Sound dampening and noise control: How do you keep your PC quiet?

[Erik89]

Hey guys.

I have been working on ways to keep my PC quiet, but I cant really get satisfied.

Picture of my PC:



As you can see, I have tried to cover a lot of surfaces with "acoustic foam", and I use high quality fans (Noctua NF F12) in combination with a fan controller. Beneath the acoustic foam with the eggbox shape there are very dense ~2mm (bitumen?) plates, and beneath them again there is the foam that came with the case (Obsidian 550D). See illustration:



I can still hear my PC "fairly" well. I think what I can hear is the H100i pump, and maybe noise from turbulence caused by the mesh after the H80 exhaust in the back of the case.

How do you keep you PC quiet?

 

[bob4933]

Not to be a... anywho... you have the quietest fans, in a sealed case, with acoustic foam. If you can hear anything through that, your hearing is probably bordering the super human range.

Do you have the fans mounted with rubber/foam washers? Same with the motherboard mounts, you can use foam washers with longer screws if thats your bag. Other than that... no theres really nothing you can do haha.

 

[Erik89]

Not to be a... anywho... you have the quietest fans, in a sealed case, with acoustic foam. If you can hear anything through that, your hearing is probably bordering the super human range.

Do you have the fans mounted with rubber/foam washers? Same with the motherboard mounts, you can use foam washers with longer screws if thats your bag. Other than that... no theres really nothing you can do haha.

Everything mounted in the case is mounted on rubber washers.

I was thinking I would cut out the mesh out of from the exhaust, and maybe on the intakes.

 

[bob4933]

That won't do anything really. If you're "hearing" things, I'm willing to bet it's more vibration of the case than a singular component. My lian li case sounds like a rocket ship taking off, but my home brew case is dead silent.

Air moving makes noise, there's literally nothing to change that fact. Perhaps some dampers on the fan exhausts, but I can't promise anything on thermal effects.

That said, your best option is probably just moving the case further away or slapping some headphones on. You've done above and beyond what I've seen anyone else do, and I can't think of anything (besides changing to a plastic case perhaps) to make it more quiet.

Any chance for a sound clip?

 

[Erik89]

I think I'm going to cut out the grills on the exhaust and see what that does, it should make the air leaving less turbulent, especially considering that the fans have flow "straitening" abilities

Putting dampening material which will also slow the airflow isn't an option, because I could just slow down the fan itself instead to remove the noise from turbulence. I think that performance is priority 1, and then quieting everything down as much as possible without sacrificing thermals is priority 2. Of course, I'm willing to go up 5 C to shave of 10 decibel, but not up 2 C to shave of 2 decibel.

I can upload a sound clip later today (not home atm).

I would have thought that this was a hotter subject, but things have been quiet in this thread

 

[Erik89]

My microphone can't pick up the noise. :/

 

[anthony0030]

I see you have a hard drive in your specs. have you tried tempureraly disabeling it in device managment or unplugingit. then see if that makes a diferance.

 

[Alaric]

How do you keep you PC quiet?

Headphones! LOL
My PC is about as noisy as they get. Corsair fans are loud , plus I had to build a wind tunnel in it to move air through very cramped quarters (see sig).

 

[Mpegger]

In my quest to quiet down my main computer, I did alot to get rid of all noise makers (old fans replaced with newer, larger, slower spinning ones; water cooling loop out; some HDDs out; the PSU swapped for a silent one, and other fixes) to the point where it was too quiet for either of my db meters to pickup (<30db). It was nirvana.

However, in doing so the cooler used (Thermaltake Macho, not exactly a slouch) was not adequate enough to keep the cpu cool, and it immediately spiked to 90C (ambient room only 71F) on all cores when all cores were being utilized 100%. And this was also after de-lidding (though I only used AS5 on the core). I've since gone back to the water loop, and made my own decoupling "sandwich" to nearly eliminate all case vibrations (both the HDDs that remain and water pump are decoupled from the case by similar "sandwiches"). It's back to "normal" temps (max so far is 57C) after also getting CLP and PK-3 as the TIMs, but not as quiet as before. The main culprit is the fan pushing air through the radiator. Its not the air flow that is making noise, but it appears to be the motor of the fan itself.

I am going to try and reduce this fan noise by moving the fan away from the radiator via a shroud, as I believe the motor facing the outside is whats causing the noise, much like in your setup. The motors on the same exact fans that face inward to the case, are not audible compared to the one exhausting.

 

[Erik89]

I see you have a hard drive in your specs. have you tried tempureraly disabeling it in device managment or unplugingit. then see if that makes a diferance.

Not a bad idea!

Headphones! LOL
My PC is about as noisy as they get. Corsair fans are loud , plus I had to build a wind tunnel in it to move air through very cramped quarters (see sig).

LoL

I built wind tunnels in one of my first pc's using semi soft plastics. Not sure how well they worked and they sure didn't look very pretty, but is was a fun experiment

I am going to try and reduce this fan noise by moving the fan away from the radiator via a shroud, as I believe the motor facing the outside is whats causing the noise, much like in your setup. The motors on the same exact fans that face inward to the case, are not audible compared to the one exhausting.

Moving the fans a little bit away from what they are pushing against can help a lot with noise, but if you leave a gap between the fan and its radiator then the airflow is going to suffer (path of least resistance always wins). I used a rubbery tape to close this gap, as you can see in the picture (black part expands onto the fan itself).

I modded the powersupply so that I can adjust the speed of its fan from the outside, and that made a big difference. The downside is that I don't know how hot it gets inside it, but I haven't smelled anything burning yet

 

[Theocnoob]

OP, honestly, I think you're being too, as we would say in Spanish "Tickis Mickis". In other words, too sensitive and picky. I have an Antec P100 with stock fans on max RPM and I can't hear it. It has " moderate sound dampening" on both side panels with a baffled front intake with sound dampening. I really can't hear it. Any PC with fans/a pump is going to make some degree of noise at any given time. My suggestion is to come to embrace the white noise, or put on some music. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

 

[Erik89]

No doubt, Theocnoob. I am very picky, and I am that way when it comes to most things I set my mind to. I get kinda absorbed for a while

I think it's fun to see how quiet I can get the PC

My computer is in no way noisy. It's only if my appartment is dead silent that I can make out the sound of my computer when I'm sitting at my desk right next to it.

It's just for fun to see how quiet it can get

Merry Christmas and a happy New year to you too!

 

[NiHaoMike]

Variable speed is a must have. One try and you'll fall in love.

Also note that while the inverters built into variable speed case fans look nothing like the unit shown in the video, they work on the same principle.