Put some sound dampening in my case.

[SketchMaster]

I bought two sheets of 12x12 sound dampening material for $12 from a local car audio shop that was having a moving sale today and installed the two sheets on the two sides of my case. I really didn't expect much from it, I mainly got it just to have something new to play with and I've never used the stuff before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

First impressions are minimal, when I tap the metal it has a satisfyingly deep ?thump? to it and I I guess I could say it helped filter out a bit of the low level sound from the HDDs but nothing that made me say ?Wow!?. Mainly, I'm hoping it will get rid of the door rattle that happens from time to time when all six HDDS get in close tune and cause the door to rattle.

I'm going to be installing sound dampening in my car and I may order some extra stuff to apply to my case and give it a proper sound job. I'm thinking this stuff will do well since I can brush or spray it on so the whole case can get a coating, then I may throw a little foam in to take care of what little fan noise there is since I use large low speed fans and so I don't have much of an issues with high pitched noises.

 

[JBDan]

Stuff looks interesting. I'd like to know what your results are after it. Have you tried alternate method of HD mounting? Like suspending?

 

[SketchMaster]

As dumb as this may sound, I don't want to go through that much hassle just to drown out the HDD noise. I'm going to be upgrading from six small HDDS to 2-3 large HDDs to cut down on noise and power use. And I'm going to be using what ever is left over from my car to sound dampen my case, I'm not just ordering it for the computer.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Hmm... doesn't soundproofing insulate heat?

 

[Tiamat]

Sound deadening helps to mass load the case which reduced noise from mechanical vibrations. Sound however, will escape from the nearest hole and not get absorbed much by the deadening material since its not a sealed case. The ventilation holes are the prime candidates for sound to escape from your case. The easiest way to reduce system noise is to carefully buy parts that are known to output very low noise. This includes the motherboard (for passive chipset cooling), GPU (massive heatsink, low flow fan), CPU (massive heatsink, low flow fan),, PSU (high efficiency, low flow fan), Harddrive (low vibration, low noise).

In my experience:
Best fan to use: Yateloon D12SL-12 with some Zalman Fan-mate 2 for all fan requirements (20$ for 4, probably 15$ for fanmates)
Good PSU: Corsair 450vx or any newer Seasonic PSU ($60)
Good CPU heastink: Sythe Ninja, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme (40-55$)
Good HDD: New Western Digital Green 1TB (260$)
Good GPU: Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 ($20)

If you change all these out, you are guaranteed to have an incredibly quiet case.

The effects of sound dampening by mass loading become more apparent after all these measures are taken and is the 'final' step to reduce system noise. Unfortunately, its effect is not as perceivable when there are still huge noise makers within the case as broadband sound is the dominating problem rather than mechanical vibration and high frequency sound.

 

[Elcs]

Acousti Pack Deluxe Review

My review of Acoustipack Deluxe.

As you will see, I observed a noted change in noise levels after installation. It really is one of the final steps you should consider.