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What Decibel Rating is loud

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for me personally, over 20dba from my computer is excessive but i think the general rule is 25dba is quiet, 27 to 30 is average, more than that is loud
 
anything over 40 gets real obnoxious.

To put it in simple terms at 50 decibels (which a tornado 92mm can easily achieve and then some) is about as loud as a normal conversation except imagine someone standing across from you just making an incessant "whirring" fan sound with no change of pitch while your trying to listen to what someone else is trying to tell you. Based on that, you be the judge on how long that can go on before you start to get annoyed.:D
 
To me anything over 22dba is too loud. I know thats nothing. Im just crazy like that. I do like to have my music and game LOUD!:mad:
 
pft... 20 db isnt loud. if you live in the city, most every day white noise is enough to cancel that out easily. I can tollerate anything up to 40 db for extended periods, but my computer is not in my bedroom. i have $150 headphones so i cant hear my pc when im plugged in and doing stuff with it.
Right now, my pc is somewhere around 30 db due to the large fans in it. compared to what i have had in the past, its damn quiet ^^:;
I dont know. i would like to have a quite pc, but as an overclocker, there are realistic limits. As long as i can hear the tv over my box, which i can real easy, im happy ^^
 
thermometer.jpg


here is the scale i use
 
I have to agree with others here, it depends where you live a lot.

At night or a quiet time, anything over 15dBa is clearly audible. Anything over ~22dBa can be annoying, depending on your preferences.

At regular daytime, most people don't mind anything not higher than ~28dBa. If you have a lot of ambient noise, anything below 30dBa would be masked.

Then there's the extremists.
Quiet freaks consider anything over 20dBa to be loud. Some even 15dBa, but it's really hard to get a system below 15dBa because of the HD. (Re: freak: no offense, just first word that came to my mind :rolleyes: actually I'm a quiet freak if I could afford it.)

Extreme air overclockers use fans that are ~50dBa, like the vantec tornados. I'm sure they mind it a bit, but to them 30dBa would probably be more them acceptable once they've gotten used to 50dBa.

General reference:
Stock HSFs are usually about 25-35dBa
Quiet HDs around 20-25dBa (such as seagates) and regular HDs ~30dBa.

Another thing about fan ratings. Often they differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. 28dBa from company #1 may be fairly louder than 30dBa from company #2. The ratings are generally relative, but they are often measured from difference distances and scenarios. Relative meaning: 50dBa from one company is almost certain to be louder than 30dBa from another company, in whatever case.
 
20dba is very quiet. Around 30 it gets like a wisper, and anything above 40 is loud. Above 50, it's too loud, unless you like having a vacuum cleaner always turned on in your room. Don't believe me that that's the EXACT sound those louder fans make? Go ahead and buy one. You'll see what I'm talking about and you'll know that when somebody uses the comparison with a vacuum cleaner, he's not joking but is copletely serious.
 
i dont mind a full blast vantec tornado 92mm. and thats 56dba. just your tolerance level most people find 35+ an annoyance. i turn my fans down so its prolly 30-35 dba to sleep. but when i game i turn em up.

Get a fan controller they help alot.
heres a nice 1. for cheap.
http://svc.com/surheafanspc.html
 
28db and under I'm happy. Lots of fans manufacturers like to cut their specs at 28db.
 
I'm happy with anything under 30 db. I run my PC in a room with a ceiling fan thats always on so I can't even hear the case fans anymore. Before even the PSU fan used to drive me nuts. Having another noise to drown the fans out really helps.
 
"pft... 20 db isnt loud. if you live in the city, most every day white noise is enough to cancel that out easily"

yeah, i live in the sticks. whatever my torin at 12V puts out, or a maxtor drive out in the open, thats as loud as i can handle...right now my computer makes me want to put my head through a wall.(which doesnt help, i could hear that ANYWHERE in this house with ALL the doors closed right now.
 
devilscow22 said:
get a tornado, use it for a weak and then everything is quiet.

Im going from a tornado to 3 7v 30 DB fans

Not too smart, while you do get used to it, you need louder noises to register effectively, with the possibility of ruining your hearing trying to register the same level noise.
 
heh. its been a while since i plugged in my little tornado. this box just doesnt overclock at all T_T what hard drives are you using that they make that kind of noise? I have only two fans in my computer right now. 2x 120 mm evercools that are running at 7 volts via fan controller so the only thing i hear is a little whoosh of air *and an annoying fizz from my fan controller <_<*
no hard drive though. I love seagate's.
I think we would all appreciate a good water cooling system. thats my next move. im somewhere between noise nazi and extreme. when im playing games, plugged in, i could care less about the noise because i cant hear it. im in the game and i love the extra smoothness ^^. however, its nice to have the machine quiet for when im working on art and stuff. so water cooling is definatly the way to go for those wanting to strike that ballance.
 
mine runs at around 30 db which isnt to bad considering i have 3 140mm bitfenix spectre pros and 4 120mm fans + watercooling etc sometimes it gets iritating but with razer kraken chromas i turn games on everything is inaudible

build is a corsair obsidian 750D case
i7 4790k@ 4.9 ghz
16gb 2400 mhz ddr3
2x asus gtx 780 strix
asus maximus ranger
crucial 512gb ssd + toshiba 2TB 7200rpm hdd
7x bitfenix spectre pro case fans 3x 140mm 4x 120mm
XSPC custom cpu cooling
strike X 800w psu (need more power)
10731020_10152879626003556_2297907802805810743_n_zps4e74cf01.jpg
 
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