5 ms·

When I went passive on my desktop 4 years ago after having to endure an extremely loud fan, I was constantly surprised at the beginning that one is able to do c

by est31 6y ago

When I went passive on my desktop 4 years ago after having to endure an extremely loud fan, I was constantly surprised at the beginning that one is able to do computing without noticing any sound at all. Now it's become a part of my normal expectations. I run a big workload and it doesn't make any sound. Beautiful.

enriquto 6y ago
Ha! I actually like the noises that the computer makes. They are sort of reassuring. A computer that is always silent regardless of whether it idles or churns a lot of compute, is very creepy. Give me clunky mechanical keyboards and noisy fans!
- sildur 6y ago
  I miss the sound of the hard drive as an indicator of I/O activity.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    Sometimes the motherboard makes a similar, but much softer, hum.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    I’m surprised someone hasn’t made a SATA MITM that does this. I once put an LED in series on a long rs232 link so I could see them flash when I/O was happening. But they have the spare voltage to work with.
  - alistairSH 6y ago
    Or the sound of a modem to let you know the internet is working? Nothing sounds better than two pulsing, clicking sine waves finding each other after long last, making love, and giving birth to white noise. No thanks, I'll take all my computers and electronics as quiet as possible.
  - lolc 6y ago
    My little desk-computer has a pretty dirty audio path. I can turn up the audio to hear the chirps of the power regulators over the speakers; when the CPU is leaning on the PSU. Even just keystrokes in my editor cause a flurry of chirps as the clock-rate is increased and the systems races to idle within a few milliseconds. When a process stalls I would already know whether it's IO or computation. Depending on the chirping I may reach for either ping or top to investigate further. Sometimes I leave these chirps on for hours. It's nonintrusive feedback to me about background tasks and when they clear. I actually worry that my next machine will not have this flaw. And now I'm thinking of a syscall-chirp generator to get an even better feel for the pulse of the machine :-)
    - swirepe 6y ago
      >And now I'm thinking of a syscall-chirp generator to get an even better feel for the pulse of the machine :-) Nullsoft (the winamp people) made something like this back in the day. I encourage you you to write your own :)
    - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
      Reminds me of the overheating cpu xkcd and the emacs programmer.
  - wpm 6y ago
    Oh it’s still around. I just bought a 14TB external for my desk and god it’s loud. It’s a bad loud too. Old 160MB Quantum SCSI drives have that satisfying crispy whine and that sound like some tiny hamster is changing gears around inside of it when it does a seek.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Yup, I could tell by ear if my computer had crashed and I should hard restart or if there was still hope for the program if I waited it out.
  - skc 6y ago
    Heh, I really, really liked that sound as well. But I can't explain why really. Could be the sci-fi nerd in me similar to the way we tend to like the feel of mechanical toggle switches.
    - nannal 6y ago
      I've two machines tucked away near my desk & a sudden rise in the ambient hard drive rumbling has occasionally been an indicator that I should look into what's happening, usually it's just one of the larger torrents but it has also drawn my attention to a few bots going over my git server. It draws attention to an alternate sense (hearing) when it comes to systems monitoring & information delivery, Phones are the common culprit of obnoxious beeping, whistles and tones but this sound isn't an intentional interpreted interrupting noise, it's a direct line from the machine.
- yummypaint 6y ago
  Yeah for me sound is usually the first sign that something isn't right. A truly silent laptop seems pretty inconvenient. if the screen is black and power is on, there are tons of possible causes, but hearing a lack of coil whine immediately clues in that it's properly hosed and there is no point in being patient.
  - spideymans 6y ago
    > My laptop “failed” again for the 4th time today. The first 2 motherboard replacements seemed odd, but I was given a completely new laptop from Apple on the 3rd failure. Just like before, the screen was pure black after clicking the power button and there was a slight fan sound. The only other indication that anything was alive was that the machine would still make an audible chime when plugging in power and the capslock key light could be toggled off and on. So after losing about 2 weeks of my time, >$10,000 in Apple warranty repairs (2 logic boards, new cables, and a complete replacement of a >$7000 computer), troubleshooting input from several Apple Geniuses, level 1 and 2 tech support from Apple Corporate, diagnostic tests at the Apple Store, and diagnostic tests twice at Apple’s repair facility in Texas; what was the root issue? > The screen brightness was turned all the way down (not merely dim, but off). https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/11/macbook-pro-problem/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/11/macbook-pro-problem/
  - est31 6y ago
    My build emits some extremely slight coil whining, but for the most part, it's not noticeable, only if you put your ear within close distance to the computer and pay close attention. Also upon boot, the bios makes its speaker emit a click. From that as well as the LEDs I can tell the computer is on. No need to listen for fan noise.
- p1mrx 6y ago
  It'd be interesting to convert CPU/SSD/network/etc. activity into audio using some algorithm. It's pretty easy to do poorly, just by looking at stuff like utilization percentage, but ideally you'd base it on what operations the device is actually performing. Nullsoft made an initial effort in the early 2000s: https://web.archive.org/web/20101031004813/http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101031004813/http://www.nullso...
kristianp 6y ago
Are you using a mobile processor to keep the thermals down? Or underclocking a desktop-class processor and using a giant heat sink?
- elric 6y ago
  Underclocking and undervolting CPUs has been a mainstay of silent computing. AMD's Duron platform was excellent for this. Not suitable for gaming, but fine for daily computing. Big heat sinks with heat pipes work pretty well. Big, slow fans when there's no way around them. Plastic rivets instead of screws and rubber washers manage to keep vibration noise down (fans, spinning disks).

by est31 6y ago

enriquto 6y ago

Ha! I actually like the noises that the computer makes. They are sort of reassuring. A computer that is always silent regardless of whether it idles or churns a lot of compute, is very creepy. Give me clunky mechanical keyboards and noisy fans!

sildur 6y ago
I miss the sound of the hard drive as an indicator of I/O activity.
- enriquto 6y ago
  Sometimes the motherboard makes a similar, but much softer, hum.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  I’m surprised someone hasn’t made a SATA MITM that does this. I once put an LED in series on a long rs232 link so I could see them flash when I/O was happening. But they have the spare voltage to work with.
- alistairSH 6y ago
  Or the sound of a modem to let you know the internet is working? Nothing sounds better than two pulsing, clicking sine waves finding each other after long last, making love, and giving birth to white noise. No thanks, I'll take all my computers and electronics as quiet as possible.
- lolc 6y ago
  My little desk-computer has a pretty dirty audio path. I can turn up the audio to hear the chirps of the power regulators over the speakers; when the CPU is leaning on the PSU. Even just keystrokes in my editor cause a flurry of chirps as the clock-rate is increased and the systems races to idle within a few milliseconds. When a process stalls I would already know whether it's IO or computation. Depending on the chirping I may reach for either ping or top to investigate further. Sometimes I leave these chirps on for hours. It's nonintrusive feedback to me about background tasks and when they clear. I actually worry that my next machine will not have this flaw. And now I'm thinking of a syscall-chirp generator to get an even better feel for the pulse of the machine :-)
  - swirepe 6y ago
    >And now I'm thinking of a syscall-chirp generator to get an even better feel for the pulse of the machine :-) Nullsoft (the winamp people) made something like this back in the day. I encourage you you to write your own :)
  - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
    Reminds me of the overheating cpu xkcd and the emacs programmer.
- wpm 6y ago
  Oh it’s still around. I just bought a 14TB external for my desk and god it’s loud. It’s a bad loud too. Old 160MB Quantum SCSI drives have that satisfying crispy whine and that sound like some tiny hamster is changing gears around inside of it when it does a seek.
- asdff 6y ago
  Yup, I could tell by ear if my computer had crashed and I should hard restart or if there was still hope for the program if I waited it out.
- skc 6y ago
  Heh, I really, really liked that sound as well. But I can't explain why really. Could be the sci-fi nerd in me similar to the way we tend to like the feel of mechanical toggle switches.
  - nannal 6y ago
    I've two machines tucked away near my desk & a sudden rise in the ambient hard drive rumbling has occasionally been an indicator that I should look into what's happening, usually it's just one of the larger torrents but it has also drawn my attention to a few bots going over my git server. It draws attention to an alternate sense (hearing) when it comes to systems monitoring & information delivery, Phones are the common culprit of obnoxious beeping, whistles and tones but this sound isn't an intentional interpreted interrupting noise, it's a direct line from the machine.
yummypaint 6y ago
Yeah for me sound is usually the first sign that something isn't right. A truly silent laptop seems pretty inconvenient. if the screen is black and power is on, there are tons of possible causes, but hearing a lack of coil whine immediately clues in that it's properly hosed and there is no point in being patient.
- spideymans 6y ago
  > My laptop “failed” again for the 4th time today. The first 2 motherboard replacements seemed odd, but I was given a completely new laptop from Apple on the 3rd failure. Just like before, the screen was pure black after clicking the power button and there was a slight fan sound. The only other indication that anything was alive was that the machine would still make an audible chime when plugging in power and the capslock key light could be toggled off and on. So after losing about 2 weeks of my time, >$10,000 in Apple warranty repairs (2 logic boards, new cables, and a complete replacement of a >$7000 computer), troubleshooting input from several Apple Geniuses, level 1 and 2 tech support from Apple Corporate, diagnostic tests at the Apple Store, and diagnostic tests twice at Apple’s repair facility in Texas; what was the root issue? > The screen brightness was turned all the way down (not merely dim, but off). https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/11/macbook-pro-problem/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/11/macbook-pro-problem/
- est31 6y ago
  My build emits some extremely slight coil whining, but for the most part, it's not noticeable, only if you put your ear within close distance to the computer and pay close attention. Also upon boot, the bios makes its speaker emit a click. From that as well as the LEDs I can tell the computer is on. No need to listen for fan noise.
p1mrx 6y ago
It'd be interesting to convert CPU/SSD/network/etc. activity into audio using some algorithm. It's pretty easy to do poorly, just by looking at stuff like utilization percentage, but ideally you'd base it on what operations the device is actually performing. Nullsoft made an initial effort in the early 2000s: https://web.archive.org/web/20101031004813/http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101031004813/http://www.nullso...

kristianp 6y ago

Are you using a mobile processor to keep the thermals down? Or underclocking a desktop-class processor and using a giant heat sink?

elric 6y ago
Underclocking and undervolting CPUs has been a mainstay of silent computing. AMD's Duron platform was excellent for this. Not suitable for gaming, but fine for daily computing. Big heat sinks with heat pipes work pretty well. Big, slow fans when there's no way around them. Plastic rivets instead of screws and rubber washers manage to keep vibration noise down (fans, spinning disks).