Why are there no acoustic treatments for cases?

[Worf101]

If you've 5 fans running and the CPU's whining like a bitch in heat, why are there no cases or noise attenuation mods available that allow you to run as many fans as you like, your CPU cooler as fast as you like... without all the noise.

They can design all sorts of speaker systems that "give you only the music" and none of the noise, why can't they do the same for cases?

Da Worfster

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[etp777]

Make one yourself. Start with liquid cooling. Cool everything with it Seal inside of case. put layer of sound deadening in. Then layer of magnetic shielding material. Then a vaccuum, with electromagnet outside that to float case in a vacuum. This keeps any sound from transferring out of case.

Then put big enough radiator on system that you don't need a fan. And design whole thing to use convection to move coolant through the system, so you have no pump noise. Then mount it all in a rubber mount to abosrb any possible vibration. Then relaize you've just sealed in your cdrom and floppy drives so hopefully you have anything you needed in there. And then you will still have material to transmit sound, as keyboard, mouse, video, power and network cables still have to come out of there somewhere.

 

[Crashman]

You could tune a case to block a frequency, but that wouldn't help much because fan frequencies vary, and the case would have to be made of something that doesn't occilate with that frequency, like wood. But what works for sheet metal works for sheet metal...Dynomat or whatever it's called is a sound deadener used for car audio to reduce vibrations of the sheet metal.

Now, there are companies probably making a fortune by putting "Water Whetter" for cars in little bottles "for computers water cooling". And I guess someone could relable Dynomat as "computer sound deadener" and charge extra for it, but that wouldn't be helpful to your finances, the stuff is pricey enough as sold!

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[Cybercraig]

Get a clear Lexan case. They transmit far less noise. Just make sure all the fans fit in and add one to the top.


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[Mr5oh]

Do you really need all the fans? You could start by running quieter fans. Then they have sound deadening mat for computers:

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As Crashman said, you can tune out certain frequencies, but since all fans are different, and vary noises while running it would be very difficult.

I have been thinking about one ideal for a while. That is to use a microphone inside the case, to take in the noise the computer is currently making and then playing the opposite sound through a speaker to help cancel the noise. (I believe you need to reverse the wave?) Need some sort of audiophile to actually interput what I am saying, becuase I only sort of know what I am talking about, but not how to say it.

I seem to remember a professor from some college doing a similar thing, but he wasn't able to completely cancel out the sound, but was able to greatly reduce it.

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[etp777]

It won't completley cancel the sound, but will deaden some of it. You'd need to wire a speaker out of phase. Knew a guy who did that(and played around with it some myself) for monitors in his recording booth. Was home brewed setup, which worked well, and he invested a good amount of time and money in. But to help minimize the microphone picking up the monitors(monitors in this case, for those who don't know, were small speakers to allow singer to hear instrumental/accompaniment tracks that had already been laid down on the Tascam digital audio system), he wired one out of phse from the other(just switched positive and negative cables). The speakers then, to some extent, tended to cnacel each other out. Part of the problem though, is that you have to do this with speakers where you angle/position them right to create the dead spot where you want it. THe sounds form your computer though aren't a point source, but isntead from hard drive down on bottom front, PSU in top back, CPU fan in middle, case fan on back middle, cdroms on top front, etc, so it's going to be a lot harder to find a single spot where you can deaden the noise.

 

[jammydodger]

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