nearly anyone could do with a little basic Googling, and disabling each IDE disk one at a time.

If a disk is truly your noise problem, it will become quite apparently when the disk parks and you can suddenly hear other case sounds. In my instance, the disk in question was adding substantially to my noise load and it was even more obvious with all the other components still running. Of course, if all your parts are nearly equally as loud, you probably won't notice as much.

I still feel it's a valid way of checking your IDE disks and you don't even have to open the box up to do it!

Too bad all my other disks are running on a 3Ware. I don't feel like opening the box and swapping each drive onto the on board ATA controller one-at-a-time to see if it makes any real difference.

[jasonb885]

The above takes care of cause 1, for no 2 you need to add weight and damping to the case sides. I've used car damping, not the cellfoam but rather the rubber/asphalt stuff.

Do you mean stuff like this?

http://www.techimo.com/forum/archive/in ... 11466.html

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/dampere.html

Sounds relatively inexpensive compared to the professional audiophile stuff for cars and apparently works well on PCs.

I might get some to apply around my A/C unit, too. It's about 10 ft away from me in this room and it gives off this awful noise. Being in Florida, you pretty much have to use the A/C, too...

Thanks!

[qviri]

I might get some to apply around my A/C unit, too. It's about 10 ft away from me in this room and it gives off this awful noise.

You're trapped! There is no escape from the world of silence for you.

[CA_Steve]

As per the posting above, suspending the case in helium baloons would be the ultimate in breaking the vibration transmittance trail

Yeah, but if you use more than one balloon, the vibrations may resonate the strings (think piano, violin, guitar...) and then transmit this to the balloons that will then vibrate against each other. Go for the single sturdy weather balloon with high payload and make sure you set the cable length for minimum resonance

[jasonb885]

I'm thinking about some of these, and they're reasonably priced to boot.

LIGHTWEIGHT VINYL SOUND DAMPING SHEET 10"x13"
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdet ... er=268-030

ACOUSTIC FOAM 2-1/2" 24"x18" UL94
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl ... er=260-515

SONIC BARRIER 1" ACOUSTIC FOAM w/PSA 18" x 24"
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl ... er=260-516

Adhesive / Sonex Water-Base
http://www.markertek.com/SearchProduct. ... &sort=prod

54 x 54 x 2 Inch Thick Gray UL94 Acoustic Foam (& 3" foam too)
http://www.markertek.com/SearchProduct. ... &sort=prod

Fibreglass Evercoat 116 - Q-Pads Sound Deadener 12-ö x 12-ö 6/pk 6/case
http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/fib116.html

I'm thinking about the first link.

Anyone have any firsthand experience with these?

Maybe this should be a new thread... (or a search.)



And maybe I'll add this to my SECC2 P3 600MHz. The current HSF has a noisy 2cm fan, but with the fan unplugged and system idle it eventually gets warm to the touch. Under load with a closed case it might get hotter than I'd like with the fan.

http://www.nexfan.com/aocpiseco.html

[jasonb885]

Wow. It's the 30GB Quantum Fireball I bought in 2000 for about $115.

It seems to be causing huge vibrations because I have it mounted in the lower drive cage, which is not welded into the case. Instead, it comes loose for easy of drive insertion. I have the floppy in there as well.

I tried mounting it a few different places to no avail.

I finally removed it, remembered I had a spare, idle 120GB Maxtor (it's matched RAID 0 pair died so I shelfed it), and installed that in place of the 30GB Quantum. Problem finally solved.

Those bearing based disk really kill you dead. The 30GB disk was seriously reliable, though. It's been getting hit with continuous random I/O for a few years straight without fail. Sigh. I guess I'll see how well that Maxtor does.

[inti]

To resurrect an old thread, I just moved my PC (three fans, five drives, see signature) and the noise while objectively the same is subjectively very much more intrusive. Reason for posting here is I have wooden floors, hard furniture, no carpet like the OP.

Original position of the PC was under a desk, at the rear, facing side on to the rear wall so fans pointing sideways.

New position of the PC is more 'in the open', with the rear of the PC case 4 inches from the wall. I think the main noise source is the case fan and the PSU fan, whose noise is now 'reflecting' off the wall and back into the room - also there is generally a more direct noise path from the PC to the room as it is not blocked by a desk.

I've checked the obvious things like to see whether any of the suspended drives moved when I moved the case, but all are still correctly decoupled, as is the intake/drive cooling fan. (Anyhow the drives other than the C: drive are mostly spun down.) It's really amazing to me how much noise a Seasonic S12-430 and a 5V 120mm case fan can make. Unfortunately apart from carpet, cushions and other 'external' things, I can think of no additional internal way to quieten this PC.

[breunor]

I'm pretty sure you'll get a lot of sound reflecting off hard surfaces, especially the higher frequencies. I think I've read of folks putting some fabric on the wall behind the exhausts to absorb some of that sound, it might help you as well.

[jaganath]

You'd be amazed what a bit of shag pile carpet put on the wall directly behind the PC will do for sound absorption/reduction.

Unfortunately apart from carpet, cushions and other 'external' things, I can think of no additional internal way to quieten this PC.

Well, you could swap the fan in the S12-430 but that would be a bit drastic IMHO.