SPCR

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:57 am**

I suppose there are a lot of us who have built themselves a nice silent or close to inaudible PC and who start to hear a lot of other noise sources after that. What other equipment is there around us and has anyone thought about the sound levels when choosing what to buy?

My problem:
After getting rid of noise from my PC, other parts in my living room started to annoy. I don't think i'm only one with this problem. My home theater is equipped with SONY KDL40W4500 and it has annoying low electrical hum. I can't hear it while watching TV, the sound disappears under the movie sounds, but i do hear it if I use it as my computer screen from 3m distance! (Ambient here is quite quiet). A DIY Silent SONY would actually be nice to own. Any suggestions how to make it better?

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:02 am**

Do family members count?

I voted 5-6.

Once I got my pc quiet as it is now, I began to notice the constant low hum of our air conditioning system's fan (Aussie summers are hot, so you happily put up with the noise

), if gaming on a quiet evening, I can hear some electrical sounds coming from my amplifier. We have a fan in our kitchen, and one can hear that... and a few other things.

Still, most of these other sounds fade away into white noise, unless I turn my Big Boy 200mm fans up to high (aka cyclone).

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:09 am**

Road Traffic

though my pc is quite it's probly not as quite as it could be as im using an external wc solution and it's about 30 cm from my head

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 5:45 am**

Does the internal DVD drive count? I just about cry when I put a disk in.

Oh, and steam radiators. And a window on a city side street.

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:25 am**

andymcca wrote:Does the internal DVD drive count? I just about cry when I put a disk in.

Copy your DVD's into disk images (DeepBurner) and run them with virtual DVD drive (DaemonTools). Noise source counter -1

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 3:06 pm**

Tinnitus and a ringing CFL about 4 feet from my head.
Steve

Posted: **Wed Feb 03, 2010 4:00 pm**

Kids
Frogs
Road noise
Airport traffic
Yapping dogs
Neighbor's teen is an aspiring death metal singer
Other neighbor's squawking parrots/macaws (the worst of em all by far!)

Posted: **Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:57 am**

Logi MX518 mouse (still better than MX 510)

Posted: **Thu Feb 04, 2010 3:36 am**

spartan117 wrote:im using an external wc solution and it's about 30 cm from my head

Am I missunderstanding this, or does your room double as a toilet?!?
edit: ok, after posting this, it crept up on me that "wc" could double as water-cooling. hehehe

5 flatmates and a whole of london = more. The only time I faintly hear the pc is late at night.

Posted: **Thu Feb 04, 2010 5:13 am**

Cistron wrote:Am I missunderstanding this, or does your room double as a toilet?!?
edit: ok, after posting this, it crept up on me that "wc" could double as water-cooling. hehehe

5 flatmates and a whole of london = more. The only time I faintly hear the pc is late at night.

Welcome to American English! You will never see a sign here with WC (water closet) and an arrow here. We also don't live in "flats"; they're called apartments.

Posted: **Thu Feb 04, 2010 1:48 pm**

b_rubenstein wrote:
Cistron wrote:Am I missunderstanding this, or does your room double as a toilet?!?
edit: ok, after posting this, it crept up on me that "wc" could double as water-cooling. hehehe

5 flatmates and a whole of london = more. The only time I faintly hear the pc is late at night.
Welcome to American English! You will never see a sign here with WC (water closet) and an arrow here. We also don't live in "flats"; they're called apartments.

Lots of different meanings in his phrase: "head" is also a naval term for bathroom. So he has an external bathroom solution 30cm from his bathroom. Besides, women wear flats on their feet.

Posted: **Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:44 pm**

My refrigerator is by far the biggest noise maker, ~25% duty cycle. After that the wood stove, even thought it's mostly 1/4" steel plate, in the morning when I fire it, creaks a lot.

The Blackhawks and Chinooks overwhelm everything, but less than 1% DC, and only middle of the day.

Posted: **Tue Feb 09, 2010 5:23 am**

Just the heating - that I can hear anyway. Don't notice anything with my headphones on really.

Only noises I still pick up from my PC are disk-seek and coil whine (only get coil whine when very close to the back). Need new drives as they are nearly 3 years old and I think they've gotten noiser over that time.

Posted: **Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:51 am**

MtnHermit wrote:My refrigerator is by far the biggest noise maker, ~25% duty cycle. After that the wood stove, even thought it's mostly 1/4" steel plate, in the morning when I fire it, creaks a lot.

The Blackhawks and Chinooks overwhelm everything, but less than 1% DC, and only middle of the day.

Engineer much? :)

Edit: How big is your solar array? 500-800W? By off the grid do you mean on battery with inverters for AC? Do you run DC appliances off DC-DC supplies? Neato.

Posted: **Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:25 am**

My work laptop is the noisiest thing in my room, and the Mediasmart server is next. I can turn both off, though, for recording. At night, the loudest noise source are the three cats running/jumping around on the hardwood floor right above me. I have to lock them in an upstairs bedroom for silence

Posted: **Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:19 pm**

andymcca wrote:
MtnHermit wrote:My refrigerator is by far the biggest noise maker, ~25% duty cycle. After that the wood stove, even thought it's mostly 1/4" steel plate, in the morning when I fire it, creaks a lot.

The Blackhawks and Chinooks overwhelm everything, but less than 1% DC, and only middle of the day.
Engineer much?

That obvious?

Edit: How big is your solar array? 500-800W? By off the grid do you mean on battery with inverters for AC? Do you run DC appliances off DC-DC supplies? Neato.

Here's my reply to a similar question.

MtnHermit wrote:
mark19891989 wrote:I wanted to know general setup costs, and how much you are able to run of off it. in real world rather then Kwh
Not sure I understand, but . . .
Roughly $20K installed, verses $135K for a wire, I'm roughly 4-miles from the nearest utility wires @ $35K/mi. The solar > battery > inverter system runs everything in my house: well, furnace, refrigerator, microwave, TV, DVR, this PC, wireless internet, furnace, washer, dryer, dishwasher, lights . . . everything, but limited to 3KWH/day assuming it's sunny. I do have a 6KW propane generator, which has 200 hrs in 11+ years.

do you have your pc running from 12v dc or is that also powered by the inverter?
EVERYTHING is 120V/60C AC, no DC. If I need DC I'll use a AC/DC converter such as a battery charger for a car. DC is only available at the battery box whereas AC outlets are everywhere, to code.

In 11+ years I've had one failure, last year, 2 of my 12 - 6V batteries died. I shuffled them around such that I'm now running only 8 batteries. They're very heavy ~150# and very expensive ~$300 each and you can't replace two, I'd have to replace all twelve.

Oh, 500W x 6hours = 3KWH

Posted: **Sun Feb 21, 2010 7:07 am**

The more silent the PC gets, the more there is around... Now I hear over my PC already my HDTV, my LCD, kitchen equipment, surround receiver... Since they were there already before and didn't annoy at all, i suppose my ears get used to this new sound surrounding pretty soon.

Posted: **Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:26 am**

Ambient is why I'd like to land a $75,000+\yr job so I can silence my life. I mean the house, get a quiet running car and hedges to dampen the sound getting to my yard.

Outside of living in the country I've never been happy with all the ambient noise going on arround me.

Posted: **Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:14 pm**

I voted 1-2, since the refrigerator is the only thing 24/7 that's noisier than my pc, even if I close the door to the kitchen, it's still noisier. I really should upgrade it, but on students loan budget, I guess a silent and big enough refrigerator is hard to come by, especially since what's deemed "silent" by the manufacturers seldom are quiet enough for me when it comes to anything.
If I was to count other things that are noisier than my PC, but not running 24/7, there would be the TV which buzzes unless I mute it and the xbox 360 that sounds like a jet engine.
I live in a really quiet house/neighborhood, so I don't have to deal with road noise etc.

SPCR

PC is inaudible, ambient is NOT

PC is inaudible, ambient is NOT

noise