Successfully relocated my comp case outside the room

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ynnek888

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Messages
247
For my quest of quieter computing, I've decided to relocate my computer case outside of my computer room. I'm just tired of hearing the hmm and woosh of the fans through the day when I'm working in my "home office".. and also, I'm hoping to get some nice studio monitors and an new audio interface for music work, and thought it would be silly to spend all that money to only have this noisy computer next to me.

So, I moved the computer about 15 feet away, outside the room in the corner of the main hall. This way, its relatively out the way, plus the hallway is "open aired" so I don't have to worry about airflow/temps. Plus it was the only convenient place in my house now. So I got:

(1) 23 ft DVI digital cable
(2) 16 foot usb repeater cables
(1) USB hub (powered by a ac adapter to make sure my bus powered devices work)
(1) extra surge protector strip

(4) 3.5mm 12 ft extension cables. (3 for 5.1 sound for my X-Fi, 1 for mic)

Hooked it all up, and it worked perfectly. No noticable degradation in video, sound, or contorls over that distance. (note, when I get studio montiors, they will be running over balanced 1/4" trs). The usb repeater and hub worked invisibly.

With the door open, i can still hear the computer a little, but with the door close, its inaudible. Now my laptop is the noisest thing in the room, next to my keyboard and mouse clicks. :)

I decided to go this route because to me, it would yield the best results for the money. As in pratically 0 noise from the computer (in relation to my computer work area). Cost about $190 total for everything.

Aircooling itself wouldn't reduce noise enough.. water cooling takes it a step further, but still, there would be some fan noise that I could hear if the computer was still right next to me. Plus if i upgrade, there's a good chance that some of the parts wouldn't carry over.. For example, a new vid card.

Also, this leaves the door open for future upgrades at no extra cost. I can get relatively standard parts and fans and still be able to get a virtually quiet office when I close my door. Although now I have a vine of wires leading out this room on the floor. :)

In my next house, I hope to make a proper office and computer/server room setup :)
 
I keep my tower closed up in my computer desk, I open it up when doing some intense gaming (to improve airflow, though I don't think it's necessary, better safe than sorry) - with my speakers or headphones blasting game sounds my case is inaudible. I assume you have an external CD/DVD or other optical drives, would be annoying to run out to the hall everytime you wanted to run something off a disk :p
 
nice. though you could have spent that same 190 to quiet your computer. I mean for me, having to get up to load a disc is not an option for me. My rig is but 3 feet from me and i cannot hear it at all over ambient noise.
 
See, you have not been introduced to quiet computing. A P180, five Yate Loon fans, and a Ninja can make your computer absolutely silent. No need to relocate it.

But I guess for a cheap solution, your's can't be beat! Congrats. :)
 
No, you see, the sound of actual fans itself is annoying.. and its the sounds when the speakers are OFF or at very low levels is whats annoying me. The whole point was NOT to have any fans near me at all and lower the ambient sounds in this room to as quiet as it can get.. especially when I'm working away with the computer near full max with no other sounds playing. Yes, I know you can get some pretty near silent computers, but the amount of tweaking and effort is alot, especialyl if you are going to put in something like a 8800 GTX in there.


BTW, My next system will be along the lines of a p180 or p190 btw to take it a step further. However, I also want to a 8800 GTX in it.. And from what I read, those have a basic noise floor of 40 db at idle taken a meter away. Its pretty good for what it is, but thats already too much, hence why the computer is outside the room and behind a door now :) Air cooling probably isn't going to get much better, and water cooling is out of the question for me. Too much $ and things to worry about. If it wasn't for the video cards actually, I could build a pretty quiet system.. But once you throw in a high perf gaming video card, it gets alot harder and more expensive.. only way to really go them is water cooling, which I decided I'm not doing.

Also, I rarely run anything off the cd/dvd drives now. Maybe for a split secnond when I start off games.. But all my other apps run off the hd. If I find myself annoyed, I'll just get an external drive to put near me.


I also ran this by some home sound studio guys, and for the most part they agree. You can spend a lot of time and money building a system thats quiet (or a lowpowered system thats really quiet), but in the end, you get lots of benifits from moving the computer outside the room first, especially if you are looking at agetting a powerful computer with a gaming graphics card.

Its definantly not sexy, but when your sitting in this room, you can't argue with the silence. Hell, suddenly, things like outside wind are loud now! lol

The hallway is a little louder, but who hangs out inthe hallway all day? :)
 
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