June 26th, 2012Top StoryHow to Silence Your Noisy Computer (and Keep It Cool as a Cucumber)By Whitson Gordon
Whether you have an old desktop or a brand-new home-built machine, you can reduce the noise in a number of ways. What you'll need depends on your case, your hardware, and your own personal preferences, so we'll go through each tweak separately to help you put together the perfect cooling system. Understanding HeatLike most electronic devices, your computer heats up when it's in use. Your processor, graphics card, motherboard, and power supply all get hotter the harder they work. Without some sort of cooling system, they'd quickly overheat and fry themselves. So, we traditionally use large metal heatsinks to direct the heat away from those components, and then blow that hot air out of your computer with fans. The problem is, fans can be noisy, and the fans that come with your computer are often cheap, loud, and ineffective. So, the first step in silencing your computer is improving your cooling. The more efficient your cooling system, the fewer fans you'll need running at full blast. We're going to take a look at hardware that can make your cooling more efficient, fans that run a little bit quieter, and a way to control it all so you can keep it quiet when your computer isn't working hard. Step Zero: Clean Your ComputerPrice: $5 Click to view Before you do anything else, make sure your computer is clean and dust-free. If you've had it for more than a year, chances are it's built up some dust on the fans and heatsinks, which will make it run hotter (and thus louder), so grab a $5 can of compressed air and clean that sucker out. When you're done, you may find that it's gotten a little quieter already. Step One: Get a New Heatsink (or a Water Cooler)Price: $30-70 for a heatsink, $40-400 for water cooling
Heatsinks are large, metal constructs that conduct heat away from your hardware and then blow it through a fan to keep everything running cool. Aftermarket heatsinks can be quite inexpensive, costing only $30 for a simple CPU cooler and $43 for a smaller graphics card cooler. If your CPU or GPU fan is very loud, adding a higher quality heatsink with a quiet fan can keep everything much quieter (not to mention much cooler). Photo by Robert Freiberger.
Step Two: Upgrade Your FansPrice: $10-$25 per fan How many fans you choose depends on your case, so you need to take a look at what you have before you go buying fans. Let's take a typical mid tower computer case, for example, with two fan slots in the front, and one in the back. We want the air to follow one path through the system, from front to back. That means we'll use our front fans as intakes, and our back fan as exhaust. Air comes in through the front, blows over your hard drives, then to the rest of your hardware and out through the back. Having the back fan at the top is especially handy since hot air rises, so it will blow out hot air first. Your graphics card and power supply will cool themselves on their own, but it's nice to have some of that cool air flowing over them as well—if you have a side intake fan or bottom intake fan, that can help. Generally, we recommend setting up your fans for positive air pressure—that is, that you have more fans intaking air than you do exhausing them. This not only cools your graphics card better, but coupled with a few dust filters on your intake fans, it can keep a lot of dust out of your case, since you won't have any air creeping in through the nooks and crannies of your machine: That way, the only air that comes in is air through your filtered intake fans, which keep the majority of dust out. For more information, check out this article on Silverstone's web site. Your case may have more than three fan slots, so you'll obviously need to adjust this plan based on how many fans your case can take and how many you actually want to use (remember: more fans = more noise, but also better cooling). Once you've figured out how many fans you want, you'll need to research what kind of fans you want. As you browse different products online, you'll want to look at a few things:
If you know what model fans are currently in your case, look them up online and see what their air flow and noise level ratings are—that way you'll know what you need to look for if you want something quieter or with better cooling. Lastly, if your case doesn't come with dust filters, grab a few filters for each of your intake fans. This will help you keep dust out of your case, which can make your computer run hot and your fans run loud. Step Three: Invest in a Fan ControllerPrice: $20-$60
Most fan controllers can take up to four fans, but with an adapter like this one, you can control multiple fans with one knob. If your fan controller has a screen that measures RPM, you may need to cut one of the yellow cables to get an accurate reading (since having two fans sending fan speed info can confuse most controllers). Fan controllers are also harder to find on sites like Newegg, so I suggest you look around for reviews on YouTube and other sites before you buy—you're likely to find a lot more than you will at any one computer store. Also remember that if your fan controller measures temperatures, it won't be reliable for something like the CPU—you'll need an app like Core Temp to measure the true temperature of your CPU. Other Noise-Dampening Products You Might Want to TryAs you're buying the main hardware for your case, you may also want to check out some of these accessories that are designed to keep your case quiet:
The last piece of advice I can give is to start off with quality hardware. If you buy a cheap hard drive or a cheap power supply, you're going to end up with something that's loud. It's just the way of things. The next time you go to upgrade computer—whether it's all at once or on a part-by-part basis over time—take into account cooling and noise. Read reviews, look at its noise specifications (if it has any), and remember that you get what you pay for. You may spend a little more upfront for something quiet, but it's likely going to be higher quality and make you happier, not to mention maybe last a little longer. Got any of your own tips for creating the perfect, silent cooling system? Share them with us in the comments below.  |
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