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DIY case sound dampening mod

Hello fellow people of the LTT forum!

I came across a video by DIY Perks about his Cloud Unit (Super quiet PC), here's the video: 

 

Now, I don't have the budget to build my own case like this, but I do want to make my current case more silent. Because of this video, I thought of the idea to put some towels on the inside of e.g. the side panels of my case to absorb the sound. Is this a safe way to make my case more silent or will there be possible dangers like static electricity? 

I'm currently using a Zalman Z3 Plus with three 120mm case fans (excluding the CPU fan) and two 7200rpm HDDs. (I reckon these are the parts that are the biggest contributors to the sound in my system)

 

Your advice will be most welcome, I really think my PC is too loud...

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towels are not going to do much
even sound dampening foam wont do much

90% of the sound escapes from the vents and openings which you cant block otherwise you will have 0 airflow

if you want to reduce noise, buy quieter fans

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I never understood people's need for quiet computers. Personally i'm more than happy to have fan noise coming from my PC. It means everything is working and staying as cool as can be. 

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2 hours ago, clgst14 said:

-SNIP-

For noise it's usually better to get quieter components first than sound dampening since it mainly helps prevent echo or reverberation inside the case. I would suggest proper sound dampening material since that would be more effective. 

http://www.thefoamfactory.com/closedcellfoam/polyethylene-foam-roll.html 

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2 hours ago, Talamakara said:

I never understood people's need for quiet computers. Personally i'm more than happy to have fan noise coming from my PC. It means everything is working and staying as cool as can be. 

Well in my case (pun not intended) I've got my PC directly to my right side of my desk because it is the only place it can stand, otherwise the cables are too short... I also have a condenser microphone which picks up the humming noise from the PC while recording with it, which I don't like.

Also, I'm not really a fan (again, pun not intended) of noisy environments, I like things to be quiet as I can focus more in silentness.

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What do you use for silencing? If i was really concerned, i'd probably get dynamat from a local car audio supply. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2-2-2016 at 9:35 PM, Talamakara said:

What do you use for silencing? If i was really concerned, i'd probably get dynamat from a local car audio supply. 

Sorry for the late reply, but I don't use any materials in my computer case to make it more silent than it is originally. 

 

As for the dynamat you mentioned, It's expensive as hell! (As far as I've searched the internet, a piece of dynamat (1.37m x 0.81m) costs around €255,- !)

I certainly would like to find a more affordable solution, otherwise I would be better off buying a premium case with noise dampening stuff inside it already..

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How loud are your fans that you even care? I mean this in all seriousness. I'm sure my machine has more fans and i don't even notice them.

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On 2.02.2016 at 5:37 PM, Talamakara said:

I never understood people's need for quiet computers. Personally i'm more than happy to have fan noise coming from my PC. It means everything is working and staying as cool as can be. 

People want to concentrate and sleep sometimes...

I need S340. But more Define S'ish

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16 hours ago, Allshevski said:

People want to concentrate and sleep sometimes...

lol I've had my PCs in my room for years, never stopped me from sleeping lol.

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I actually would use acoustic foam (the kind they use in sound booths) It's pretty cheap and I imagine it would work better than dynamat. There is also a sound dampening paint (I think it's called Quiet Car) that you can lay down with just a brush and be fine. For fans I use bitfenix spectre fans and Nidec Gentle Typhoons. There are some remakes out there and from what I understand they are pretty decent and can be had for pretty cheap.

 

My setup in my case (although it's stupidly custom)

 Triangle acoustic foam on the side panel and bottom

2x 140MM Bitfenix spectres (Front, controlled by a fan controller)

2X 120mm Nidec Typhoons (Front Radiator controlled by motherboard using a fan profile)

1X 120mm Delta 240CFM mounted directly behind on the top front fan (This thing is manual. TURN DOWN FOR WHAT! fan)

1X 120mm Coolink 120mm That blows on the NB and MOBO Mosfets

2X 80MM Noctua fans

 

My desktop is literally 2 feet from where my head sits when I sleep. with most of the fans on a profile and the high CFM and noisy fans on a manual controller. My ceiling fan is louder than my desktop. Generally when I go to sleep only my Typhoons and Coolink fans are running and my GPU fans (Gigabyte R9 380 Windforce) fans cut out when not on load. Dead silent.

 

What I would do is find a On-Off-4V fan controller like the Lamptron I have and find fans that are less than 20-ish decibels that push a fair bit of air, nothing crazy but enough to get the job done, Line whatever you can with sound absorbing foam like (http://www.amazon.com/Mybecca-Acoustic-Soundproofing-12-12-Inch/dp/B00TP7C9YY/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1455595124&sr=1-4&keywords=Acoustic+Foam) and set a user defined fan profile (if you can) with a control software like AI-Suite and you should be golden!

20160215_165445.jpg

"Tundra"

Mobo: M5A99FX PRO R2.0 Processor: AMD FX 8320 On water @4.8GHZ
Memory: 4X  Crucial 4GB @ 1866MHZ Videocards: 2X Gigabyte CrossfireX 7990s

OS Harddrive:Crucial BX100 500GB SSD Storage Drives: Hitachi POS 2TB & Crucial C300 256GB SSD PSU: EVGA 1000w P2 Supernova

Case: Crazy Modded G5 Powermac Case

 

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11 hours ago, Talamakara said:

lol I've had my PCs in my room for years, never stopped me from sleeping lol.

Lol, so do I but the sound is just tiring when you want to close your eyes and relax and you just can because the sound is so annoying.. If a fan isn't silent, they should at least design a soothing sound...

I need S340. But more Define S'ish

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On 2/12/2016 at 2:19 PM, clgst14 said:

Sorry for the late reply, but I don't use any materials in my computer case to make it more silent than it is originally. 

 

As for the dynamat you mentioned, It's expensive as hell! (As far as I've searched the internet, a piece of dynamat (1.37m x 0.81m) costs around €255,- !)

I certainly would like to find a more affordable solution, otherwise I would be better off buying a premium case with noise dampening stuff inside it already..

http://www.parts-express.com/sonic-barrier-lightweight-vinyl-sound-damping-sheet-10-x-13--268-030

 

This is what I use this for both cars and PC's and you can't beat the price.

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Trust me. It helps (a little (If you do a lot)).

 

As said here, you should try to get thing that generate less noise instead of trying to absorb it after.

 

I`m waiting for a aftermarket cooler for my reference R9 290 to arrive from China so i can finally play silently.

 

With this setup that i have, the noise went from unberable to just loud as f*ck, So it`s technically an improvement. But, it`s definetely not a fix.

IMG_20160217_181716.jpg

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I've got another question for this exact build. He used a cpu air cooler for his gpu core and small copper heatsinks for the vram. Has anyone tried that as well but in a normal case (maybe with vertical gpu mount as well and pcie extension cables). I really like the idea of a very silent, but still powerful pc

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 16-2-2016 at 5:00 AM, NuKe said:

I actually would use acoustic foam (the kind they use in sound booths) It's pretty cheap and I imagine it would work better than dynamat. There is also a sound dampening paint (I think it's called Quiet Car) that you can lay down with just a brush and be fine. For fans I use bitfenix spectre fans and Nidec Gentle Typhoons. There are some remakes out there and from what I understand they are pretty decent and can be had for pretty cheap.

 

My setup in my case (although it's stupidly custom)

 Triangle acoustic foam on the side panel and bottom

2x 140MM Bitfenix spectres (Front, controlled by a fan controller)

2X 120mm Nidec Typhoons (Front Radiator controlled by motherboard using a fan profile)

1X 120mm Delta 240CFM mounted directly behind on the top front fan (This thing is manual. TURN DOWN FOR WHAT! fan)

1X 120mm Coolink 120mm That blows on the NB and MOBO Mosfets

2X 80MM Noctua fans

 

My desktop is literally 2 feet from where my head sits when I sleep. with most of the fans on a profile and the high CFM and noisy fans on a manual controller. My ceiling fan is louder than my desktop. Generally when I go to sleep only my Typhoons and Coolink fans are running and my GPU fans (Gigabyte R9 380 Windforce) fans cut out when not on load. Dead silent.

 

What I would do is find a On-Off-4V fan controller like the Lamptron I have and find fans that are less than 20-ish decibels that push a fair bit of air, nothing crazy but enough to get the job done, Line whatever you can with sound absorbing foam like (http://www.amazon.com/Mybecca-Acoustic-Soundproofing-12-12-Inch/dp/B00TP7C9YY/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1455595124&sr=1-4&keywords=Acoustic+Foam) and set a user defined fan profile (if you can) with a control software like AI-Suite and you should be golden!

20160215_165445.jpg

Thanks for this elaborate description of your setup, I do have two BitFenix PWM LED Fans which I control using my BIOS. They currently run as silent as possible while still moving a sufficient amount of air. (at least, I think they do) Also, I'm rocking a Asus GTX970 Strix, so those fans aren't spinning at low load, just as your Windforce cards.

 

I could try using some acoustic foam on the inside of my pc, but I reckon the foam is too thick to place inbetween my side panel and some hardware, like my video card, CPU cooler and probably the PSU and HDDs...

 

On 16-2-2016 at 0:47 AM, johnny5c said:

http://www.parts-express.com/sonic-barrier-lightweight-vinyl-sound-damping-sheet-10-x-13--268-030

 

This is what I use this for both cars and PC's and you can't beat the price.

This could be a better solution concerning the little room left between my side panel and the components. I will take a look at shops in my country as Amazon unfortunately has no support in The Netherlands... (I know there is a possibility of ordering it on Amazon.de and shipping it to The Netherlands, but I rather buy something at a Dutch shop than at a German website)

 

EDIT: Would you recommend this? LINK

It costs around €17,- ($18.50-ish)

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1 hour ago, clgst14 said:

]Thanks for this elaborate description of your setup, I do have two BitFenix PWM LED Fans which I control using my BIOS. They currently run as silent as possible while still moving a sufficient amount of air. (at least, I think they do) Also, I'm rocking a Asus GTX970 Strix, so those fans aren't spinning at low load, just as your Windforce cards.

 

I could try using some acoustic foam on the inside of my pc, but I reckon the foam is too thick to place inbetween my side panel and some hardware, like my video card, CPU cooler and probably the PSU and HDDs...

 

This could be a better solution concerning the little room left between my side panel and the components. I will take a look at shops in my country as Amazon unfortunately has no support in The Netherlands... (I know there is a possibility of ordering it on Amazon.de and shipping it to The Netherlands, but I rather buy something at a Dutch shop than at a German website)

 

EDIT: Would you recommend this? LINK

It costs around €17,- ($18.50-ish)

 

It looks just like Dynamat (Car sound insulation) without the foil on it. I've never personally used it but I've heard some positive things about it. But at $18.50-ish you really dont have much to loose if you try it and it doesnt work. Really any foam will work to some degree. Maybe you have a local craft store you can get some with a good thickness and velcro back it for probably  less than $10 (In freedom units)

"Tundra"

Mobo: M5A99FX PRO R2.0 Processor: AMD FX 8320 On water @4.8GHZ
Memory: 4X  Crucial 4GB @ 1866MHZ Videocards: 2X Gigabyte CrossfireX 7990s

OS Harddrive:Crucial BX100 500GB SSD Storage Drives: Hitachi POS 2TB & Crucial C300 256GB SSD PSU: EVGA 1000w P2 Supernova

Case: Crazy Modded G5 Powermac Case

 

OCC Cool Club Member

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58 minutes ago, NuKe said:

 

It looks just like Dynamat (Car sound insulation) without the foil on it. I've never personally used it but I've heard some positive things about it. But at $18.50-ish you really dont have much to loose if you try it and it doesnt work. Really any foam will work to some degree. Maybe you have a local craft store you can get some with a good thickness and velcro back it for probably  less than $10 (In freedom units)

I could try to go to some sort of store which sells car accessories, but I reckon they will sell this stuff for a lot more than what I found online... Unfortunately I don't have any other shops which sell those materials, at least, not that I know of by now. The online shop is located very close to where I live so I can just order it online and pick it up once the product is shipped to them!

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