Sound deadening/proof materials/foam?

[spoon_]

Hopefully quick one folks.

Is investing in sound deadening / soundproof materials/foam really worth it?

I would be interested to hear options from people that actually have it installed please (dave87 you're in the spotlight here!)


Been looking at Acousti and Akasa products to far and they're certainly not cheap!

[Macadee]

You're better off removing the problem where possible and using efficient / quieter components instead.

Use rubber fan mounts instead of screws, HDD bungies instead of hard mounting, after-market coolers etc. will do more than any foam.

I tried the Akasa foam years ago and it did nothing expect retain heat, and its a bitch to remove.

Noise was one of my reasons for turning to water cooling.

[sweatherly]

You're definitely better off trying to eliminate the source of the noise rather than using acoustic material. Having just done this myself, the biggest improvements I made were:
1. Replacing a 3.5" HDD with a 2.5" HDD (not only was the HDD quieter but also produced less heat for fans to get rid of)
2. Suspending the HDD using nylon coated elastic from a local haberdashery
3. Replacing my case fans with quieter ones

Having said all of that, I placed some acoustic foam on the inside of the cabinet housing my PC as well as along the back wall where the opening of the cabinet faces to dampen the noise and it seemed to help.

I got my acoustic material here:
http://www.hypedupacoustics.co.uk/

[watercooled]

As above, carefully choosing noise-producing components should be your first priority. However, using something like silicone feet on your case might help with vibrations, but to test it, try standing your case on a few mouse mats or just lift it up carefully and see if it sounds any quieter.

Try to aim for larger, slower fans; I tried a load of 80mm fans in my last SFF case before reaching the conclusion you probably won't get a very quiet one that also moves a decent amount of air for a reasonable price. I bought a few quiet 120mm fans a while back and wrote up a subjective review here: http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...an-review.html

Same goes for CPU fan/cooler, I like the Scythe Shuriken but it's likely to struggle with higher TDP CPUs. Try to get one with a PWM-controlled fan so it's not running flat out constantly. Some motherboards have better fan management that others, also.

And the PSU - I'm using a beQuiet one, and as I've said before they do pay a lot of attention to quietness, even electrical noise/whine/hum and IIRC most of the fans use rifle bearings.

As for the HDD, you could just get an SSD and be done with it, but if you want a HDD then I agree you're probably best with a soft mounted laptop drive. Drives have different noise characteristics so it wouldn't be a bad idea to check the likes of SPCR but noise can even vary between samples. For example, my first WD3200BPVT in this PC made a bit of a whooshing noise which was significantly improved by simply placing an eraser on top of it (a trick I read about on SPCR IIRC) but the RMA replacement I'm using now doesn't suffer from it. It could have something to do with there being 1 and 2 platter versions of the drive, but still something to bear in mind.

Also bear in mind, when you get mechanical noise down below a certain level, you may start to hear electrical noise from your motherboard depending how far away your case is - a faint mechanical hum is ignorable but a fairly random buzzing noise might be annoying. I can hear it with my head next to my PC, more so if the side panel is off but it's not noticeable above ambient noise in use.

[Spank]

I got akasa foam in my new build, but I'm sure it's made no difference, as others have said rubber fan mounts make all the diffrence for the fans (as well as changing to quiter fans)

[sublime]

Agreed, foam is a waste of money. Better off trying to determine which components are causing the noise and work on eliminating those.

[Larkspeed]

All these noise reduction tips and nobody has mentioned the 7 volt mod.

Does nobody but me use this anymore?

I have 3 120mm fans in my case all running on 7 volts they still push a good amount of air through so I still get good cooling but they produce practically 0 sound.

[cptwhite_uk]

My whole system is built around sound dampening:

The CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-D14
4x Corsair 140mm fans + 1x Silverstone 120mm fan ...all Low RPM
Fractal Design R4 (which can accept fans above and a sound dampened panels)
Sapphire 3rd part heatsink HD 7870 (one of the quietest 7870's available on an other low power high med range performance card)

Noise reduction should be considered with every component, my system just emits a low hum even during load.

Rubber mounting any mechanical drives and using the biggest low RPM fans of a decent brand - Corsair / Silverstone / BeQuiet etc is the best starting point. Replace the stock CPU cooler if you're stll using that, decent brand PSU that has ample wants (~ double the watts of what your system pulls at load is a good rule of thumb...typically 600-650W for a typical gaming system).

[Macadee]

All these noise reduction tips and nobody has mentioned the 7 volt mod.

Does nobody but me use this anymore?

I have 3 120mm fans in my case all running on 7 volts they still push a good amount of air through so I still get good cooling but they produce practically 0 sound.

I used to with pin-swapped molex adaptors before investing in one of these for ultimate control: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/mcube...es-your-sys%29

[Larkspeed]

I could never justify spending that kind of money on something that in my machine would be totally pointless.

My machine stays quiet just the way it is, without any fancy rubber mountings or fan controllers.

even when placed under full load the temps don't even increase enough to cause the cpu or gpu fans to increase in speed.

I have a Coolermaster CM690

Front fan = Intake 120mm 7v
Side Fan = Intake 120mm 7v
Top Fan = Extract 120mm 7v

CPU cooler = Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro with 120mm Fan PWM

Side fan pulls in air from outside the case which is blown directly onto both the GPU and CPU

CPU cooler pulls that air through from bottom to top at which point the top fan grabs the hot air and removes it from the machine.

GPU is shrouded so it pulls in the outside air and ejects it out of the rear of the case.

This means that very little of the hot air from GPU and CPU actually sits inside the case.

The end result is a machine that is so quiet that even sitting right next to it you can barely hear it's making any noise at all.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a quiet machine, you just have to think about what you want to achieve and figure out how to do it with what you have.