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Post by swurveman on May 14, 2015 9:14:28 GMT -6
I have my Aurora 16's connected to my RME interfaces. So, my computer and my converters need to be next to each other. I don't want to have to buy longer cables for everything connected to my and Aurora 16 and my computer, which would be necessary if I put my computer and converters into another room.
So, does anybody have any suggestions for taming computer noise that has worked for you. I would prefer some kind of isolation box if possible.
Thanks for any responses.
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Post by jimwilliams on May 14, 2015 9:24:48 GMT -6
An iso box will restrict air flow therefore requiring another fan = more noise. Consider attacking the source of the noise. Add a Silenx fan to the power supply and some SSD's, that will be quiet.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on May 14, 2015 9:26:59 GMT -6
Isolation boxes are not cheap, If you have some skills there are DIY plans out there, but start with the obvious, Fans Drives PSUs. Your going to find cables are cheap and easy.
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Post by swurveman on May 14, 2015 10:17:03 GMT -6
An iso box will restrict air flow therefore requiring another fan = more noise. Consider attacking the source of the noise. Add a Silenx fan to the power supply and some SSD's, that will be quiet. Thanks Jim. I'll check it out. |
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Post by Rock Kennedy on May 14, 2015 10:19:29 GMT -6
Is a fanless cooling system out of the question? Might be cheaper, and easier, and will certainly be a space-saving solution.
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Post by tonycamphd on May 14, 2015 10:44:17 GMT -6
after the above very good suggestions, the good news about an isolation box is it doesn't have to be a complete enclosure(which won't inhibit airflow), the noise coming from the computer is mostly very low spl/low energy mid/high freq noise, an absorbent panel placed in front or to the side goes a long way toward absorbing those poultry freq's that don't have the energy to travel or wrap around.(i'm basing my suggestion off the noise coming from a 2009 macpro)
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 14, 2015 19:21:34 GMT -6
After talking to my most trusted PC guy today a couple of points
1 Noise seams to be one of the big factors in Execs moving to laptops even if it li lives on a desk.
2 The one area where noise issues could be solved ,The Case has seen little or no effort in fact many are so poorly designed they only add to the problem.
The Case market is all about price looks and what you can put in it.
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Post by b1 on May 14, 2015 20:46:50 GMT -6
All excellent suggestions above. Easy to plan for these things when building a new PC, but a little
more work $ to upgrade a system to lower dB levels. If you have a closet or cabinet nearby, that's a
simple way. Just allow for air flow - also watching mic radius/placement. Another equally simple thing, as
Tony suggested, would be going with baffle panels and such, as suggested. As for water cooling, that's
a more major upgrade (headache) and would need to allow water cooling of the video card's chip (eliminating
the whining fan under load).
It should be rather simple to make allowances in your setup without increasing cable lengths. Maybe include
different or rearrange existing furniture.
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Post by winetree on May 14, 2015 21:22:06 GMT -6
I use a newer Mac Mini I7, 16 gigs, 2 S.S.D.s. No noise and No I've never had the fan come on.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2015 0:59:22 GMT -6
What i would do...
Exchange fans with supersilent models and try to decouple from the case however possible with rubber/latex/whatever. This is first.
Even if you build a box, and i did some in the 90's and early 2000's, it is all about decoupling vibration from case and floor and keep the sources of noise as quiet as possible. When building a noise isolation box, you try to keep airflow but use much slower and bigger fans. Disturbing are the hi mids and highs, bigger fans mean lower frequency at same airflow power. Lower frequencies lose more power at a distance and are easier to handle IMO. Also, they are generally less disturbing and noticable...
If done right, isolation boxes work wonders. The old computers back in the day were loud as hell and when i worked as a freelance translator and software tester, they seriously disturbed concentration, so we ended up having 2 rooms full of computers at minimal noise level due to effective isolation boxes that even looked good with large diameter fans to the back.
New nowadays self-built computers are easy to keep quiet, quality overdimensioned silent psu's, coolers with large decoupled quality fans, silent graphic cards, SSDs, and hi quality massive cases without resonances, you can sleep with your ear next to them even if you have hyperacusis...sometimes i think the fans in my i7 machine are broken, i hear near nothing....
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Post by jazznoise on May 15, 2015 7:00:24 GMT -6
There is a German company making super low noise fans - they use large diameter fans to lower the frequency and low friction ballbearings and I have to say they're pretty damn quiet. In a silent room my brother's were practically inaudible.
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Post by swurveman on May 15, 2015 7:29:03 GMT -6
All excellent suggestions above. Easy to plan for these things when building a new PC, but a little more work $ to upgrade a system to lower dB levels. If you have a closet or cabinet nearby, that's a simple way. Just allow for air flow - also watching mic radius/placement. Another equally simple thing, as Tony suggested, would be going with baffle panels and such, as suggested. As for water cooling, that's a more major upgrade (headache) and would need to allow water cooling of the video card's chip (eliminating the whining fan under load). I had this PC built specifically for audio, and it was advertised as "Super Quiet". I've contacted the PC builder to get his recommendations, as its been a really stable system and I don't want to mess it up installing something. It's in a 4U rack mount chassis. I think I'm going to try to go with the fan that the PC maker recommends and put it in an empty multi rack rack case I have and then put cubes of covered fiberglass on the top and sides. The problem is the back though, where the fan is. I wonder if I could put a baffle over the back of the rack case as well when I'm tracking, or if it would be an overheat risk. I guess I could get a temperature gauge to check the temp. |
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Post by svart on May 15, 2015 7:53:05 GMT -6
Get the largest fan you can fit into the case. Larger fans can turn slower and still move the same amount of air. Use an adapter if you have to. I used this one: www.microcenter.com/product/405571/NF-F12_PWM_120mm_Case_FanAnd I used the BIOS settings to adjust the speed down while monitoring the temps on the CPU. Instead of letting the fans cycle up and down to account for the heat changes, I did an average and set the fan to constant speed that averaged the temps to something relatively safe. So far it's working and I can barely hear the PC in the rack 3 feet away. |
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Post by lpedrum on May 15, 2015 8:06:16 GMT -6
In addition to upgrading the fan, go with solid state drives--zero noise coming from the drive.
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Post by mdmitch2 on May 15, 2015 8:08:08 GMT -6
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the 'silent' options have giant heat sinks that raise the temp inside your computer quite a bit, and can often require the addition of another case fan.... which can be okay if that fan is quieter than the one it replaced. I had a fanless graphics card, but ended up ditching graphics cards altogether and just using the onboard windows HD3000 graphics or whatever its called. www.silentpcreview.com has a lot of good info |
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Post by b1 on May 15, 2015 9:24:46 GMT -6
All excellent suggestions above. Easy to plan for these things when building a new PC, but a little more work $ to upgrade a system to lower dB levels. If you have a closet or cabinet nearby, that's a simple way. Just allow for air flow - also watching mic radius/placement. Another equally simple thing, as Tony suggested, would be going with baffle panels and such, as suggested. As for water cooling, that's a more major upgrade (headache) and would need to allow water cooling of the video card's chip (eliminating the whining fan under load). I had this PC built specifically for audio, and it was advertised as "Super Quiet". I've contacted the PC builder to get his recommendations, as its been a really stable system and I don't want to mess it up installing something. It's in a 4U rack mount chassis. I think I'm going to try to go with the fan that the PC maker recommends and put it in an empty multi rack rack case I have and then put cubes of covered fiberglass on the top and sides. The problem is the back though, where the fan is. I wonder if I could put a baffle over the back of the rack case as well when I'm tracking, or if it would be an overheat risk. I guess I could get a temperature gauge to check the temp. It sounds like you are mainly having case fan issues or PSU fan issues since you mentioned noise at the back. I agree with what everyone said about larger fans. If they're turning at lower RPMs, maybe also with the help of a variable or 3-speed fan control you should be able to tame the noise fairly easily. If it's a PSU fan you may need to replace the PSU with a platinum 80 plus series of greater wattage to make sure all of your components properly powered. Possibly the PSU is over-taxed by all of the components. The baffling you mentioned in addition to the fans (including PSU fan) should take care of it. Also I think someone mentioned a vibration pad?, but since yours is rack mounted, you may need to rubberize the mounting points, and the rack at it's base. One of my PCs has an Antec 1200 case with large 120 mm three speed fans at front, back, & top. I have them all turned off except two at the front for the hard drives and one at rear - all set to the slowest speed. My PSU is a 750 watt Corsair 80 plus Bronze series, all of which is silent. That is, you have to put your ear up to them to hear the sound. Overall try to determine if the noise is from the case fan(s) or the PSU. Another option may be to move your more powerful PC to another room and use a more quiet PC to network to it through a CAT 5 or 6 cable. That is along the lines of a "render farm" scenario used for encoding and rendering video for days on end; to complete the tasks. |
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Post by svart on May 15, 2015 9:55:57 GMT -6
I think most people have touched on the main points.
It's going to boil down to three issues, vibration, friction noise and turbulence.
If you can, place your drives away from the edges of the case and any openings. The more distance and obstructions between the drives and the external world, the less likely you are to hear them. Honestly, my new WD black drives are dB's quieter than my old hard drives. I can barely hear their ticks at all. I moved them away from the front of the case, towards the center and now I can't hear them at all.
For vibration, try using a heavy mastic compound, or some of that dynamat stuff that car audio folks use to keep vibrations down. It's a heavy, sticky bitumen pad that dampens vibrating panels. Add a few strips to each large metal surface to keep it from vibrating even slightly. If you tap on the case of the computer and hear anywhere that pings, add some dampening until it only thuds. Use rubber standoffs on drives and fans if you can, to keep them from vibrating the chassis.
For turbulence, the only solution is to smoothen the air flow somehow. Remove obstructions in front of and behind the fan, and use soft air filters in place of metal ones if you can. I used some aluminum duct tape to form a smooth channel from the outside vent to the fan inlet and it cut down the wooosh noise that was being caused by the air flowing over a sharp piece of metal that was sticking out.
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Post by b1 on May 15, 2015 10:25:41 GMT -6
... Honestly, my new WD black drives are dB's quieter than my old hard drives. I can barely hear their ticks at all. I moved them away from the front of the case, towards the center and now I can't hear them at all. For vibration, try using a heavy mastic compound, or some of that dynamat stuff that car audio folks use to keep vibrations down. It's a heavy, sticky bitumen pad that dampens vibrating panels. Add a few strips to each large metal surface to keep it from vibrating even slightly. If you tap on the case of the computer and hear anywhere that pings, add some dampening until it only thuds. Use rubber standoffs on drives and fans if you can, to keep them from vibrating the chassis. For turbulence, the only solution is to smoothen the air flow somehow. Remove obstructions in front of and behind the fan, and use soft air filters in place of metal ones if you can. I used some aluminum duct tape to form a smooth channel from the outside vent to the fan inlet and it cut down the wooosh noise that was being caused by the air flowing over a sharp piece of metal that was sticking out. Yes, the WD Blacks are more than adequate for mult-tracking/sampling. I have the Blacks in all of my PCs. I don't have any SSDs anywhere. The WD Black Enterprise HHDs with 64 MB cache are great and reliable. One 120mm fan will keep three of those cool to the touch, with no noise. If they stop making those, then I'll look into SSDs. |
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Post by Guitar on May 15, 2015 19:22:17 GMT -6
I recommend Noctua brand case fans, and CPU coolers. Very quiet fans.
Also you can use a fan speed controller to lower the speeds to even quieter levels, if your temperatures are cool enough.
Also, once it's reasonable...don't sweat it. A little white noise at the bottom of the noise floor never killed anybody. Especially if you're just mixing and not tracking.
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