Re: Searching for the very silent PC

[Bob Smith]

Rob Adelman wrote:
>
> <http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/10/silent.pc.reut/index.html>
>
> "We're building computers you just can't hear," said Jon Schoenborn,
> general manager of NW Custom Computers Inc., which owns and operates
> Endpcnoise.com."

Well, not completely silent, but damned quiet. I had the folks at NWCC
build me a unit. If there is enough interest I will put a picture on my
website of a spectral noise comparison between the NWCC unit and the
generic P3 it replaces measured 0.5 meter from respective units. These
folks have done an impressive job short of 100% convection cooling. The
two fans in this P4 2.8GHz unit are quiet. I would hesitate to have this
unit running in the tracking room when recording quiet acoustic
instruments but for anything else it wouldn't be a problem.

bobs

Bob Smith
BS Studios
we organize chaos
http://www.bsstudios.com

[Stephen Blakeney]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:08:48 -0600, Rob Adelman
> wrote:

><http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/10/silent.pc.reut/index.html>
>
>"We're building computers you just can't hear," said Jon Schoenborn,
>general manager of NW Custom Computers Inc., which owns and operates
>Endpcnoise.com."



Check the Zalman CNPS3100+. Reduced the noise level in my PC to
next-to-nil. Depending upon your system, could be a wise investment
for $20. Read other opinions here.

http://www.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?item=35-118-102

Worked well for me. YMMV

SWB

[Hassan]

Bob Smith > wrote in message >...

<snip>

> I would hesitate to have this
> unit running in the tracking room when recording quiet acoustic
> instruments but for anything else it wouldn't be a problem.
>
> bobs

<snip>

Humbly, I say that the very quietest that I have experienced is the
audio workstation that I built last year for our studio. The only
sound emanating from it is that of the electrons passing through the
wires (and the occasional shiver of the dual processors that are kept
near freezing).

Seriously, though, having built servers and server-side software for a
living, I thought through the system I would build for our own studio.
In addition to raw processing power and fast data i/o, it had to be
"noiseless." Here are the highlights:

• Hand-pieced, 4U rack-mounted, dual 2.4GHz Xeon, 533MHz FSB
• 4GB Ram
• SCSI 320 Subsystem
• Redundant power supply
• 6 Removable, Seagate Cheetah 10K rpm Hard Drives
• 1 Removable, Seagate Cheetah 15K rpm Hard Drive
• 120 GB, External USB 2 Hard Drive
• Sony DVD/CD Burner
• Yamaha 52X CD Burner
• Dual Flat screen monitors
• Wireless mouse and keyboard

The DAW is silent because I liquid-cooled it (taking several added
safety measures). While hard drives can generally be whiny, I managed
to get these inadible over background noise (thank goodness). Also, at
some point, I plan to relocate all but one of the drives to a
dedicated storage server in another room (accessed over gigabit
network).

We have done some very high track-count, surround projects and have
yet to stress the system in terms of plug-ins (various Waves bundles
and others), processing power or data i/o.

The system took about a week to complete between studio sessions. But,
we ended up with a quieter, higher performance system than we could
have gotten elsewhere for the $$$.

If anyone is interested in the detailed steps to building your own
comparable setup, just give me a yell.

Regards,

Hassan Davis
Lisa Lopes Studios
Atlanta