Sound Dampening Foam's Effectiveness?

[Cap'n Pedro]

I've tried placing the kind of foam used for cushioning PCI cards around my CPU's heatsink, and although it made my CPU temp rise by 8*C I'm cool with it; it does lower noise a small amount. The HS is only rated at 25dB (ish) but I need to make my PC quieter. So, how effective is sound dampening foam on a PC that is already quite quiet? Also, what's it like for reducing HDD clicking sounds and optical drive spinning up sounds?

Also, is there any specific brand I should look for?

Thanks and regards, Pedro

 

[DeepScience]

Wrapping insulation around your heatsink? That strikes me as very silly thing to do. Get a heatpipe cooler without any fan.

 

[Cap'n Pedro]

I'm not exactly a sensible guy. (It was just a test)

I'm afraid heat pipe coolers are out of the question. My custom case it extremely small and there isn't room.

 

[Tyreal]

You are suppose to place the dampening foam on the sidepanels of oyur case. It helps elimanate some of the high pitch noises. Helps a bit not not a whole lot.

Put it along the bottom of the case, and on the inside of both panels.

 

[Just1nCase]

You are suppose to place the dampening foam on the sidepanels of oyur case. It helps elimanate some of the high pitch noises. Helps a bit not not a whole lot.

Put it along the bottom of the case, and on the inside of both panels.

Before I plan getting Dampening Foam for my PC, what brand do you recommend getting? I was planning to get this dampening foam from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811998601 ... By the way, my computer is not really noisy, but the high pitch whine from my old 30GB Western Digital that bothers me.

 

[Kil4Thril]

Backer foam used for hardwood flooring works really well, but it's an ugly green color at Home Depot.

 

[Shadowknight281]

If you're old WD drive is ball bearing, forget it. You'll have to replace it with an FDB drive. Acoustic foam is usually the last step in making a quiet computer.

 

[Just1nCase]

If you're old WD drive is ball bearing, forget it. You'll have to replace it with an FDB drive. Acoustic foam is usually the last step in making a quiet computer.

I have two HDDs.. One's a Seagate 120GB (ST3120026A) and other is a Western Digital 30GB (WD300BB).

Is the Western Digital Drive is a ball-bearing HDD? Im thinking "yes" since it has the "BB" acronym, which stand stands for "Ball Bearing," right? Well, here is a link of WD Specs:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=718&p_created=1037286804

.. and what's a FDB Drive?

 

[Shadowknight281]

FDB: Fluid Dynamic Bearing. Much quieter than the old BB. My recommendation is to turn on your computer with one drive plugged in at a time. If one is relatively quiet and the other sounds like it'll give you a headache and you can hear several rooms over, it's a BB.

 

[Just1nCase]

Both of them aren't that loud.. it's more of a subtle high pitch whine... so doesthat mean dampening foam would be effective in this case?

 

[larrymoencurly]

Has anybody tried the foam sold for making cars quieter? There's one kind made with steel powder mixed in with the foam for extra dampening of lower frequencies.

 

[Shadowknight281]

Just1nCase: It's going to depend on how noisy the drives are. The good acoustifoam is repudetedly better at dealing with high pitched noise than lower. My experience in using a Acoustifoam is in an already quiet system, using a Samsung Spinpoint, which is almost completely inaudible when decoupled from the case. Were I you, I would post this question on the silentpcreview forums and see if anyone else has used foam with one or both of your drives and if it has made a big difference on drives with high pitch noise.

 

[Just1nCase]

Just1nCase: It's going to depend on how noisy the drives are. The good acoustifoam is repudetedly better at dealing with high pitched noise than lower. My experience in using a Acoustifoam is in an already quiet system, using a Samsung Spinpoint, which is almost completely inaudible when decoupled from the case. Were I you, I would post this question on the silentpcreview forums and see if anyone else has used foam with one or both of your drives and if it has made a big difference on drives with high pitch noise.

Thanks for the advice!.. I'll check that place out.