Make cheap case quiet-ish

mochja · May 27, 2020

I believe this should be in https://linustechtips.com/main/forum/14-case-modding-and-other-mods/, Sorry!

Hello Everyone!

I'd like to share my idea that I came up yesterday night. What is bothering me couple days after switching to Ryzen 3600, it the fan noise of cpu bursting to 100% back and forth, but also overall higher noise when case is closed. I don't think that the noise is coming from fan itself, but my idea is that the case is so thin that these fan vibrations are causing higher sound level. If I take panel of and knock it, you can hear really strong metal sound, at this point I was like: "Oh I've heard one of these before and I know how to fix it"... Long story short, I was in car-hifi shop to improve my car audio the other day and they had "test" door in there to test the difference between soundproofed or non-soundproofed doors. Idea here is pretty simple, get the vibration isolation material sheets and apply them to panels and top of the case.

Case: SilentiumPC Armis AR1 Pure Black

Vibration Isolation Material: Comfort mat Dark D2, (extra: Comfort Mat Integra)

Material Costs: ~6 EUR

You can easily cut the isolation sheets with scissors, I needed in total two sheets (500 x 350 mm) and half a sheet of Integra, I did not put this one on back side panel as there is already not enough space for cable management. I went extra with Integra one, but I truly believe you can get without it, it's meant for sound isolation instead of vibration isolation, it's thicker and foamy.