How to silence PC noises?

[jjj]

Not sure about your preference, but I prefer musical creativity away from vacuum cleaner type of noises... That's exactly how my PC sounded, before I put an end to it. Here's how:
i) First, I removed and cleaned the big heatsink from the microprocessor. It contains a noisy, tiny fan. To reduce the noise of this fan one needs to reduce its speed by by about 15-20%, by inserting a low Ohm resistor in series with its power supply.

ii) Next, I removed the big power supply box and its noisy fan, reduced its heights, by removing its cover and cutting down (using tin snips) its sides until almost even with the highest part in this box. Mine went slim to less than 2 inches! Caution: To protect against accidentally touching its parts I covered it with plastic grill. The whole box I then attached outside to the back of the PC so, that the opening of the power supply faces the PC' inside.

iii) Into the empty space, previouly occupied by the power supply, I position a 7.5 inch or 18cm (in diameter) fan, made from a used cassette recorder motor and thin aluminum blades (from old persiana blades) glued onto the plastic capstan.
I left the PC without its metal cover and covered it with a colored, decorative curtain, instead.
Result:
The PC stays cool and now is almost inaudible! Even the hard drives etc. benefit from the big, quite fan. Albeit the fan moves about 3 times as much air, due to its size and low velocity it generates no noise. Small fans are noisy, because they have to run fast in order to move the same air mass. I "stole" this idea from observing a household cooler fan...
I'm enjoying this arrangement already for almost 2 years now. I'm not sure though, if this arrangement is suitable for a faster, more powerful system, but it certainly works with my lousy 1GHz Pentium PC. Picture:
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/0d1aa4046e.jpg

[Sock Puppet]

http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/10/22/ste...dive_dive.html

Is another way

S.

[jjj]

Yes, but mine is more down to earth and not modeled on abstract ideas.

[Steve A.]

Yes, but mine is more down to earth and not modeled on abstract ideas.

The Steampunk looks pretty cool but if you watch the video it is definitely not very quiet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_DgU92AuWE

Many people are using notebook computers for recording since they are so quiet, but your solution works, too, if you are handy with tin snips!

Thanks

Steve Ahola

[Bruce Johnson]

A local studio recently came to me with the same problem...their Mac was way too noisy for in-studio use. I built an isolation box for it; basically a plywood box with gasketed doors on both ends and sound deadening padding inside. For cooling air, I mounted a pair of very quiet 5" fans in a chamber on the back door. The air moves in and out through labyrinth-type chambers on each end, which are also lined with padding.

It works quite well, cutting out almost everything but a tiny bit of low frequency airflow noise. When they're doing something particularly quiet, they'll shut off the fans for a few minutes.

[jjj]

Another great way (if possible) is to place the PC in an adjacent room and feed all vital connections through the wall. The HDD on its own isn't noisy.