9 ms·

In the past when I tried to build a silent PC, I found that even after removing / stopping all the fans, there was still often an electronic humm or buzz left o

by bertjk 8y ago

In the past when I tried to build a silent PC, I found that even after removing / stopping all the fans, there was still often an electronic humm or buzz left over. That is when I gave up. Later I changed desks to one that had one of those built in computer cabinets made of thick particle board. That did as much to silence a pc as all the tens of hours of effort I had put into meticulously researching and specc'ing the build before.

zeusk 8y ago
That's called coil whine, often a result of shoddy power components or construction (and often in either PSU or GPU).
- nextos 8y ago
  Capacitors in PSUs and GPUs are often, but not always, the parts to blame.
  - zeusk 8y ago
    Inductors, actually, are most often to blame (hence - coil whine, also why they're covered in goop in most devices).
agumonkey 8y ago
Some noise, depending on the texture can be even pleasuring. coil whine is highly unnerving while low fan sound is relaxing. we like stimulus, the clicky keys of my old hp48 is neat, the insertion sequence of pioneer 32x slot-in cd drive was amazingly subtle; not long ago I revived an old HP tape drive, the tape rolling and the head gear was also beautiful. Also, it was as cute as informative, it's a clear state change side channel. Often software notification about hardware are decoupled so much that you don't trust it; plus they're invasive, unlike a tiny led, a click, a tiny motor ramping up.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  > Some noise, depending on the texture can be even pleasuring. I like the sound HDD make when grinding (except when I don't know the reason for the grinding... looking at you svchost.exe). > coil whine is highly unnerving while low fan sound is relaxing. Which is why I have been putting off getting a new laptop for years now. Most seem to suffer from coil whines and I can't stand it (to the point I ended up using an old eeepc 1000he rather than a brand new 16 inches VAIO some years ago).
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    yes, I'll even feel angry when a new faster drive has a worse sound. Some old hdd had a very nice gratting that wasn't threatening or annoying.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > (except when I don't know the reason for the grinding... looking at you svchost.exe This might be "SuperFetch". https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/what-is-superfetch-its-in-my-window-stask-manager/8b3ce1f3-0f7c-e011-9b4b-68b599b31bf5 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-...
- hinkley 8y ago
  I still miss hard drive chatter as a proxy for machine being up to something. Sometimes the machine isn’t supposed to be doing anything and it tells me to ask questions. Now it’s just when the fan on my laptop starts taxiing for takeoff, which can take a lot longer.
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    If you miss that then you are going to love jwz's latest xscreensaver work. https://youtu.be/oERz1IPluYQ https://youtu.be/oERz1IPluYQ
    - girvo 8y ago
johnchristopher 8y ago
The only time I achieved silence was when I moved the computer case outside the room and used a 2m VGA cable and USB chord extenders. That silence was weird though. No audio feedback at all from the computer, just the clicking of keyboard and the mouse.
- JepZ 8y ago
  Hehe, you get used to it after a while. Sometimes I wonder where the heat is coming from when my PC has some higher load and my hand moves over it. Those are the moments when I remember the days when I couldn't hear the vacuum when the PC was compiling ;-)
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  Hm, almost a dumb terminal!
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I did exactly that too! I was tired of the never-ending quest for silence, so I bought 3 50-ft dvi cables and a couple usb-3 cables of the same length and put the PC in the attic. It worked great, except any hardware issues resulted in a trip to the attic.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Did you leave the machine always on ?
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Pretty much. I've never really shut down my main machines when i'm not using them. I work from home, so i'm on it several hours every workday, combined with the fact that I tend to have multiple things in-progress all the time means it would be a giant pain in the ass to shut it down fully.
- singularity2001 8y ago
  Same setup, with sound over hdmi. love it!
loser777 8y ago
This type of noise is arguably worse than that produced by a well-managed fan setup. If you have fans that spin at a constant RPM, you can fairly easily tune out the noise. Coil whine will vary depending on the load of the system (e.g., when you start/stop scrolling a web page), making it much more difficult to tune out.
- RowanH 8y ago
  Never heard coil whine for years and years decades infact of PC building. Until last year I got my shiny new fancy pants blast furnace, (aka GTX 1080 TI), which has near dead silent fans at idle/light loads. The minute that bad boy starts working an obnoxious screeching/whine starts. Super annoying compared to the rest of the build being a beast of a machine and watercooled that's so quiet I'm more likely to hear the noise floor on speakers than the PC (which is on the desk, next to said speakers).
  - jaytaylor 8y ago
    My GTX 970 does the same thing. It is incredibly annoying. Fortunately it happens when at high load, which is while playing games. This doesn't help for quiet scenes, though. Is there a way to fix this sound in video cards? I'll have to investigate.
    - ovao 8y ago
      Coils emit a relatively high-frequency sound, so your best bet is a case with thick panels, that’s fairly well enclosed, and has some acoustic dampening. Most cases made today don’t have any significant dampening material. It’s pretty trivial to add some to the panels without significantly affecting cooling capacity.
      - cellularmitosis 8y ago
        Alternatively, if you wanted to really dig into this, you could try to find every switch-mode power supply and replace them with (much less efficient) linear power supplies. You'd need a larger water-cooling system though.
vtange 8y ago
But doesn't locking up your PC in a cabinet hurt its cooling performance? I doubt there is adequate airflow in there.
- s3m4j 8y ago
  I keep my CPU running at a confortable 50°C to 60°C. There are 5 fans in my tower, two on the CPU cooler, only one of those two fans is running constantly, at only 200rpm. All the others aren't running most of the time. I don't need my computer to run at a cool 30°C all the time. The hardware can run very hot without any issues. And when all the fans eventually kick in under load, it will always keep under 70°C anyway.
- bertjk 8y ago
  It does mean things run warmer, but generally moderately specc'ed pcs don't generate enough heat and have enough reliability margin that it is not a problem. If you were some game enthusiast or crypto miner running multiple flagship GPUs on an 850W power supply, then I probably would not recommend this approach.
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  Yes, depending on how well it seals. Usually there's a hole in the back for HID cables, and the front has rubber feet to prevent door slamming that also offsets the door. This allows heat to flow out.
- hocuspocus 8y ago
  I put mine in this: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/table-tops-legs/alex-storage-unit-white-art-60192826/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/table-tops-legs/al... And it's doing fine. Its cooling is slightly over-sized since I want to keep fans spinning at very low speed, but I haven't seen much difference compared to when it was outside.
hinkley 8y ago
A long time ago, about the time someone tried to coin the term invisible computing, I figured out how to hook a monitor arm to my couch, and I put the tower behind it. 3 inches of padding can absorb a lot of sound. Still kinda miss that couch.
theandrewbailey 8y ago
Oh gosh, coil whine. I had a Geforce 280 that would scream like hell whenever it was at full power and its framerate went below about 10 or above about 100 FPS. I was glad when it broke some other way and got replaced under warranty.
- joombaga 8y ago
  Same thing with my 280! Unfortunately it was a BFG, and the company folded about 2 days after I submitted my warranty claim.
  - theandrewbailey 8y ago
    Mine was an EVGA.
pkaye 8y ago
I used to do all this in the past but now as I get older I have hearing loss/tinnitus and suddenly no longer have to worry about fan noise anymore...
- akoncius 8y ago
  yeah, similar for me. deaf people have their own advantages!
sophistication 8y ago
Coil whine can relatively easily be absorbed as it is easy to absorb high-frequency noise. Just seal the entire thing and let only the copper pipes with the heat sink stick out.
JepZ 8y ago
I've a completely silent PC too [1] and I was lucky, as mine doesn't have any relevant electronic buzzes. But when I walk to the backside of my desk I can hear some electronic buzz from one of my monitors. Whats funny about it: I have that monitor since a few years now and before I built that silent PC and turned my desk to another direction, I never noticed the buzz from the monitor :D [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224202
legulere 8y ago
It is possible to get rid of the coil whine. You can use a long paper roll like from a kitchen roll to locate it. I once saw in a forum a guy flooding a whole PSU in epoxy, to get rid of it.
0xfeba 8y ago
I've switched to Fractal Design cases with their heavy sound-proofing and been thoroughly impressed. I use Corsair RM750 which never powers its fan on, and I used to have a all-in-one water cooler for the CPU, but I moved to a Noctua design with a large 140mm fan. The water cooler had a 120mm fan that I replaced with a 120mm Noctua--but it was too close to the rear vent of the case, and thus noisy. However my graphics card (RX 480) is quite loud, and one bearing is making noises. But the Fractal Design case has really dampened the sound. For my home server, it's using a RM500 (which also never turns the fan on), and a low-profile Noctua CPU cooler. No other fans, but I do hear the 6 HDDs spinning and seeking when it's real quiet in the room. I don't hear any coil whine, except when using headphones plugged into my desktop's speakers--probably the result of the speaker system's power supply. Klipsch ProMedia, if you're curious.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I have one of the Corsair budget quiet cases under my desk. I can attest that it has excellent bang for the buck, for being a basic black case with useful soundproofing/absorption. As far as noise reduction for CPU cooling, I'd suggest buying more air cooling than you need for a modest TDP CPU. Between that and my fanless Seasonic power supply, and SSD, the only noiseI can ever hear from my machines is from the GPU.
- GordonS 8y ago
  How did temperatures compare between the 140mm Noctua and the AIO water cooler? I'm looking at buying a new machine soon, and was actually looking at a Fractal Design case with either one of those 2 cooling systems.
  - 0xfeba 8y ago
    Temps are higher, as is spiking, but it never surpasses 70C, where when water-cooled, would never surpass 45C or so, IIRC. This is a Ivy Bridge (IIRC) Core i5 at 4.0GHz.
    - GordonS 8y ago
mcv 8y ago
The case matters a lot. I've got a Fractal Design Define C, which dampens a lot of noise. Supposedly the R5 is even better. This was my second silent PC. The first one still had moving disks, but I went for as few fans as possible, and had passive coolers on the internals. This time I did the opposite: lots of fans, but have them spin as slow as possible. This works very well. But coil whine and electronic hums are easy to overlook when you're choosing parts. It's worth looking at not just the fans and the power use (more power needs more cooling), but also the quality of the electronics.
baldfat 8y ago
My computer is in the closet and I have a two cables a USB type c and a mini display port that comes out under my desk through the wall. Absolutely quiet.

by bertjk 8y ago

zeusk 8y ago

That's called coil whine, often a result of shoddy power components or construction (and often in either PSU or GPU).

nextos 8y ago
Capacitors in PSUs and GPUs are often, but not always, the parts to blame.
- zeusk 8y ago
  Inductors, actually, are most often to blame (hence - coil whine, also why they're covered in goop in most devices).

agumonkey 8y ago

Some noise, depending on the texture can be even pleasuring. coil whine is highly unnerving while low fan sound is relaxing. we like stimulus, the clicky keys of my old hp48 is neat, the insertion sequence of pioneer 32x slot-in cd drive was amazingly subtle; not long ago I revived an old HP tape drive, the tape rolling and the head gear was also beautiful. Also, it was as cute as informative, it's a clear state change side channel. Often software notification about hardware are decoupled so much that you don't trust it; plus they're invasive, unlike a tiny led, a click, a tiny motor ramping up.

johnchristopher 8y ago
> Some noise, depending on the texture can be even pleasuring. I like the sound HDD make when grinding (except when I don't know the reason for the grinding... looking at you svchost.exe). > coil whine is highly unnerving while low fan sound is relaxing. Which is why I have been putting off getting a new laptop for years now. Most seem to suffer from coil whines and I can't stand it (to the point I ended up using an old eeepc 1000he rather than a brand new 16 inches VAIO some years ago).
- agumonkey 8y ago
  yes, I'll even feel angry when a new faster drive has a worse sound. Some old hdd had a very nice gratting that wasn't threatening or annoying.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > (except when I don't know the reason for the grinding... looking at you svchost.exe This might be "SuperFetch". https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/what-is-superfetch-its-in-my-window-stask-manager/8b3ce1f3-0f7c-e011-9b4b-68b599b31bf5 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-...
hinkley 8y ago
I still miss hard drive chatter as a proxy for machine being up to something. Sometimes the machine isn’t supposed to be doing anything and it tells me to ask questions. Now it’s just when the fan on my laptop starts taxiing for takeoff, which can take a lot longer.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  If you miss that then you are going to love jwz's latest xscreensaver work. https://youtu.be/oERz1IPluYQ https://youtu.be/oERz1IPluYQ
  - girvo 8y ago

johnchristopher 8y ago

The only time I achieved silence was when I moved the computer case outside the room and used a 2m VGA cable and USB chord extenders. That silence was weird though. No audio feedback at all from the computer, just the clicking of keyboard and the mouse.

JepZ 8y ago
Hehe, you get used to it after a while. Sometimes I wonder where the heat is coming from when my PC has some higher load and my hand moves over it. Those are the moments when I remember the days when I couldn't hear the vacuum when the PC was compiling ;-)
0xfeba 8y ago
Hm, almost a dumb terminal!
Klathmon 8y ago
I did exactly that too! I was tired of the never-ending quest for silence, so I bought 3 50-ft dvi cables and a couple usb-3 cables of the same length and put the PC in the attic. It worked great, except any hardware issues resulted in a trip to the attic.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Did you leave the machine always on ?
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Pretty much. I've never really shut down my main machines when i'm not using them. I work from home, so i'm on it several hours every workday, combined with the fact that I tend to have multiple things in-progress all the time means it would be a giant pain in the ass to shut it down fully.
singularity2001 8y ago
Same setup, with sound over hdmi. love it!

loser777 8y ago

This type of noise is arguably worse than that produced by a well-managed fan setup. If you have fans that spin at a constant RPM, you can fairly easily tune out the noise. Coil whine will vary depending on the load of the system (e.g., when you start/stop scrolling a web page), making it much more difficult to tune out.

RowanH 8y ago
Never heard coil whine for years and years decades infact of PC building. Until last year I got my shiny new fancy pants blast furnace, (aka GTX 1080 TI), which has near dead silent fans at idle/light loads. The minute that bad boy starts working an obnoxious screeching/whine starts. Super annoying compared to the rest of the build being a beast of a machine and watercooled that's so quiet I'm more likely to hear the noise floor on speakers than the PC (which is on the desk, next to said speakers).
- jaytaylor 8y ago
  My GTX 970 does the same thing. It is incredibly annoying. Fortunately it happens when at high load, which is while playing games. This doesn't help for quiet scenes, though. Is there a way to fix this sound in video cards? I'll have to investigate.
  - ovao 8y ago
    Coils emit a relatively high-frequency sound, so your best bet is a case with thick panels, that’s fairly well enclosed, and has some acoustic dampening. Most cases made today don’t have any significant dampening material. It’s pretty trivial to add some to the panels without significantly affecting cooling capacity.
    - cellularmitosis 8y ago
      Alternatively, if you wanted to really dig into this, you could try to find every switch-mode power supply and replace them with (much less efficient) linear power supplies. You'd need a larger water-cooling system though.

vtange 8y ago

But doesn't locking up your PC in a cabinet hurt its cooling performance? I doubt there is adequate airflow in there.

s3m4j 8y ago
I keep my CPU running at a confortable 50°C to 60°C. There are 5 fans in my tower, two on the CPU cooler, only one of those two fans is running constantly, at only 200rpm. All the others aren't running most of the time. I don't need my computer to run at a cool 30°C all the time. The hardware can run very hot without any issues. And when all the fans eventually kick in under load, it will always keep under 70°C anyway.
bertjk 8y ago
It does mean things run warmer, but generally moderately specc'ed pcs don't generate enough heat and have enough reliability margin that it is not a problem. If you were some game enthusiast or crypto miner running multiple flagship GPUs on an 850W power supply, then I probably would not recommend this approach.
0xfeba 8y ago
Yes, depending on how well it seals. Usually there's a hole in the back for HID cables, and the front has rubber feet to prevent door slamming that also offsets the door. This allows heat to flow out.
hocuspocus 8y ago
I put mine in this: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/table-tops-legs/alex-storage-unit-white-art-60192826/ https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/table-tops-legs/al... And it's doing fine. Its cooling is slightly over-sized since I want to keep fans spinning at very low speed, but I haven't seen much difference compared to when it was outside.

hinkley 8y ago

A long time ago, about the time someone tried to coin the term invisible computing, I figured out how to hook a monitor arm to my couch, and I put the tower behind it. 3 inches of padding can absorb a lot of sound. Still kinda miss that couch.

theandrewbailey 8y ago

Oh gosh, coil whine. I had a Geforce 280 that would scream like hell whenever it was at full power and its framerate went below about 10 or above about 100 FPS. I was glad when it broke some other way and got replaced under warranty.

joombaga 8y ago
Same thing with my 280! Unfortunately it was a BFG, and the company folded about 2 days after I submitted my warranty claim.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  Mine was an EVGA.

pkaye 8y ago

I used to do all this in the past but now as I get older I have hearing loss/tinnitus and suddenly no longer have to worry about fan noise anymore...

akoncius 8y ago
yeah, similar for me. deaf people have their own advantages!

sophistication 8y ago

Coil whine can relatively easily be absorbed as it is easy to absorb high-frequency noise. Just seal the entire thing and let only the copper pipes with the heat sink stick out.

JepZ 8y ago

I've a completely silent PC too [1] and I was lucky, as mine doesn't have any relevant electronic buzzes. But when I walk to the backside of my desk I can hear some electronic buzz from one of my monitors. Whats funny about it: I have that monitor since a few years now and before I built that silent PC and turned my desk to another direction, I never noticed the buzz from the monitor :D [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16224202

legulere 8y ago

It is possible to get rid of the coil whine. You can use a long paper roll like from a kitchen roll to locate it. I once saw in a forum a guy flooding a whole PSU in epoxy, to get rid of it.

0xfeba 8y ago

I've switched to Fractal Design cases with their heavy sound-proofing and been thoroughly impressed. I use Corsair RM750 which never powers its fan on, and I used to have a all-in-one water cooler for the CPU, but I moved to a Noctua design with a large 140mm fan. The water cooler had a 120mm fan that I replaced with a 120mm Noctua--but it was too close to the rear vent of the case, and thus noisy. However my graphics card (RX 480) is quite loud, and one bearing is making noises. But the Fractal Design case has really dampened the sound. For my home server, it's using a RM500 (which also never turns the fan on), and a low-profile Noctua CPU cooler. No other fans, but I do hear the 6 HDDs spinning and seeking when it's real quiet in the room. I don't hear any coil whine, except when using headphones plugged into my desktop's speakers--probably the result of the speaker system's power supply. Klipsch ProMedia, if you're curious.

stcredzero 8y ago
I have one of the Corsair budget quiet cases under my desk. I can attest that it has excellent bang for the buck, for being a basic black case with useful soundproofing/absorption. As far as noise reduction for CPU cooling, I'd suggest buying more air cooling than you need for a modest TDP CPU. Between that and my fanless Seasonic power supply, and SSD, the only noiseI can ever hear from my machines is from the GPU.
GordonS 8y ago
How did temperatures compare between the 140mm Noctua and the AIO water cooler? I'm looking at buying a new machine soon, and was actually looking at a Fractal Design case with either one of those 2 cooling systems.
- 0xfeba 8y ago
  Temps are higher, as is spiking, but it never surpasses 70C, where when water-cooled, would never surpass 45C or so, IIRC. This is a Ivy Bridge (IIRC) Core i5 at 4.0GHz.
  - GordonS 8y ago

mcv 8y ago

The case matters a lot. I've got a Fractal Design Define C, which dampens a lot of noise. Supposedly the R5 is even better. This was my second silent PC. The first one still had moving disks, but I went for as few fans as possible, and had passive coolers on the internals. This time I did the opposite: lots of fans, but have them spin as slow as possible. This works very well. But coil whine and electronic hums are easy to overlook when you're choosing parts. It's worth looking at not just the fans and the power use (more power needs more cooling), but also the quality of the electronics.

baldfat 8y ago

My computer is in the closet and I have a two cables a USB type c and a mini display port that comes out under my desk through the wall. Absolutely quiet.