The acoustic taming of the PC - teach your PC how to whisper.

The demands of the PC users are varying: Noisy fans are no issue for the raveparty - for subtle music pleasures its just annoying. For our sake there is a bunch of countermeasures. They are listed here. Beforehand: The results are satisfying.

If a new PC is to get it's easiest to go "test listening" before the purchase. Maybe your dealer is willing to put together a suitable configuration - if he knows about that. The following list is useful also for that.

The noise occurs from three sources: harddisc, processor fan and power supply fan.

• All three factors can be muffled at once: With the proper casing.
  Noise values can differ dramatically: In a test (c't 17/01) they varied between 0,1 (*1) and 0,7 Sone with silent components - with noisy ones between 2,7 and 5 Sone - in idle state!
  (*1) : Silentmaxx Bigtower ST-11; all measured with 25 cm distance in idle state - corresponding usual MP3 operation.

• The right choice of the harddisc is the next important step. If you look, e.g. for an MP3-Archive, for a bigger disc its good to check the noise values of the candidate. Though up to date discs are likely to operate quite silent.
  Crucial for that is the value in Sone, expressing the human noise perception. This measure is linear. Silent discs have as low values as 0.4 Sone or 25 dBA in idle state, which is relevant for sound and video operation. The dBA measure doesn't weight the human perception factor and is logarithmic: 3dBA more mean double level, 6dBA factor 4, etc..
  

• Fans vary also a lot in noise emission. CPUs with higher power consumption demand noisier CPU-, (and partly power supply-) fans. If you use Windows 9X,ME, software to reduce power consumption like CPUCool or CPUIdle allows lower fan noise. Windows NT, 2000, XP and Linux care themselves for this reduction.

• Another strategy is, to banish the pest to another room. To do it, the length of the cables of IR receiver and audio/video cable must be considered
  Should you decide for that way, we offer on request receiver versions with longer cables (up to 10 meters / 33 feet).