Quieting a noisey drive

[Teq]

A friend recently showed me an very simple way of quieting down noisey hard disks...

What you need:

Soft fabric, the heavy cotton weave used for T-Shirts works well.
Double sided carpet tape, the thin stuff without foam padding.
Drive bolts, with large flat washers.
X-Acto knife or box-cutter
Scissors
Pencil

The obect is to line the drive bay with fabric so that the hard disk is padded away from the metal frame of the case.

What to do...

1) Peel one side of the double sided tape and stick it down firmly on the fabric being careful to avoid wrinkles.

2) Measure and cut the resulting fabric covered tape to just a little taller than the size of your disk drive and the length of the drive bay. You need two of these, one for each side of the bay.

3) Slip your disk drive into place and pencil line the drive bay to guide in the next step.

4) Peel the other side of the double sided tape.

5) Using the pencil lines as guides, stick the tape/fabric to the inside of the drive bay so that it just hides the pencil lines. Cover both sides, being careful to get it smooth... no wrinkles or blisters.

6) With an exacto knife, cutting from the inside of the bay, open the bolt holes to allow drive mounting.

7) Using scrap bits of fabric covered tape cut 1/2" squares and open holes in the center to allow the bolts to pass through. Make one for each mounting screw.

8) Stick these squares on the outside of the drive bay where your mounting bolts will go in. (4 per drive recommended)

9) Slide the drive in place (It might be a tight fit) and use the bolts and washers to secure it.

10) fire it up and notice who quiet things got!

For a bottom bay, wrap about 1/4 inch of the fabric covered tape onto the metal bottom of the bay to ensure the bottom of the drive doesn't touch bare metal.


I have a 20gb maxtor in my bench machine... thing was driving me crazy, this trick quieted it to the point where I had to put my ear to the machine to see if it was spinning up. It now runs almost silently.



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Sounds good, but a little complex don't you think?

Wouldnt 4 soft rubber washers do the trick also?

NOTE: This is something im planning as my DVD drive occasionally gets annoying vibrations with certain discs when playing DVD's (low speed rpm's).

<b>Paying for Sex didn’t mean you couldn’t get it any other way – it meant that you could afford the convenience option, same as any other service.</b>

 

[Teq]

The goal is to keep the hard disk away from the metal parts of the drive bay. This prevents tintinabulation against the structure of the case. If you can get 4 washers between the bay and the drive it should work too... but how you going to position them?

The advantage of the fabric liner is that it covers the entire contact area between the drive and the bay, so there is absolutly no chance of metal touching metal. It also provides a smooth surface to insert the drive against. Of course the extra bits on the outside are to prevent vibration from being transmitted through the bolt heads.

I agree it's quite a few steps but when my friend showed me it took him less than 10 minutes (he's done it a few times) took me about 15 to do it to my machine. I've also done the fan mods I described in the cooler forum (resistor, rubber mounts etc.) and put a temperature controlled fan in the power supply. I never had a computer this quiet before... I think I like it.

My refrigerator now makes more noise than the computer.
Anyone know how to quiet a fridge?



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[lhgpoobaa]

well i as thinking either glue thin rubber bits to the side of the drive over the mounting holes, or just put washers between the screws and the drive tray. Allthough this would be a less optimal solution.

Its really only the dvd and possibly the cdrw that need this. the HDD's are fine.

P.S. i also found with my case that the sidepannels, that are just the normal aluminium slide on variety, vibrate occasionally with certain fan speeds or drive speeds.
I fixed em by glueing on little strips of compresable foam up the top where the sidepannel presses on the case sidepannel rail.
bingo. no more buzz.

<b>Paying for Sex didn’t mean you couldn’t get it any other way – it meant that you could afford the convenience option, same as any other service.</b>

 

[Teq]

If it has those little fingers cut into the metal along the edges of the case, just bend them out a little... no more rattle.



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---