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Quieting those Fans 19

Posted by Cliff from the quiet-computer-is-good-computer dept.
Fudge asks: "I've found that as we trundle along the Intel processor road, each successive generation of processor generates more heat than the last. Now my latest PC, a dual PIII-500, has two enormous fans to dissipate the heat which generate an awful amount of noise. Does anyone know of ways to deaden the noise without sacrificing the heat dissipation? I'd also prefer not to void the warranty, but I could be persuaded to compromise on that. "
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Quieting those Fans More

Quieting those Fans

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  • I dont know about you, but I'd rather have the fans work than be quiet. I have had all kinds of fans in my dual 333 and none of the quiet ones ever lasted more than a couple of months. I've since gone to some thick, heavy, noisy ones that I had to connect to the heat sinks and wire myself, but at least the machine stays cool now.

    Honestly I dont think there's anything that can be done to cure this other than putting noise dampening material inside the case or something. And noise dampening == dirt attracing, in my experience. Most PC's just are not designed for good cooling.

    -Rich

  • Move to Another Room (Score:4)

    by F.O.Dobbs ( 17317 ) on Tuesday December 28, 1999 @11:35AM (#1438197) Homepage
    I got rid of the vast majority of my sound problems (Celeron 366->567 with 5 fans) by purchasing extension cables for my monitor, keyboard and mouse and putting the computer in a closet. I drilled a 2" hole through the wall, passed the cables through the hole and covered it with some foam rubber. The only problems that arose were getting to the computer for changing media and my closet is about 100 degrees. Make sure you get a high-quality video cable so you don't have any image problems.

    Since then moving my primary machine into the closet, I've also put my gateway/firewall/cd-burner/X10 server machine in there on a 2 machine switch box. Again, don't skimp on the quality of the switchbox (get one for professional AV, around $80 or so). Of course, you could just ssh into the machine if you prefer (I use the box because I've installed a gaming OS on one of the machines).

    F.O.Dobbs

  • Quiet Fans and Power Supplies (Score:5)

    by Jahf ( 21968 ) on Tuesday December 28, 1999 @11:44AM (#1438198) Journal
    I went looking for the same thing a while back and found the following: I found these with AltaVista and Google ... if you need more just go do a few searches and you should come up with something good.
  • If only software coolers worked in SMP boxes...

    I've got a single PII350 that works beautifully with just a software cooler (& an open case & my room temp being 40 degrees), but I don't think this is much help for dual 500's. I plan on stuffing dual 600's in mine and I need a cooling solution. I'd like to see what people come up with.
  • And when I say 'big box' I really mean it! It measures 82x42x33 in inches, has two side by side 21" racks (I have little plates to hook up my rackmount hardware) and a big house fan. The whole thing is cased in 3/4" oak plywood with big glass doors.

    I put 120lb capacity 18.5x26" sliding shelves in to hold up to 8 CPU's plus hard drives etc. (yes, I have a KVM switch). Everything is attached to a steel frame and fully adjustable.

    As for noise, mostly I hear the horizontally mounted 20" fan that blows upwards. I plan on replacing it with one that is supposed to be mounted flat, as this one makes a lot of noise. I can't really hear the CPUs at all. Eggshell foam matress padding is going in on the walls soon.

    Temperatures run about 7 degrees warmer than in the room, I usually have 4 computers on at once.

    I may put pictures/plans of it online at hammitt.com just for kicks. There's two places to sit and work along each side, one for the Linux boxen hooked to the KVM and another for the Mac.

    It cost about $750 to make, but was an interesting challenge. The worst thing about it was when I had cheaper drawer slides for the shelves and they dropped my PowerMac from about 5 feet. Ouch.

    Drop a note to tony@hammitt.com if you want plans, I could arrange something for a nominal fee. =-)
  • Part of the problem, too (I figured this out when building my dual Pentium Pro) is that a good case that is designed for cooling is very hard to come by. You can use less fans (though never less than 1 in the power supply, one on each processor, and on in the case somewhere) if the case is designed with cooling airflow in mind.

    Unfortunately, most cases I've seen are just these ugly boxes that just follow the ATX spec for positioning, and don't give a damn about airflow. I've been working on a couple designs of my own, but custom cases are (a) a pain to make and (b) expensive, unless you happen to know somone who can work sheet metal for you.

    The systems that usually have the best cooling are rackmount cases. The systems that usually look the best sitting on your desk or floor usually have crappy cooling, unless they're very roomy inside. I'd love to have the cash to throw at a 1meter rack (with doors) and rackable cases for my computers.. it'd save me a bit of room, and clean things up, but it costs way too much.

  • try... (Score:2)

    by leiz ( 35205 )
    www.2cooltek.com, talk to 2cool and he's a nice friendly guy and he'll be glad to help ya out.

    my advice is to use bigger fans:

    120mm 108 cfm 42 dba
    92mm 44 cfm 33 dba
    80mm 36 cfm 32 dba
    60mm 19 cfm 31 dba
    50mm 9 cfm 30 dba
    40m 7 cfm 27 dfa

    looking at the specs of different sized fans (they are all made by sunon) a 120 mm fan has about 3X the airflow of a 80mm fan (standard sized fans) perhaps putting one of those puppies near your cpu can help take the heat out of your case. (although 120 mm fans may not fit into your case - maybe you can hack it somehow?)


    Also, if you need a quiet power supply, try www.pcpowercooling.com


    _______________________________________________
    There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
  • ...building your own case?

    That would allow for maximum cooling and airflow and even allow you to make the case with custom ductwork for a "remote" fan.

    I just got a ALR Revolution 6x6 board that uses PPROs. I bought it off of E-bay so I'll have to build a case for it from scratch.

    My plan is to actually RF shield a small closet in my house, (don't want to disturb my neighbor's TV ;-), mount the board on the wall with custom brackets and then cool the entire closet with a small AC unit. I'll run a separate duct directly over the top of the board itself so that the AC cools the CPUs which run with large heat-sinks and no fans. The AC unit, depending on the model, is quiet and the closet closes off any local fans I may have to install later - for things like overclocked boards - =-) .

    As for video and peripherals - they can be mounted separately - especially if the drives are SCSI - and a good KVM can be used for the console.

    This closet would also serve to house/cool the network switch/hubs as well as future things such as the cable modem, router/firewall box, or even the cable/satellite distribution system.

    The closet is an extreme example but you get the idea - if something exists to suit your needs then buy it, but if you can't find anything that suits your needs make it yourself .

    Thus was how Linux born unto the world. ;-)
  • check out addronics cases: www.addtronics.com [addtronics.com]

    I have the 6890a and it has great cooling solutions, its about 1 to 2 inches wider than most cases which allows for a fan mounted on both sides of the case next to the drive bays, check out the picture [wco.com]

    Use this case with an ultra quit power supply from pcpowercooling [pcpowercooling.com] and some of their case fans [pcpowercooling.com] you got a really cool and really quiet solution. I have their power supply and my friend has their fans, you cant hear the power supply over your own keyboard and the fans are quiet for their speed.

    My machine is a dual 450 and it almost never gets to be more than 5 deg (F) or so higher than room temp w/addtronics case and pcpowercooling power supply, and is still quiet.

    Chris
  • Now what about passive vs active cooling?

    At home my dual pro has cheap kit fans and sinks, and dual celeron ppg has socket 7 sinks (home brew kit). Both are o/c but not by much.
    The point being is that I have to be careful of how the cables/wires/fans/cards/drive-cages are arranged. Hassle.

    I also have a couple of Dec-Alphas that the CPU is rated for 35w (?? been a long time since I read the directions :) ) and it uses a passive sink! No wires, no fans, just a slab of heat sink aluminum. Only one small variable speed case fan. The drives are external.

    The last ibm net finity 5000 I setup had dual p3 (450?-500?) and has passive heat sinks. It also has big fans on the back side of the h/w raid and case.

    If the more expensive vendors are using passive heat sinks, why not go that route? Forgeting to plug in a fan or having a fan stop is "down time" and random crashes.

    Down time is bad, a forest of wires is bad, moving parts fail.

    Oh yeah and passive sinks are very, very quiet with 100% up-time.
  • rackmount is i'm convinced the way to go. it's easier to keep the noise down that way, and it makes things look much tidier.
    unfortunately, it is more expensive. first, you have to buy or make a rack box, then you have to pay more for cases and hubs and everything, etc. etc. Couple of hints, though:
    a) buy the premade rack rails, and use them to make a wooden rack, as was mentioned earlier. it's not that expensive, and you can make a really cool looking rack that way- use old beams from houses and such. i found some really beautiful poplar beams that were leftovers from railcars.
    i personally used knockdown hardware to hold the rack mount screws, but i'm a sucker for cool brass hardware, too.
    b) i love the antec cases, but they're $200 bucks at a minimum. Instead, scout ebay- there's lots of the first generation of rackmount pc's becoming available, especially nice compaq boxes. you'll have to do LOTS of refitting, but it's a better case anyway. Wish i could afford a netfinity...
    c) use it to hold your stereo too. nowadays, you have to have a pc near your stereo/tv anyway for streaming video etc., and you can kill two birds with one stone. another reason to make a nice case, and plus you can hide the cords easier too. making 'ears' and brackets for your stereo equipment is a pain, but it looks nice once you're done. put your tv and turntable up top and voila, instant newmedia center. then you can get the wireless kb and mouse...
    d) see if you can find an older case that is 19" wide (or a little less.) if you don't have to get into it often, it's really convenient just to bolt brackets onto it and mount it that way. (as you can tell, i'm morally opposed to shelves in a rackmount rack.)
    e) get parts and stuff from musician catalogs rather than pc catalogs- it's usually cheaper, and the stuff sometimes is better.

    plus, let's face it, a patch panel and hub next to your stereo just looks too cool. gets oohs and ahhs from your geek friends. i actually am going to move my hub to the back of the rack, though, so that cables don't have to pass through the front.
  • I've been trying to find a good solution to quiet down my computer -- since I do a lot of audio recording, the fan and hard drive noise is too much. I found a company that makes what appear to be really great enclosures for PCs/rack mount equipment, but expensive -- upwards of $1000. Now I'm looking for a slightly less expensive solution...

    http://www.custom-consoles.com/isobox.htm [custom-consoles.com]

  • A coworker purchase one of the PC Power and Cooling "ultraquiet" PS's for his PC, so I've gotten to play w/ one a bit. Side-by-side a Sparkle Power ATX supply, it was definitely quieter-- but I wasn't terribly moved by the difference. Overall, I didn't think the extra cost was justified by the result.

    The idea of moving the PC itself away and using extension cables is probably the best idea. The previous comment w/ the 100 degree closet scares me a bit-- I don't think I'd want to overheat the PC. Put some small vent holes in wherever you're placing the PC.

    At a client site, a secretary put her PC in a cubby-hole in her new modular office furniture. She then placed several hell-desk calls in the following week complaining of random lockups. Teching thru it on the phone, we found nothing to attribute the problem to. An on-site visit, though, revealed the cubby-hole w/ the closed cabinet door. When we opened it, superheated air flooded out and, after a couple hours of 'cooling off' and the removal of the cubby-hole door, the PC functioned fine again. She said she shut it because she didn't like the 'grinding sound' it made when she started apps.
  • You really can't beat PC Power and Cooling both for low noise on their fans and for incredible cooling..... plus that 5 year waranty is a nice bonus.
  • You're right about the case designers' disregard of air flow.

    I made a box with ducts to each hot spot, allowing the hot air to be exhausted by a remote fan. Much quieter!

    It's described toward the end of this Slashdot discussion [slashdot.org], comment #61. (Can't just link to the individual comment, unfortunately).
  • First off, if your "brave" enough, water cooling is very quiet. Use a fish tank pump or a garden "fountain" pump, in a tank of water is about as quiet as it comes for the best cooling possible really. (You can't hear your fish tank pump really can you?)

    HINT: Use distilled water, unless you have _really_ clean tap water. I noticed a build up of "gunk" in the container surrounding the CPU's heat sink, after about 3 months the thing was so full it basically turned in an oven. Baked on bacteria isn't so nice to scrape off either. ;)

    Failing that, my other solution (currently in use) is two large 150 watt tower speakers made by Kenwood (www.kenwood.com?) with 10inch woofers. Crank some MP3's with these babies and your noisy fan problems disappear into the floor pounding bass. Though this route is little more expensive. ;)
  • hmm.. if your closet is 100 decrees, how do you keep your cpus cool. if you are using fans for air cooling, then circulating 100 degree ambient air won't work. you might consider ventilation for your closet. but then, most closets aren't designed for cooling. seems like a catch 22.

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