Sound Proofing/ Damping

tribble

Hi,

I have a couple of questions re: soundproofing/ damping

I have 3 REALLY noisy PC's.
I have decided to put them in a cabinet.

Where can i get damping material e.g. Melamine?

I don't want a crappy little kit like Peats sells.
I need industrial board.

thanks,

brian

Gerry

Make sure this cabinet is well ventilated. Try car accessory shops for sound dampening material.

Victor

Line it with a non-flammable soft material, seal the edges and put a muffler on the vents.

Have you tried identifying the source of the noise (maybe losse mountings, incorrect CD settings, etc.)

tribble

Make sure this cabinet is well ventilated. Try car accessory shops for sound dampening material.

Thanks for that - Didn't think of a car shop.

Line it with a non-flammable soft material, seal the edges and put a muffler on the vents.

Yep - Most proofing material is flame retardant, unlike the expanded polystyrene i have now which is rather dangerous :eek:

Have you tried identifying the source of the noise (maybe losse mountings, incorrect CD settings, etc.)

Yeah, the noise is from the cpu fan's (athlon 2200+'s, tt copper heatsinks) and the 15 or so HD's. This would'n be TOO bad but i sleep less than 2 meters away from the boxes which run 24/7 (server and video workstation's):(

Further input welcome:)

b

Victor

Originally posted by tribble
Yeah, the noise is from the cpu fan's (athlon 2200+'s, tt copper heatsinks) and the 15 or so HD's.

no wonder it makes noise ....

tribble

Noise does not adequately describe the fundamental disturbance that these machines make to my mental wellbeing...:(

ironape

One thing I found with my pc (not as bad a situation as you tho) is that the case itself sort of amplified the noise of the fans, hd...

The insides of the case are metal and nice and shiny and really good at reflecting sound - so it all bounces around inside and get amplified. I put a sheet of this sort of foamy stuff that came with my mobo on the inside of the fan side of my pc and that helped quite a bit. So maybe you should consider insulating your pc too?

just a thought

Ape
(oh, and it didn't raise the temp of my comp btw)

Victor

Originally posted by ironape
I put a sheet of this sort of foamy stuff that came with my mobo on the inside of the fan side of my pc and that helped quite a bit. So maybe you should consider insulating your pc too?

All well and good until your machine burst into flames .... :eek:

shabbyroad

I have had this very same problem.

I have a recording studio in a separate building (behind my house) and when speccin'g it out I wanted to get all the hard drives , Macs, PCs etc etc and their noise and shut 'em up.

I investigated cabinets etc etc etc and found that the most cost effective and noise attenuating (is that a real word ?) solution was to "build" a 'machine room'. Basically this is a partition-style stud-wall with a door on one side (built into the corner of the studio). All cables were run via the ceiling using cheapo ducting.
I'm not very good at DIY but this was really straightforward. It basically created a room within a room. The result is that all the Mac PC HD etc etc noise is contained and attenuated to such a degree that when mixing and mastering I/we cannot hear anything coming from the 15+ fans in the 'machine room'.

Heat will be your enemy - if you put all that equipment into a small box you will reduce your mean-time-to-failure. Frankly I've never been convinced by 'sound proofing' materials . . . . . sound proofing has more to do with attenuation through the use of multiple layers/surfaces rather than a single 'magic' solution.

PM me if you want to come out and take a look at the solution I used.

ironape

Like I said, it didn't raise the temperature at all - mainly cos it didn't block any holes.

I also was lookin at some old servers that we have in work. They have these big blocks of styrofoam (?) that direct the airflow, but also (I would imagine) cut down on the reverberation inside the case. If you have routes that the air flows through, you'd be ok.

Ape

seating

use a substance that is not uniform in shape , then the chances of noise cancelation is greater . like the old egg box trick. noise cancellation happens when harmonics jump out of phase and end up being the opposite of another harmonic.

mackanz

Tribble,

Have you given watercooling a thought?
I find it very nice, and not hard at all to setup and it´s practically noiseless. You dont need anything fancy, a waterblock, a heatercore from a used car, some tubing, a pump from a pet store and a fan for the heatercore. Or you can buy a Watercooling kit, they start from around €170.

Mac

_CreeD_

Water cooled Swiftech QuietPower case lined with QuietPC's PowerSnooze, throw in a Rheobus to lower the fanspeed when Mic'ing and you have a pretty quiet performance PC without the hassles of heat damage (since the water cooler dissipates cpu heat outside of the case).

Wossack

A solution I saw (if youre strapped for cash ), when you make your machine room,
make the walls hollow - two layers. Then fill the gap with sand.

Most of the server cabinets I've seen use sand in the door as a sound proofer.

tribble

Thanks Guys,

I was thinking along the 'room within a room' theory before and i think i'll try it.

I did this before with a cabinet. I lined it with styrofome and tried to seal it. Problem was the heat would build up and up and up until the HD's shut themselves down.:eek: - gotta work on my cooling...

The two walls + sand idea might just work - better than my concrete wardrobe idea anyway...

Water cooling:eek:?:eek: - yeah i've seen it done but i think i'll give it a miss...
drip , drip, fizzle, fizzle, (cue to X-Ray spex)...



b