Acoustic Matting, safe?

[AD-15]

hello,

I am considering having the Akasa Paxmate acoustic matting fitted into my new system, but I am concerned about a few things.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=20490

At such a low price, will this model really make a difference? In addition to this, I have heard that this particular material can release toxic gas when it is heated (by components). Which would obviously be exhausted out of the case, into my room.

Finally, of course, the effect of this on the temperature of the system. This stuff is designed to insulate, and I'm sure it would act as a fine thermal insulator too.

What do you think?

[amjedm]

From what I've read about matting - it won't make a difference to psu noise. First time I've heard about toxic gas!

Not too sure on the quality of Paxmate. AcoustiPack is supposed to be very good. Mutemat is an alternative manufactured in the UK I believe.

Tons of information about silencing on www.silentpcreview.com including dampening materials.

Matting is the last bit you invest in - once all other parts have been quietened.

Finally, what's your spec?

[Agent]

Do you really think Scan could sell it if it gave off Toxic gas ?

[No.72]

I have it, no it does not really make your case quieter but it has stopped the little vibration I had and looks cool so for the money.....

and no it does not heat up all your components, mine are all the same temps with it as without it, but it depends on your case/cooling.
and I haven't got cancer from the toxic fumes yet/not brain damaged yet i08t54drh6ukkasfsiuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusdgiudr (leans on keybourd). I am probably more likely to get cancer by looking at a computer screen

[Andeh13]

Do you really think Scan could sell it if it gave off Toxic gas ?

They havnt heard any complaints just yet!

[dave87]

I used the Akasa stuff in my P160 at home, with a toasty 3200+ (Barton) 6 Hard disks, 6800 & a raid card, and the temps didn't increase significantly.

It did, however, help to dampen the vibrations - so reduced noise.

[frazered]

the akasa stuff is pretty thin tbh

have a look at the acoustipack kits from http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...usticmaterials

[dave87]

Thin = some noise reduction, but no trouble fitting it

[Funkstar]

i've heard carpet or carpet underlay is pretty good at accoustic management. cheap too

but then it probably doesn't look that atractive

[GrahamGarside]

It won't take a noisy system and make it much quieter, acoustic matting is best used when you've already gotten all sources of noise down to a bare minimum and just need to take the edge off the last bit of noise left.

So if you already have a quiet psu, quiet case fans, passive/quiet cpu/gpu coolers and suspended AAM enabled quiet hard drives acoustic matting is good for cutting that last tiny bit of noise left. If you haven't already taken all those steps then they are much more effective and less costly.

As for insulation it's more the impact on airflow thats the issue, very little heat is lost from a system through the case, almost all the heat is taken by the air which passes through the system so as long as it's flow isn't seriously disrupted it's not a problem.

[AD-15]

hello,

Thanks for all the comments and help everyone.

This is my PC spec:

CPU- Intel Core 2 Duo 6600.

Motherboard- ASUS Commando 965

Case- Silverstone Temjin TJ-09 Black.

Memory- 2Gb TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12

DVD-RW –NEC AD-717OS SATA (black)

PSU- 600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready Silent

Floppy Drive/Card reader- Mitsumi FA-401 USB2 1.44 Silver Floppy with 7 in 1 Card Reader

Graphics Card- Asus 768 8800 GTX

Hard drives- 120Gb SATA2 Western Digital WD1200JS Caviar SE (7200rpm,8Mb) - NCQ , x2

Cooling: Zalman CNPS9700 Super Aero Flower Cooler
Akasa Amber 120mm fan x5

Soundcard- Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro-Retail

[GrahamGarside]

5x Akasa 120mm fans and an 8800GTX are not going to make for a quiet system, The acoustic foam would take the edge of the noise but that systems still gonna put out a fair racket, especially under load.

[chrestomanci]

...In addition to this, I have heard that this particular material can release toxic gas when it is heated (by components). Which would obviously be exhausted out of the case, into my room.

I think you are thinking of Polyurethane foam which can give of cyanide when it burns. This was a serous problem in house fires in the 70's and 80's as it was used in furniture. Fire retardants have been compusury in furniture for many years, so this is no longer a problem. I very much doubt that this will be an issue with your PC, even if the foam touches a hot CPU heat sink when the CPU fan has failed.

i've heard carpet or carpet underlay is pretty good at acoustic management. cheap too

but then it probably doesn't look that attractive

I tried that, it did not work very well, and was a pain to fit.

[frazered]

lol

that rig is a beast and not really disposed to silent operation - apart from when it is turned off

your main comprimises are

- akasa fans not got the best reputation for quietness - even if you change the fans, 5 of them is going to create a fair amount of whooshing!

- the gfx card - expect to hear a fair bit from it unless you can control the fans speeds with something like atitool i.e. quiet when browsing the net but cranked up when playing games

the cpu cooler - not the best rep for cooling cpu's well or quietness - i would look to the 9500 as it is cheaper and on a par with the 9700, the only time it will be quiet is when using speedfan or similar and the rpms are at 1300 (i have the little brother 7000alcu)

don't get me wrong it is a nice system - just not predisposed to silent running

you need to choose power or silence really or find a middle ground

[OmarSantiago]

I wouldn't ruin such a nice case, not with the PaxMate. It's thin and almost impossible to pell off again unlike the AcoustiPack which can be repositioned or removed years afterwards. I've had good results with this case with different models of Scythe fans and found the biggest reduction came from removing the central 120mm fan for gfx card. It's a bit tricky but once you get a decent fan in there the Commando's fan throttling will do an excellent job of keeping it cool. The only noise I can hear are the Raptors when they spin up but you can really quieten this case if you take a little time.

For comparison, I'm cooling an E6400 with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7, the Leadtek 8800GTX makes next to no noise anyway and the PSU is a PC P&C Quad Silencer which is also extremely quiet (quieter than the Corsair HX620). Okay, I have a bit of head-start in quiet componentsbut coming off an Antec P180 case the TJ09 is pretty quiet if you set it up okay.

[Toobad]

i've heard carpet or carpet underlay is pretty good at accoustic management. cheap too

but then it probably doesn't look that atractive

I tried shagpile. It was easy enough to fit, but fixing the gripper rods was a real 'mare