• (cs) in reply to D2oris
    D2oris:
    Fungible:
    Perfect idea. Use insulation to overcome your noise problems while completely ignoring the other properties that insulation has...namely preventing heat loss/gain.

    Ooohhh, NOW I get the article. Thanks!

    Not a big deal. Just stick a few klondike bars in there every day and the system will be cool AND quiet.

  • (cs)

    Okay, so my Mac Pro wasn't cheap, but damn I love how quiet it is. Dual Xeons put out a ton of heat and I can barely hear it cope with that.

  • Joel Coehoorn (unregistered)

    It sure won't make any noise now.

  • Was? (unregistered) in reply to The Wizz
    The Wizz:
    Say is this the same guy that Married his Sister in KY??

    Why would anyone travel to Kentucky to marry their sister?

  • erissian (unregistered)

    Is... is that steel wool in the center? This can't be real.

    Please tell me this isn't real.

  • JP (unregistered)

    Are there any pictures of the sound deadening used against the voices in the customer's head?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Fungible
    Fungible:
    Perfect idea. Use insulation to overcome your noise problems while completely ignoring the other properties that insulation has...namely preventing heat loss/gain.

    Thank you for pointing out why this article was posted. How did this make it as a featured comment?

  • (cs) in reply to Was?
    Was?:
    The Wizz:
    Say is this the same guy that Married his Sister in KY??

    Why would anyone travel to Kentucky to marry their sister?

    I think The Wizz was actually referring to the lubricating jelly.

  • Edward Royce (unregistered) in reply to DOA
    DOA:
    Ace:
    It could have been worse. They could have used expanding foam insulation.
    *shudder*

    How about popcorn?

  • Jonathan (unregistered)

    I once saw something similar at a previous workplace, except the user had sealed his workstation into the lower part of a shelf with large cuts of foam insulation, and now the system was flaking out. I had to tear open the cocoon of insulation to discover that the case was very hot to the touch. Fortunately, once the foam was removed, it started to cool down enough that I could open it up and check it out.

    It was filled with little foam bits from when the user had cut the foam to fit right over the air intake vent.

  • Joe (unregistered)

    First time I can just say "Well, there's your problem" and really get it right just by pointing to it.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Man 987876980
    Man 987876980:
    In most cases, I've found noisy PCs can be helped a lot by either sitting them on a cushion, or putting something very heavy on top. I guess overheating PCs could be helped by dangling them outside a window by the cables.

    Other options:

    1. sonata case - nice and quiet
    2. put the PC in a large baffled case, run cables through insulated hole in side
    3. put pc in the other room and run cables through wall.

    It all depends in priorities and budget, but you can make a PC arbitrarily silent.

  • Yep (unregistered) in reply to nckomodo
    nckomodo:
    Still seems a bit WTF-ey to me, I'd just use quieter parts and vibration dampeners :/

    Dampers!

  • SparkyRoosta (unregistered)

    Could have just shoved a quilt in there, that would've made it pretty quiet too...

  • Manic Mailman (unregistered) in reply to The Wizz
    The Wizz:
    Say is this the same guy that Married his Sister in KY??

    Nope - it's their son's computer.

  • swtfy (unregistered)

    Can you guys explain something to me? I can see how all that foam and insulation would make things a bit quieter, but wouldn't it make the computer run awfully hot?

  • (cs) in reply to cm
    cm:
    diaphanein:
    Mmmmm...asbestos. Just what Doc Watson ordered...

    It's fiberglass insulation.

    How the hell do you know? It still could have asbestos in it.

  • Bruce (unregistered) in reply to Myrmidon

    Fiberglass insulation?? I would have used expanding foam!

  • (cs)

    Oh god... I'm trying to eat here. x_x

  • G (unregistered)

    Brillant

  • (cs)

    The owner must be one of those people that dosen't know where the enter key is.

  • Bowie (unregistered)

    You gotta wonder..

    Ever thought of, oh, I dunno... Putting it on the floor under the table?

    Still, I like his style. Like there was almost an effort to shape and deflect the sound of the fan toward the soundproofing foam in various places.

    Good intent, bad idea.

  • Shuttenbah (unregistered)

    For a moment I thought there was a hamster inside.

  • (cs) in reply to Andy Goth
    Andy Goth:
    Great idea! Since the insulation completely blocks air flow, cooling can instead be achieved with sprinklers!

    There's a company around here that builds computer cooling systems that work exactly like that. Closed-cycle liquid cooling is pretty much essential if you want an environmentally-sealed laptop.

  • Rob (unregistered) in reply to Myrmidon

    I'm surprised it didn't catch fire!!

  • TrollScore (unregistered) in reply to swtfy
    swtfy:
    Can you guys explain something to me? I can see how all that foam and insulation would make things a bit quieter, but wouldn't it make the computer run awfully hot?

    +5 - Troll attempt -10 - Simply too obvious

    Total score: -5, please try harder next time. There was potential but any realized gains were mitigated.

  • Manic Mailman (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    It all depends in priorities and budget, but you can make a PC arbitrarily silent.
    Arbitrarily? So... Quiet today, noisy tomorrow, next week who knows?

    Make mine deterministically silent!

  • (cs) in reply to Matt.C
    Matt.C:
    Money for nothing and chicks for free.
    I shoulda learned To play the gee-tar I shoulda learned To play them drums Looka that mama, she's got it Stickin' in the camera, man Oh, we could have some fun.
  • (cs)

    When confronted with an "oh no" picture of an open case, my first reaction is to look for the dead animal that crawled inside.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Manic Mailman
    Manic Mailman:
    Franz Kafka:
    It all depends in priorities and budget, but you can make a PC arbitrarily silent.
    Arbitrarily? So... Quiet today, noisy tomorrow, next week who knows?

    Make mine deterministically silent!

    On a 3rd grade reading level: You can make it as quiet as you like, but it'll cost you.

    /smartass

  • Jan (unregistered) in reply to Mike D.
    Mike D.:
    Or they could have gone and unplugged all those noisy fans. That's a fun one to track down if the power supply is dead so you can't just turn it on...

    I unplugged the fan on my graphics card 4 years ago. Works fine.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Jan
    Jan:
    Mike D.:
    Or they could have gone and unplugged all those noisy fans. That's a fun one to track down if the power supply is dead so you can't just turn it on...

    I unplugged the fan on my graphics card 4 years ago. Works fine.

    a lot of the recent mobos I've seen have an LED on them that lights up when the thing is powered. That or the power led.

  • (cs)

    I bet he was sure proud of his ingenuity - after all, all those fancy egg heads at Dell, HP, and every other computer manufacturer in the word... NEVER thought of this easy solution to buffer that annoying noise.

    I wonder if he was googling "how to get rich off ingenious patents" when his computer died...

  • (cs) in reply to TrollScore
    TrollScore:
    swtfy:
    Can you guys explain something to me? I can see how all that foam and insulation would make things a bit quieter, but wouldn't it make the computer run awfully hot?

    +5 - Troll attempt -10 - Simply too obvious

    Total score: -5, please try harder next time. There was potential but any realized gains were mitigated.

    Can someone please explain something to me? What does "trolling" mean?

  • jbrecken (unregistered) in reply to Soviut
    Soviut:
    When confronted with an "oh no" picture of an open case, my first reaction is to look for the dead animal that crawled inside.
    I told them not to relocate the server room so close to the Pet Sematary, but they didn't listen!
  • (cs) in reply to Edward Royce
    Edward Royce:
    How about popcorn?
    So many great ideas in this thread! First you fix the sound problem with foam, next you capitalize on the increased temperature by using the computer to pop corn! Put in a little vegetable oil (or mineral oil, heh) with sugar in it, toss in a handful of corn, fire up Crysis, and out comes kettle corn! Just be careful that the exploding kernels don't knock the components off the PCBs. Oh wait, the foam protects against that too!
  • (cs)
    Mike D.:
    Or they could have gone and unplugged all those noisy fans. That's a fun one to track down if the power supply is dead so you can't just turn it on...

    Wait! You are trying to track down which fans aren't working when you already know it's got a dead power supply? I smell a dodgy computer shop...

  • Wyle_E (unregistered)

    I'm reminded of the old lady who got tired of washing her vacuum cleaner's filter bag (one of the old cloth ones), so she lined it with plastic wrap. Then she brought the cleaner to a repair shop, because it didn't suck. Physical illiteracy on this scale is usually a feminine trait, but most women couldn't get the computer case open.

  • John Jones (unregistered)

    Yup, burn it up, it'll be nice and quiet for sure once it fails to start! LOL

    JT www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

  • Mister Bee (unregistered) in reply to Yep
    Yep:
    nckomodo:
    Still seems a bit WTF-ey to me, I'd just use quieter parts and vibration dampeners :/

    Dampers!

    --insert "Someone from the internet is wrong!" image here--

    Wrong, it's "dampeners".

    You "damp" something with a "damper", you "dampen" something with a "dampener".

    http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=dampen&title=21st&sourceid=Mozilla-search

    catchpa: More than one Abba? That's abbas!

  • Big Pimp Daddy (unregistered)

    I'll bet it wasn't even any quieter, what with the temp-controlled CPU fan spinning at full speed because it's getting no airflow, plus the hard-mounted hard drive. If he had just spent 5 minutes reading SPCR he could have saved a lot of hassle and expense...

  • jib (unregistered)

    I had a friend who once tried to make his computer quieter by jamming a piece of cardboard in the power supply fan. Unfortunately it happened to be that day that I SSHed into his box and ran his CPU at 100% for an hour. It did not end well.

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to Pecos Bill
    Pecos Bill:
    Okay, so my Mac Pro wasn't cheap, but damn I love how quiet it is. Dual Xeons put out a ton of heat and I can barely hear it cope with that.

    Beat me to it. Anyway, the OS and the form factor weren't the only reasons why I bought a Mac mini a year ago. The low noise level was also very important to me. By the way, did you hear how incredibly loud the supposed "Mac clone" from Psystar is?

  • The real wtf fool (unregistered) in reply to Escalator
    Escalator:
    Andy Goth:
    nckomodo:
    Still seems a bit WTF-ey to me, I'd just use quieter parts and vibration dampeners :/
    Dampeners? Great idea! Since the insulation completely blocks air flow, cooling can instead be achieved with sprinklers!
    Dictionary.com:
    damp·en /ˈdæmpən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dam-puhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –verb (used with object) 1. to make damp; moisten: to dampen a sponge. 2. to dull or deaden; depress: to dampen one's spirits. 3. damp (def. 10). –verb (used without object) 4. to become damp. [Origin: 1620–30; damp + -en1]

    —Related forms damp·en·er, noun

    Presumably nckomodo is using form #2.

    Presumably Escalator has no concept of humour

  • (cs) in reply to Manic Mailman
    Manic Mailman:
    Franz Kafka:
    ... you can make a PC arbitrarily silent.
    Arbitrarily? ... Make mine deterministically silent!
    Reminds me of one of the projects set during my MSc. It was a fairly straightforward introduction to graphics manipulation (making balls bounce around a window) but one line in the spec said that the balls must be "arbitrarily-coloured". Most of the class read that as meaning the colours had to be generated randomly (and some of their attempts at random colours were very interesting!). Me? I arbitrarily decided that the balls would be red. The tutor agreed with my reading of the question ;^) (to be fair, I don't think anyone lost marks for having a variety of colours, but I don't think anyone gained any either!)...
  • (cs) in reply to Myrmidon

    You're absolutely right, Myrmidon. Epoxy cured my noisy hard drive. I just squirted it in through those little holes and, after it was set, the drive just purrs like a kitten.

  • Dave (unregistered)

    Just remove the fans... duuuh

  • (cs) in reply to TheDude
    TheDude:
    cm:
    diaphanein:
    Mmmmm...asbestos. Just what Doc Watson ordered...

    It's fiberglass insulation.

    How the hell do you know? It still could have asbestos in it.

    Whether it contains asbestos or not, blowing fine glass fibres around is still not generally good for the health. Breathing lots of it in can cause the same lung lesions as asbestos.

  • (cs) in reply to Wyle_E
    Wyle_E:
    Then she brought the cleaner to a repair shop, because it didn't suck.
    "This vacuum cleaner sucks, that is to say, it doesn't!"
  • (cs)

    The funniest part is that the fan holes are doing nothing because, apparently, the fan duct (which removes heat) was obsoleted by the orange insulation (which traps heat) to a terrifying extent. The fan is now causing more problems than it's solving.

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