[wplug] Building/Buying a Quieter Machine

Weber, Larry A laweber at switch.com
Thu Sep 13 15:13:48 EDT 2001


Unfortunately what you are asking for is getting harder and harder to get.
Mfg's are putting more and faster devices into smaller and smaller packages.
Forced air is about the only way to effectively cool them.  My son and I
worked on his PC this summer to quiet it down so he could let it run all of
the time in his dorm room.  We had very little success.

I did take apart several cooling fans and found that, as you might expect,
they are of the cheapest possible design.  The all had bronze sleeve
bearings that are damaged and get noisy when they get dusty.  Removing the
back label to lubricate them with oil was insufficient in most cases.  I did
have some success disassembling the fans and using a medium weight grease
all along the shaft. This can be difficult with the small cheap parts used.
My next attempt will be to replace the fans with ball bearing fans.

The best idea I have heard is to put thermal sensors on the CPU and other
hot spots and then control the speed of the fans to maintain a safe
temperature.  I think fan noise is closely related to the amount of work
done by the fan and this increase with the cube of the speed.  Big slow fans
move the same amount of air as small fast fans but are quieter. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Brad Hoover [SMTP:b_hoovs at yahoo.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, September 13, 2001 2:11 PM
> To:	wplug at wplug.org
> Subject:	[wplug] Building/Buying a Quieter Machine
> 
> Hello Friends,
> 
> Before I begin this e-mail, I just want to extend my
> sympathies to anyone who had loved ones in New York.
> The world is indeed a nasty place sometimes.
> 
> I was kind of curious if anyone had experimented on
> making a quiet running machine.  My current linux
> machine makes too much noise.  Between the fan and the
> hard drive, it can be quiet distracting.  Particularly
> since it's in my bedroom and I leave it on all of the
> time.  Does anyone have any suggestions in reducing PC
> related noise pollution?  Has anyone seen a PC that is
> marketed to consumers as being quiet? (The only one I
> have seen is the Apple Cube, and they seem to have
> discontinued it.)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Brad
> 
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