How To Get Your Gaming PC Running Quietly?

Thanks to Penny Arcade for its 'Hook Up' column discussing ways to build your gaming PC to run as quietly as possible. The author indicates: "I was able to reduce my Tiny God's noise level by over 30dB (!) measured with my RadioShack SPL meter", and goes on to list ways to silence components such as power supplies ("...the power hungry components that an elite gamer uses... can be extremely noisy") and fans of various kinds ("it's often a toss-up between your CPU fan and your PSU cooler in regards to which one is the loudest"), before pointing out: "You might have 1,000 watts of power driving your speakers, but sometimes nothing beats the sound of silence."

The Hook Up

[yupchagi]

Good article. He points out that Dynamat isn't very good for sound absorbtion since it isn't designed for higher frequencies (white noise from fans). It also insulates heat too well, and would make your PC case dangerously hot. It's interesting that Dynamat has repackaged their product to make a "Computer Dynamat Pack" or whatever. What a bunch of corporate whores. His previous column on iPods was intriguing as well. Anyone read that?

But I LIKE the noise!

[FeetOfStinky]

My home office is my sanctuary, in no small part due to the white noise generated by my computer. It's where I go to escape barking dogs, revving engines, and dumbasses who think I want to hear the bass from their car inside my house.

If anything, I should probably install more fans in my CPU case, and not because it needs the extra cooling.

My solution

[fluor2]

You need
1 x USB extension coord
1 x VGA-cable extension coord
1 x sound extension coord
1 x PS/2 keyboard extension coord
1 x nearby room with a door

Basically, I just moved the PC in behind a nearby door. Making the PC make it's noise in another room. You can of course also use a closet or similar.

PRO
This makes the PC go almost 100% quiet, and you do not have to invest into an expensive fan or similar stuff.

CON
I seem not to use the cd-rom any more, but some of you that DO use cd-rom (or other hardware devices) may be prepared to walk some steps each time one has to change the cd or similar (i use nocd-cracks or daemon tools anyways).

Hard Drive noise

[Dachannien]

The article is focused on gaming machines, and so it doesn't mention two good ways to reduce hard drive noise that might be important for machines in other settings (such as for a PVR).

One is a mounting bracket made by Zalman [newegg.com] that includes rubber bumpers that fit between the bracket and the case. This prevents the transmission of noise from the drive to the case, which is much more likely to have some surface that resonates at the frequencies produced by hard drive seeks. The downside is that your case is actually a pretty good heatsink for your hard drives, and unless you get a good quiet low-flow fan to blow over the copper bars on this bracket, you can expect HD temps a few degrees celsius higher than normal.

Another way to reduce HD noise during seeks is to activate the "noise reduction" feature that a lot of modern hard drives have. This feature increases seek time in order to reduce seek noise. If you're running Linux, hdparm has a switch to adjust the NR setting for your hard drives.

Re:My solution

[Cthefuture]

1 x VGA-cable extension coord

Or if you're on DVI then you can get a much better signal over a longer distance.

Re:But I LIKE the noise!

[Naffer]

A few nights ago I shut down my computer before I climbed into bed. What followed was half an hour of errie silence. Needless to say I turned my computer right back on, turned off the monitor and went to bed.

water cooling

[Lucia_Inverse]

i foronce have some insight on this matter! i recently went from a case with a couple 5700 rpm 80x80x38 mm fans that sounded like a jet turbine to a watercooling system.... i also have adjustable fan nobs on just about everything in the system... i can go from insane cooling to just crazy cooling and its SOOO quiet. its a bit expensive and a tad bit umm "intresting" to install but once its in and running right its VERY quiet (i even put a bigger pump in so it could be even quieter than it currently is) well i hope that was helpful!