I am writing an article for a Danish webpage regarding Cpu related noise.
My plan is to start out at the very beginning in 1979 when Intel introduced the 8088 cpu then move forward as the cpu's got faster. A long the way I intend to describe how faster cpu's also meant warmer cpu's and that that development at some point also meant cpu related noise from the cooling solutions (fans).
There are lots of descriptions of this small part of history. but none of them pay much attention to noise. Therefore I hope that some of you can help me answer a few questions.
1. I assume that the first PC's where cooled passively. Is that correct?
2. Did the first PC's make any noise at all?
3. Does anyone know of a source that has info on powercomsumption on the early models? (if not then give me what you got)
4. When did cpu related noise first appear? ( in other words: when did we see the first fans? )
5. Do you know of any cpu that changed the noise level dramatically? (I remember going from a 486 to an athlon 1200 - that made me look for this page)
6. Does anyone know where I could find pictures of the first cpu's and the cooling solutions (including the first fans)?
Let’s get nostalgic!
Hope you will take a look in the back of brain and help me out.
Thanks
Help on project
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
SPCR's article Quiet and Fast? contains some noise-related history.
cpu
I wrote my dissertation in an IBM XT. The cpu (an intel 8086, or maybe a 8088) didn't need any heatsinks, and there was a power supply with a fan that was audible, but it did not bother me at that time (I was a lot younger then....). Two 5-inch floppies, one with wordperfect 4 (or was it 5.1 already...don't remember) and the other containing my whole book. Everything under DOS, of course. Amazing.
Regards.
Regards.
-
frostedflakes
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Up until CPUs began to require active cooling, I think the biggest noise producer was the hard drive. We even have a Pentium II 350MHz slot 1 Compaq with no fan on the CPU cooler. The CPU used a large heatsink, and the case only had two low-speed fans (one intake blowing onto the CPU heatsink and one exhaust in the power supply). The fans were literally inaudible, but the whine from the hard drive was enough to drive you nuts!
One of the best place to get pictures and information about legacy (and current) CPU's is cpu-collection.de. You can also look at the engineering-sample zone for pictures of pre-production samples.
BTW, the first CPU was not the 8080, it was the 4004 released in 1971, but the 8080 is considered to be the first usable CPU for a computer. Gee! looking at those pictures really makes me remember of my first VIC20!
BTW, the first CPU was not the 8080, it was the 4004 released in 1971, but the 8080 is considered to be the first usable CPU for a computer. Gee! looking at those pictures really makes me remember of my first VIC20!
Here are some links to places specializing in old computers. You may find some more info there, especially since there are people there who actually still have these things running.
http://www.digibarn.com
http://www.vintage-computer.com
http://www.old-computers.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
One thing to keep in mind is that there used to be many different types of "personal computers", not just the basic "IBM PC" and "Apple Macintosh" architectures we have today. Most of these older computer systems have gone the way of the dinosaur. You may have heard of some of them, like the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Tandy TRS-80, but there were countless others, too.
Actually, one source of noise in old computers used to be the hard drives. That is, for computers that had hard drives. Many of them ran on floppies alone. Since hard drive technology was rather primitive by today's standards, it was hard enough to have them running at all, let alone run quietly.
Oh, wait. Printers. Printers used to be terribly noisy. Some were daisywheels, which were basically electric typewriters. Very loud electric typewriters. Others were dot matrix printers, which made a different kind of noise.
[rambling reminiscing]
I remember when I was a kid in the late 70's, my father had a Cromemco System Three in his home office. He was stylin' when he first got it, with its 32 kB system RAM and its 8" floppy drives.
In its default confugration, it made some noise (I think it had a system cooling exhaust fan in back), but it wasn't too bad.
However, that computer came with an optional hard drive that was a truly horrid beast. It came in a huge black box that weighed a ton. Just for reference, that fan on the back was a 120mm fan, so you can imagine how huge the thing was. The platters inside spun at 3600 rpm, so just imagine how much motor noise was needed to spin something that large. When you turned it on, it made a really loud whistling noise that sounded like an incoming mortar shell, with accompanying explosion.
Later on, my father started upgrading.
I think he upgraded the RAM up to 128 kB. The RAM expansion boards were somewhere between the size of a large PCI card and a small motherboard today. Problem was, they put out a lot of heat. The cabinet was not designed to handle that much heat, so the computer would start to freeze on hot days. At first, he tried opening the computer's from door, but that was not enough. He also tried pulling the system bus and cards out of the cabinet (the bus was on rails). It helped, but not enough. In the end, he purchased a fan assembly to go beneath the computer (like you see under rackmount equipment these days), plus he pointed a room fan at the bus cage hanging outside the computer. Bye bye, quiet computer days. 
I really wish I had some pictures (and audio recordings!) to show you from this old computer, because it was really funny to look at. He somehow kept it running until the early 1990's.
Since this was my first introduction to personal computing, I was always amazed several years later by how much quieter my friends' Apple II's were, as well as my brother's Commodore 64. In some ways, the Cromemco was ahead of its time, but I think it was also a case of trying to do too much with the technology that was available.
http://www.digibarn.com
http://www.vintage-computer.com
http://www.old-computers.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
One thing to keep in mind is that there used to be many different types of "personal computers", not just the basic "IBM PC" and "Apple Macintosh" architectures we have today. Most of these older computer systems have gone the way of the dinosaur. You may have heard of some of them, like the Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Tandy TRS-80, but there were countless others, too.
Actually, one source of noise in old computers used to be the hard drives. That is, for computers that had hard drives. Many of them ran on floppies alone. Since hard drive technology was rather primitive by today's standards, it was hard enough to have them running at all, let alone run quietly.
Oh, wait. Printers. Printers used to be terribly noisy. Some were daisywheels, which were basically electric typewriters. Very loud electric typewriters. Others were dot matrix printers, which made a different kind of noise.
[rambling reminiscing]
I remember when I was a kid in the late 70's, my father had a Cromemco System Three in his home office. He was stylin' when he first got it, with its 32 kB system RAM and its 8" floppy drives.
In its default confugration, it made some noise (I think it had a system cooling exhaust fan in back), but it wasn't too bad.However, that computer came with an optional hard drive that was a truly horrid beast. It came in a huge black box that weighed a ton. Just for reference, that fan on the back was a 120mm fan, so you can imagine how huge the thing was. The platters inside spun at 3600 rpm, so just imagine how much motor noise was needed to spin something that large. When you turned it on, it made a really loud whistling noise that sounded like an incoming mortar shell, with accompanying explosion.
Later on, my father started upgrading.
I think he upgraded the RAM up to 128 kB. The RAM expansion boards were somewhere between the size of a large PCI card and a small motherboard today. Problem was, they put out a lot of heat. The cabinet was not designed to handle that much heat, so the computer would start to freeze on hot days. At first, he tried opening the computer's from door, but that was not enough. He also tried pulling the system bus and cards out of the cabinet (the bus was on rails). It helped, but not enough. In the end, he purchased a fan assembly to go beneath the computer (like you see under rackmount equipment these days), plus he pointed a room fan at the bus cage hanging outside the computer. Bye bye, quiet computer days. I really wish I had some pictures (and audio recordings!) to show you from this old computer, because it was really funny to look at. He somehow kept it running until the early 1990's.
Since this was my first introduction to personal computing, I was always amazed several years later by how much quieter my friends' Apple II's were, as well as my brother's Commodore 64. In some ways, the Cromemco was ahead of its time, but I think it was also a case of trying to do too much with the technology that was available.
Re: Help on project
1. I think PSU's were always active cooled.
2. No, their hard drives were very loud. Pre FDB age.
4. I bought a gateway in 1998 and it's pentium 3 500 was passively cooled (although ducted to the PSU fan)
6. maybe wikipedia?
2. No, their hard drives were very loud. Pre FDB age.
4. I bought a gateway in 1998 and it's pentium 3 500 was passively cooled (although ducted to the PSU fan)
6. maybe wikipedia?