dynamat on hard drives?

xafier · Post by **xafier** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:00 am

I've just recently built myself a new PC, as my old PC was dying

This time round I've decided to go for something nice and quiet, so that hopefully I can leave it going overnight downloading / compiling / encoding etc and it not bother me, seen as my bed is about 1m from my computer!

I've gone for a P182 case, I've disconnected the top fan, and I have the rear and front (moved from lower section to upper section) fan on low... I have also installed a Scythe Kama bay for extra airflow

I'm still not mega happy with the sound though, think I may have to replace the Antec tri-cool fans with something else, maybe Noctua S12 800rpm?

Anyway, what's annoying me currently is the noise of my main hard drive, I have a 300Gb Maxtor SATA drive for my OS which is quite noisy for some reason, I also have a 1Tb WD Caviar GP but that thing is REALLY quiet!

I have some Dynamat Xtreme left over from dampening my car after fitting a nice audio system in it and I was wondering whether it would be any use adding some to the top of the hard drive(s) to reduce the noise?

I've carried the hard drives over from my old system, everything else I've had to buy, mobo, cpu, graphics card etc... using a Scythe Ninja with Noctua P12 on the CPU and a Zalman heatsink on the graphics card turned down to low

So really my only concern is reducing system fan noise a bit and shutting those damn hard drives up when they have to do a lot of work!

SPCR website has been a really great help in researching, this is my first post on the forum so thanks for any help I receive

xan_user · Post by **xan_user** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:13 am

the dyanamat should help.....

By overheating that noisy maxtor and then you can get a WDD GP.

Insulating a hard drive without removing the heat somehow, is asking for a drive failure IMO.

xafier · Post by **xafier** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:13 am

Well I've managed to get rid of a really annoying noise when my hard drive was seeking a lot... it was due to some silly piece of metal that was on top of the northbridge heatsink on my Gigabyte motherboard!

Before it was slotted into the top part of the northbridge (here its just layed on top but you can get the idea)

http://www.xafiers-home.com/computer/northbridge1.jpg

Now its removed!
http://www.xafiers-home.com/computer/northbridge2.jpg

It was rattling when the hard drive was vibrating the case, also no doubt this silly thing was probably keeping hot air trapped underneath it too!

xafier · Post by **xafier** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:58 am

xan_user wrote:the dyanamat should help.....

By overheating that noisy maxtor and then you can get a WDD GP.

Insulating a hard drive without removing the heat somehow, is asking for a drive failure IMO.

I did think that, but the placement of the fan for the lower chamber on the P182 is a bit rubbish, as there are wires in that area from PSU to upper chamber and from HD's to upper chamber!

Maybe I'll just have to put up with it till I can find a decent quiet HD thats not too expensive, I only really need about 200Gb for my OS HD and games etc, everything else goes on my 1Tb storage drive!

xan_user · Post by **xan_user** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 9:26 am

Have you read this yet?

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article245-page1.html

xafier · Post by **xafier** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:27 am

I think maybe I'll just put up with the noise, until I find an excuse to buy another hard drive... hopefully the price of solid states will start coming down and then maybe I can get a 128Gb solid state or something

xan_user · Post by **xan_user** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:51 am

I should have added...
You've suspended it right?

viewtopic.php?t=19147

A small strip or two of dynamat might help without effecting temps.
Many Aero-space , sports and countless other companies/industries use strategically placed rubber or man made vibration absorption patches to control unwanted harmonics and noise.
Maybe a slim dough nut of dyanamat stuck on top? Be careful pressing it on those maxtors are thin on top!

xafier · Post by **xafier** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:33 am

xan_user wrote:I should have added...
You've suspended it right?

viewtopic.php?t=19147

A small strip or two of dynamat might help without effecting temps.
Many Aero-space , sports and countless other companies/industries use strategically placed rubber or man made vibration absorption patches to control unwanted harmonics and noise.
Maybe a slim dough nut of dyanamat stuck on top? Be careful pressing it on those maxtors are thin on top!

I've just mounted it in the lower cage of the P182, its got rubber grommet type things, which blatently dont reduce the vibration that much... may have a think about suspending them, see if I can get some cheap elastic from somewhere

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:10 am

just buy a new samsung hd tbh, i could send u some elastic i got off ebay cheap if u want, its dark green, about a inch wide i think, pm if u interested