Computer is so loud, and I make music! What can I do?

[kooz]

Hi there

This is my first post here and this place looks quite cool

What my problem is, is that my computer is so loud! I make music and all I can ever bloody hear is the fans and buzzing sounds. What can I do? If you could recommend a case and whatever else to make it super quiet that would be brill as I get paid on Wednesday. I have an Amd athlon xp 2000 chip and my motherboard is a gigabyte if that is any hep. Oh by the way, if you havent noticed Im a bit of a novice.

Thanks guys

Kooz

:disgust:

 

[BoleyWV]

I am sure other will reply with exact suggestions for cases and fans that are quiet. But I am going to throw out a few general suggestions.

1) Find out what is making all the racket:
Is it your powersupply fan? The processor fan? Additional cooling fans on the case (if you have them)?

2) Simply replace the offending parts. This may be a simply as new fans or as complex as a new case and power suppy.

3) Consider sound dampening materials. This may be the best solution if most of your noise is coming from one of your drives (hardrive or CD/DVD).

Also, you may be better off looking around in the Case and Cooling forum here on anandtech for suggestions.
Edit: N/M seems you cross posted in cases and cooling too.

 

[HokieESM]

Go look around SilentPCReview. There is quite a bit of good information about silencing your computer there.... from small easy steps, to downright ludicrous. I will say, starting from scratch, you can build a VERY quiet PC with not much additional expense.

Oh... and to add to Boley's advice.... hard drives (particularly WD JBs) can be major offenders... particularly if you hate high-pitched squeal. Look into the Samsungs.

 

[kooz]

cheers lads, took first advcie and posted in correct section. Will definately check out those sight sthough cheers mate

kooz

 

[kooz]

sorry just a quick question. i noticed you said hard drives can add to the noise. I have a maxtor, what are they like?

 

[biostud]

If money is not a problem you could go for water cooling and a fanless PSU, fluid harddrives, sounddampening plates.

Basically the most noisy things are the PSU fan, CPU fan and non-fluid harddrives.

 

[DaveSimmons]

^ and some video cards have small, whiny fans. There are silent video cards to fix this.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: kooz
sorry just a quick question. i noticed you said hard drives can add to the noise. I have a maxtor, what are they like?

most maxtor harddrives are on the louder side of average... the quietest harddrives ive ever seen/heard are: ibm/hitachi 180gxp series, seagate barracuda IV

 

[neutralizer]

Consider watercooling or making music farther away from the computer.

 

[DocAZ]

I know what its like. but did you build or buy. I built and I know my cpu fan is the culprit.
My temp is very low though.

Mine sounds like an Aircraft APU.

$.02

Without any more info, its probable a fan ( my best guess)

 

[gsellis]

Shotguns and longer cables? The PC is not your quick fix. Figure out how to get something between the pc and the mike. How about hanging some comforters and sheets around it (not over it)? But don't over cable. Maybe a friend has a DAT or some other Digital Audio Recorder? Record to that and then transfer.

 

[tart666]

before you spend too much money on new PSU, HSF, hard drive, or case fans, have you tried getting a Dell? For about $250 a Dell 400SC will be unnoticeable, and barely more expensive than a new set of the quiet-certified components...

 

[1sikbITCH]

Headphones.

 

[Ionizer86]

You can unplug your fans temporarily to see the amount of noise reduction. This can help you gauge which fans are noisy and which are acceptable. From there, you can get to replacing some stuff.

Since you have a 2000+ you probably have a retail HSF. The first thing I'd do is put a 3rd party heatsink and a quiet fan there. Something like a ALX-800 heatsink (best sub $25 heatsink) along with a Papst 12dBa fan will be very silent.

Check your hard drive too; it can cause whine. What kind of Maxtor do you have btw? Depending on what kind, you could quiet it down without paying for a new drive by using their acoustic management utility (at the penalty of performance, of course).

 

[Atlantean]

Originally posted by: kooz
sorry just a quick question. i noticed you said hard drives can add to the noise. I have a maxtor, what are they like?

Quietest harddrive I have ever used is the Seagate Barracuda IV. You might want to try that out. You can usually tell where the noise is coming from, if its a constant hum its your fans...

 

[MatthewF01]

obviously its only a problem when youre using a mic...
i HOPE youre not miking instruments...better be using line-in!

What sound card are you using?

I have done some recording with my Audigy and Im pretty impressed with the quality...
http://bellsouthpwp.net/m/a/matthewf01/aural-optical/search%20the%20seas%2016-bit.mp3


anyway, for mics I try to keep as far away from the PC as possible, but dont go and buy 100ft of cable or something because word on the street is that for every 25ft or so of cable you lose a few decibels of signal...not good when you want some decent sounding product.

Position your PC near a doorway, run headphones and mic out the doorway and close the door to record from mic...heh sounds stupid but it works.

My PC is in a room with like 5 other computers, and the room is only like 10'x10'... my PC is by far the loudest though.

 

[T9D]

..

 

[Pilsnerpete]

Originally posted by: xerosleep
the guy is new, you people are going to make his brain explode with all this stuff right off the bat.

FIRST thing you do is go buy a $30 vantec nexus fan controller and hook all the fans to that. That will make a HUGE difference when you turn the fans down. See how that is and then move on from there only if you need to. I also record and have a decent amount of money in mics and preamps and sound cards. My PC is only a few feet from my mics. I just turn the fans as low as they can go when I record. I don't have a problem. If you are running condenser mics and running them hot it's going to be tough. May have to just totally put it in another room. Anyway start with the fan controller first.

Instead of spending $30, you could go to Radio Shack and buy a 3-position toggle switch for like $5, wire one side to 12v and ground, the other to 5v and ground and the middle to all the fans you want to turn from high to low. Drill an appropriately sized hole somewhere in your case and mount the switch. Very simple, yet extremely effective. This is one of the tips from silentpcreview.com.

{You probably shouldn't put your cpu fan in this chain, because if you ever bump the switch into the OFF position, the lifespan of your cpu may be shortened. Of course that depends on the quality of your heatsink.}

 

[Abhi]

Get a dell ? ...

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Abhi
Get a dell ? ...

Not the greatest option but it'll do.

 

[Bluefront]

The first thing to do is stop hanging around Anandtech....heh. Unless you have five screaming 120mm fans, or a $1000 water pump setup, you'll not fit in.....

Actually there are several low-powered VIA C3 computers that function quite well with no or almost in-audible fans. It just depends on what you will need in a computer. One thing you won't need is un-necessary noise. SPCR is the place to hang around if noise concerns you...as it should.

 

[CptObvious]

IMO it'd be best to just put the computer in a separate room from where you're recording. I've spent a couple hundred getting a quieter case and bought a new HDD, but the fans still come through in my recordings. To minimize the noise I record vocals in my closet with the door closed. When I have to record acoustic guitar in my room, I try to use unidirectional or cardioid mics and point them away from the computer as the pickup is lowest directly behind those mics. Try hanging a blanket between you and the computer when recording if possible. Last, you may have to resort to using an expander/noise gate, or post-processing such as noise reduction. As much as I try to keep things quiet, I end up having to use both as my room as nowhere near studio quality.

As for quieting the computer, I'd look into getting a quiet HDD (I bought a Seagate Barracuda IV a couple months ago and it's one of the quietest I've owned) and maybe replace your case fans with Panaflo or Pabst fans.

 

[Mik3y]

or u can find a new hobby. j/k

 

[Bovinicus]

Antec makes a few good items for reducing overall system noise. Their Tru series of power supplies are very high quality and very low noise. As well, they offer a few cases with 120mm fans that are pretty quiet. The Sonata comes to mind. A cheaper way to go is just to replace your current case fans with some quieter ones. Panaflo makes some quiet fans, but they are sometimes hard to find. I just got some aerocool fans I am going to install in my dad's system than claim to be only 22dbA, which is near-silent.

The heatsink/fan on your CPU may be another source of noise. I have a Thermaltake Silent Boost in my system, and I used the Athlon64 variant in a friend's. It is an extremely quiet HSF. It reduced my overall system noise quite a lot. Again, you could always replace the fan on it with something quieter, but make sure that your CPU temps are low enough that they could stand to be a little higher.

Any HDD with fluid dynamic bearings should be virtually silent. Seagate's drives have been praised for being silent. My WD 1200JB is quiet enough most of the time, but I have heard quieter.

 

[clicknext]

I've got a simple (and rather stupid) way of seeing which components are making what noise. Take an empty toilet paper roll (or other hollow tube), hold it to your ear, and move it around to the different components.