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Introduction continued:
Just about anyone could follow this
article as a guide to silence their whole system,
or you can take bits and pieces to target certain
areas that are most offensive. Whatever approach you
choose, drop QuietPC an email, and chances are, they
will be just as helpful with you as they were with
me. (Not to sound like a spokesperson, that's not
what we are about here at 3DV, it's just that you
so rarely find companies that are willing to go the
extra mile to figure things out with you that I personally
recommend them)
I'll begin with the analysis of causes
for noise, and break each one down describing the
solution. Over the next several pages, there should
evolve a PC that sits somewhere around the 25-30 decibel
(db) mark, which is just over a, whisper (the average
room has around 30db of ambient noise at all times,
and the average whisper is about 20db).
For the most part, PC noise is generated in the fans
required to manage temperature levels. These fans
can be found on the CPU cooler, in the power supply,
on the northbridge chip for your motherboard, on most
modern graphics cards and mounted to the case in a
myriad of ways. The next largest noise culprit is
the spinning and seeking of drives, (both HDDs and
optical drives.) The last audio polluter isn't really
a generation of noise as such, it is the ability for
sheets of metal (such as the side panels on PC cases)
to resonate like a drum head, and amplify the vibration
of the other sounds. This vibration can also be transferred
to the floor through the hard plastic feet on most
PC cases as well.
I need to make one point clear; building a silent
PC takes paying attention to heat dissipation. If
you simply remove the fans from all of your components,
they will overheat and die. If you block all of the
ventilation holes in your case, the internal temperatures
will skyrocket. There is no question about it; to
properly ensure a cool running, yet silent PC, you
have to think about the details. One of the things
that I recommend is using a well ventilated case.
I will be using the csx7788-win that I reviewed a
while back graciously supplied by Maxtop. The intake
fan across from the CPU as well as the 92mm blowhole
on top will help keep things cool with a minimum number
of noise generating fans. I will be using some acoustic
absorbing material inside the panels of the case,
which will act somewhat like a blanket in their ability
to retain heat, so it is important that we circulate
the air as best we can while keeping noise to a minimum.
Lets get started.
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