Cool and Quiet in General

[johpower]

I found this little article in the recent Langalist news post:

1) Cool--- And Quiet! (Part One)

Hi Fred, my cooling fans seem very noisy - I would guess a
common complaint - but others I have heard in shops are WAY
quieter. Why the difference? ---David [from Canada]

I know exactly what David means. I recently got a new PC that was
extremely well designed in most ways--- I love it! (see
http://langa.com/u/3e.htm )--- except that two of the system fans made a
tick-tick-ticking noise that eventually bothered me enough that I went
looking for alternative low-noise replacement fans.

I was surprised to see how little top-quality fans can cost--- often,
they're only $7-$10 or so. I also found some extremely innovative heat
sink designs, and some rather unusual approaches to pumping heat out of
a PC--- quietly! By the time I was done, I'd found several excellent,
low-cost solutions to excessive fan noise, and I now have a system
that's literally whisper-quiet. It's a real pleasure *not* to hear it!

What's more, parts of my PC now run almost 20F/11C cooler than before,
so not only is the system quieter, but it's better ventilated too, which
I expect will pay off in increased longevity and reliability.

And finally, along the way I also discovered some very interesting tools
for monitoring and managing the temperature inside various parts of a
PC. These tools--- some free!--- could be useful to you even if you're
happy with your PC's current cooling setup because they can keep you
better informed about your PC's health, and can even automatically act
to avert disaster in the event that something eventually does go wrong!

We last covered fan noise and PC cooling two years ago
http://www.informationweek.com/LP/colum ... 001/06.htm . Much of
that article still pertains, and it's a good place to start if you're
new to the whys and wherefores of PC cooling. But a lot has changed,
too. For example, when that article was written, a top-of-the-line PC
ran at 1.2 GHz, while my newest PC today clocks at 3.2 GHz. At speeds
like that, today's CPUs pump out a *lot* of heat.

So I've updated that information, and then gone considerably beyond it,
in a two part article. Part One is available now at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/sh ... D=17701645

In that article, we'll look at the three ways fans cause noise; at
airflow through a PC; at heatsink design; and more, including using your
BIOS, OS, and free add-on software to monitor and help control exactly
what's going on inside the box.

Please click on over to "Cool--- And Quiet! Part One" at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/sh ... D=17701645 .
See you there!

[Interon]

While my fans are noisy, they are not noisy enough to bother me.

[Wally]

While my fans are noisy, they are not noisy enough to bother me.

it probably would be wise to Dust the fan out as our computers HDD burnt out by the fan stopping
...

[Interon]

Oh no, I just meant in general as in that the fans are not absolutely silent. I clean out the dust often.