I've become a silent-build obsesser -- am I crazy?

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boomstick1

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Jul 6, 2013
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Hi all,

My first build is complete. I've got the define r4, gtx 660 CU II, i5 haswell, stock fans, Seasonic G 550w, and 2 WD Red 3tb.

I'm super satisfied by everything. Haven't seen any lag on games with max settings on 1440p yet. (though I'm sure I will sometime with games from 2013).

Anyways. My obsession now is sound. I want my PC on my desk where I can see it. Nice and neat. This obviously makes noise an issue. The PC is very quiet. But I plan to host a server for my house, and I'm also constantly downloading on my WD Reds. It turns out that the WD Reds are the loudest thing in my case.

What's more, these drives are supposed to be the quietest there are now for affordable mass storage.

See - http://us.hardware.info/reviews/3550/12/western-digital-red-1tb--2tb--3tb-review-special-nas-disks-noise-levels

Yes, they're more quiet (very slightly) than the WD Green 3TBs.

Is it normal for HDDs to be the loudest thing in your case?

How does one do a super silent build? I went with a windowed case so that might be it.

Again, it's very, very quiet. But, why not build a silent PC? So you never need to turn it off, etc
 
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Here's a few more options for hard drive noise reduction products. Really don't know which would yield the best results, or perhaps using a combination of them:

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g7/c113/list/p1/Sound_Dampening-HDD_Silencers.html?id=y92p5H82

Also, here's an article from Tom's that was written on the subject of noise reduction which might give you some more insight:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-noise-silencer,2287.html

Good luck, and if you come up with any novel solutions, might be nice to share them with the community. :)
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Sh4d0w45p

Sh4d0w45p

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Feb 20, 2013
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My last 2 builds were in a Bitfenix Prodigy and Shinobi case. Both were i5's and used SSD's, one with a GTX670 and the other used a GTX550Ti.

I could not hear either of them. Freaked me out a little because I wasn't sure if they worked >< at first.

I also remember having an 80Gb 10k WD Raptor drive that sounded like it was eating things inside my case. So a quiet PC is music to my ears these days - so your not the only crazy person.

Checkout some of Lamptron's Quiet PC stuff. They have a noise reduction kit and things like Anti-Vibration Rubber HDD Screws that will reduce some of the noise.

Otherwise, yes. The mass storage HDD's are going to be the loudest thing in there. :(
I have a NAS with 2x 3Tb (WD Green) drives and I can hear if it's spinning up through half my house.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Oct 3, 2012
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I agree with USAFRet on this one. Your biggest noise maker is the easiest to remove from the equation. Since you said the machine was going to function as a server, why not decouple the drives and stick them in a closet, basement, or other room where their sounds will be unobtrusive. An SSD would easily suffice in place of the boot drive and would use less power.

The other machines drawing from the server would hardly be effected by the location of the drives residing on the network.

I'm also rather interested in a quiet environment when computing. The loudest thing at this point is the backlighting from my LCD screen and white-noise from my audio amplifier. My solution, while not applicable in a lot of cases, was to move my computers to another room entirely and shut the door on them, then run high quality cabling to a multi-computer, digital switchbox to bring USB, HDMI, and digital audio back to my workstation. I actually found this far lower cost in money, time, and aggravation, than trying to engineer noiseless computers. It has the added byproduct that I can happily run a graphics card at 100% fan speed when playing games, and I don't have to hear the fan. Plus, all the heat generated can be dealt with in another location, rather than have to deal with it in the room I'm working in. While I would rather my computer be right in front of me, as you are wanting, I probably will never go back to that arrangement after enjoying a zero noise multi-computer configuration. I consider the benefit to be worth the trade-offs.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Oct 3, 2012
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Here's a few more options for hard drive noise reduction products. Really don't know which would yield the best results, or perhaps using a combination of them:

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l2/g7/c113/list/p1/Sound_Dampening-HDD_Silencers.html?id=y92p5H82

Also, here's an article from Tom's that was written on the subject of noise reduction which might give you some more insight:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-noise-silencer,2287.html

Good luck, and if you come up with any novel solutions, might be nice to share them with the community. :)
 
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boomstick1

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Jul 6, 2013
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Thanks for all the informative replies guys.

The define r4 has rubber contacts on all its HDD metal inserts things. They do give you extra rubber washers, but I don't think I can add them anywhere.

With the r4, the bottom 3 HDD cage is nice an small and compact. My front fan blows about 3 inches above, towards my mobo. My WD Reds run cool. With all these factors taken into account, my plan is to build a little cardbox box with the bottom mostly open and with a cut out in the bag for the SATA cables. I'll place it on top of the hard drive cages in my case for more sound isolation. It will be at least two layers of cardboard and then I might line it with this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040JHMH6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER. Hopefully something cheaper. That should make a little difference.

I enjoy these kind of "home crafts" projects, so I'm kind of looking forward to this.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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My wife's PC has the HDD suspended by 4 wire ties. Not because of noise, but because it's a 2.5" ex laptop drive, and the case has no 2.5" mounts. But fully decoupled from the case can't hurt in the noise reduction scenario.

I've seen drives suspended with large rubber bands for the same purpose.
 
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bigpinkdragon286

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Just watch out for the rubber bands becoming old, brittle and wanting to break. :) Probably won't hurt anything in most cases, but I've heard people say it's not their favorite experience.

Heck, if you're not as concerned with what your chassis insides look like, maybe even get some spray on or paint on sound deadener like used in cars. :)

Now if only you could get active acoustic noise cancellation that you could put on or near the hard drives, imagine how quiet you could get them! Sounds like a good marketing gimmick for any hard drive manufacturer wiling to put a little R&D into it. Would give the industry something new to look at, certainly.
 
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