SPCR

Just wondering whether people think building silent PC's is a bit of an addiction? For my latest PC I've been trying to get it silent as it resides in my room and I have to switch it off at night so I can sleep, which means I generally have to leave lenghty encodes/compiles/downloads etc going whilst I'm at work or something...

Everytime I get a different part of my PC silent I find the next culprit and I'm afraid its never going to end until I'm skint!!

Hopefully replacing my OS hard drive and my front & rear fans should finally make it as quiet as it can be, I'm running out of things to silence now!

And how many spare fans do people have laying around? I've got about 3 or 4 120mm fans sat doing nothing at the moment as they're too noisy!

Yes its definitely an addiction.

I've used a (huge) pile of cash trying out different stuff.
The reward?
Total silence. Its worth it.

Spare fans? Somewhere between 20 and 30 (I guess).

NOOOOOO!!!!!!.... is THIS my future? Am i doomed to this god forsaken existense?

Why cant manufacturers be more responsible? Think of the children... oh dear god think of the children.

I can stop any time I want.

ppft - no, its not bad. Sites like this make it easier to figure out what you need right up front and stores like newegg make it easy to get too. Compile while at work, use RDP to connect back to your home system to check up on it

I have about 10 fans lying around. They've built up over 10 years of computer building. I reuse alot of stuff. Environment and all...

amyhughes wrote:I can stop any time I want.

Prove it!.

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Hating noise pollution is not addictive, it required for sanity!

BTW....How do I silence the neighbors barking dogs and squawking parrot?

Hopefully W/O going to jail.

I still find a lot of things I want to silence, but for now I don't invest in my computer for a while, I don't want it to be a thing which eats money. Now I sometimes silence other things as well, like noisy table-fan's. In stead of a local tornado through my room moving all papers lying around, now it is only moving a little bit of air
I also have a complete cupboard full of computer parts (like fans etc.), as long as things aren't broken and might be useful somewhere in the future, I collect them.

It smells a little bit as an addiction to me .. .. ..

Its such an addiction that i had to not try and silence my own pc, but my gf's and my sisters.
Also.. i have quite a heatsink addiction, the bigger the better i say
LOL

bumthology wrote:Its such an addiction that i had to not try and silence my own pc, but my gf's and my sisters.
Also.. i have quite a heatsink addiction, the bigger the better i say
LOL

I too love chunky heatsinks, I currently have a Scythe Ninja Plus... I honestly dont think I could handle anything bigger, that thing is a BEAST!

You know your in trouble when after you cant hear your computer, even with your speakers turned off, in a quiet room with your ear right up next tothe case. And then you start hearing "other" things.

Next thing you know, your posting on forums on how to quiet a refridgerator, and hologen lights and your playstation/xbox/dvd player/Reciever.

Thats when you know you've gone too far.

AuraAllan wrote: Spare fans? Somewhere between 20 and 30 (I guess).

30? I'm just a noob, then, at the beginning of that journey—with only 3 so far.

when you store them together, they will almost duplicate themselves

Aris wrote:You know your in trouble when after you cant hear your computer, even with your speakers turned off, in a quiet room with your ear right up next tothe case. And then you start hearing "other" things.

All so true, I ended up binning a 5.1 speaker system a long, long time ago, why? because the ampflier in the sub base was making this pitching noise, very irritating and it was (at the time) quickly replaced with a moderate 2.1 system instead, which just happened to make no noise what so ever, apart from sound, music that is.

The latest thing (although not computer related) was a lamp which used a build in dimmer, even when the lamp was turned off the darn dimmer was making this buzzing noise. Doesn’t help that I live at the country side either of course (basically in the middle of nowhere as it happens), don’t mind the wild life though.

On thate note: Natural sounds are most often pleasant whereas man made are not, logical really.

Addiction? I'd say so. I got my pc pretty silent now, now I have to contend with a ceiling fan, an air purifier and the high school kids that walk by my house every day. Maybe I could throw a scythe ninja at the kids to get them unconscious at 0dBA, those things weigh a ton.

but it also has the marks of a religon. I find myself proslytizing and offering testimony. I view my Dell owning brother in law as a heathen or pagan. I feel that my nephew must be saved, or at least his hearing. When I walk into some place like the library or school, with all of those loud computers, I feel as though I am among the "unwashed". I quote Mike C.'s reviews like they are scripture.
Amen

It's more of an obsession than an addiction. But combine the silent obsession with an HTPC obsession and things can get carried away.
On the bright side, I now have 2 HTPCs in addition to my everyday desktop. On the brighter side, the 3 of them combined are quieter than any one pc I've owned prior to discovering SPCR.

But I'll admit to having given up on a completely silent PC. I now figure that when the squeaks of my chair are much louder than my PC, I've hit the point of diminished returns on silent upgrades.

As with most things, knowing when to say 'good enough' is the key. If not for 'good enough', we'd still be dicking around with inventing the wheel.

Greg F. wrote:but it also has the marks of a religon. I find myself proslytizing and offering testimony. I view my Dell owning brother in law as a heathen or pagan. I feel that my nephew must be saved, or at least his hearing. When I walk into some place like the library or school, with all of those loud computers, I feel as though I am among the "unwashed". I quote Mike C.'s reviews like they are scripture.
Amen

I love when I hear friends say 'man, I just got a new Dell and it's SO QUIET!' In my head I'm thinking Delta fans and hard drives that sound like Rice Krispies. Building and tweaking my own computers make me feel like an elitist bastard.

To OP: Yes, addition, obsession, whatever you want to call it. I would think the majority of us are engineers or in the science community in some way and have obsessive/addictive/tinkering personalities anyway.

My build(for reference)
3 Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans - at 7V(roughly 800rpm). I tested, found a sweet spot for each fan, and hard wired it to that speed.
Accelero S1 2.0
Scythe Ninja.
WD drives(I have 3, so it's louder than it could be)
Quiet PSU.(one 120mm fan)

The big difference:
Old Antec steel case with 120mm front and rear and no side openings.
Dampening material for the sides - added for mass only.
Suspended drives.(recent modification)

The thing is clearly 35-40db with the case sides off, but when they go on, it drops to under 30db. Really massive sound difference. What makes it *quiet* for me is that no fan in the system changes rpm no matter what I do, so it's a lot like an aquarium pump or similar. You don't hardly hear it when you do listen for it, and when you aren't it's just not there.

Technically the PSU fan is temp controlled, but it's never gone from lowest speed even playing FEAR or Far Cry at max settings for 3-4 hours at a time.

But in a nutshell:
1: under-volted fans.
2: large steel case with mass added on vibrating/resonating parts. No side openings if possible.
3: suspended drives - vibration isolation.
4: passive video cooling
5: passive or nearly so CPU cooling.(usually a 5V or 7V fan with the Ninja is enough)

30db, which is easily low enough to sleep near, is a snap to do. ~25db is possible with some careful planning. That's "silent" in 99%+ of typical homes.

I find it quite addicting, but that's mostly because I like to assemble stuff.

Aris wrote:You know your in trouble when after you cant hear your computer, even with your speakers turned off, in a quiet room with your ear right up next tothe case. And then you start hearing "other" things.

Next thing you know, your posting on forums on how to quiet a refridgerator, and hologen lights and your playstation/xbox/dvd player/Reciever.

Thats when you know you've gone too far.

I live in the country and it doesn't get quieter than around here, which can be viewed as either good or bad.

Since I got my computer right where I want it with regard to quietness, the thing that bugs the hell out of me is the humming from my DirecTV DVR that sits inside an enclosed TV cabinet. I tried special rubber feet, acoustical foam on the backside of the cabinet, keep the glass doors closed, but the damn DVR still hums!

Oh yeah, my TIVO hums and whines and it bugs me to no end. Still - I did pull out my old Zalman CPU cooler and hook it up the other day - just one of the 6 similarly noisy fans that used to be in the two computers downstairs and it was like someone turned on the vacuum cleaner.

One Zalman fan was three times as loud as my entire system is now.

I still get annoyed by the slight hum my system makes when im watching movies late in the evening. Then i go visit my parents and hear their 4 year old cheap generic system and realise just how quiet ive got my PC.

I don't know if it's an addiction yet (I just started lurking here) but judging from the time I spent this weekend reading all the articles from silentpc review instead of doing some work I had to do, I think the addiction is well on its way

gommm wrote:I don't know if it's an addiction yet (I just started lurking here) but judging from the time I spent this weekend reading all the articles from silentpc review instead of doing some work I had to do, I think the addiction is well on its way

Yes, a computer chair with good cushioning is a must.

Heheh yeah it can be addictive, once you start you'll always find something that you might still be able to quieten that little bit more.

Fortunately for me I only have modding "bursts", i.e. I mod around over the course of 2-3 weeks and then I'll likely get distracted by something else/or just generally too busy with other stuff and don't bother with it again for half a year or so

Got quite a few spare fans lying around, mostly those were stock fans from cases/psu's though...only modding victims are 2 noiseblockers 12cm fans (one started ticking the other ran "uneven"...either very bad luck or their build quality just plain sucks...).

Spare stuff from "failed" experiments:
- 2 external e-sata/usb revoltec cases (I somehow thought that external hd's might be quieter than internal ones...erm...complete brainwave).
- 1 sata backplane (wanted an easy way to switch hd's on/off, unfortunately this thing had an absolute screamer of a fan, once i removed it it turned into an oven, even with only 1 active hd...)

hmm think that's it...could be worse I guess

I have enough spare fans to start a business.

AuraAllan wrote:Yes its definitely an addiction.

I've used a (huge) pile of cash trying out different stuff.
The reward?
Total silence. Its worth it.

Spare fans? Somewhere between 20 and 30 (I guess).

So one could reasonably call you a fanboi?

It's probably not much different from guys who try and squeeze every last MHz of overclock out of their overpriced motherboards, Extreme edition CPUs and so on. This is just a different kind of overkill. But I'm hooked. On perfection.

Strid wrote:So one could reasonably call you a fanboi?

Fanboy? Sure, why not? Me lovez teh zilence.

Strid wrote:But I'm hooked. On perfection.

Me too. Don't be ashamed.

I went on a silencing rampage yesterday, after my computer developed an odd tonal quality , further undervolting/replacing fans, tweaking my mobo's fan control, modifying airfow paths/rotating heatsink... you know the drill. To my dismay, I couldn't stop the noise!! Argh!

I thought to myself, "I need a break." I went to the fridge to get a drink, only to learn that it was the fridge all along! D'oh!