Full of Sound and Fury

By Andy Patrizio

September 29, 2003

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A recent move to a new office is the impetus for the first half of this month's column. You see, I now share a workspace with another person who, like most other people in our satellite office, brings in his own computer rather than use company-issued ones. Since I had enough spare parts lying around, I built a custom system of my own just for work. Well, much to my chagrin, my new system immediately began driving me and my officemate crazy, what with the fans sounding like 747 engines on take-off. A check with an audio meter found my computer was cranking 61 decibels. In the silence and echo of an office, that's insane.

Now lots of folks, including fellow columnist Jerry Pournelle, have a preference for PC Power and Cooling, but I've come across another gem, called Silentmaxx. This company make cases, power supplies, CPU fans, and drive fans—all with an emphasis on silence.

For my systems, I had two choices—the Fortron-PAPST ($69.99), which runs at 21 dB, or the Fortron-VERAX ($95.00), which runs at 20dB. Both were 300 watts, supported ATX 2.03 and the Pentium 4. After thinking about it, I decided one decibel wasn't worth $25, so I went with the PAPST. It came promptly via UPS, and after about 10 minutes of surgery, the drop in noise level was noticeable.

Nevertheless, it was still pretty loud in there. After further investigation, I found the real culprit—the side fan. Lately, ATX cases have been coming with a side-mounted fan, usually smack in the middle of the case. This isn't the best placement because it's not where the CPU and video card would be, and they generate the most heat.

In this case, what made the fan so loud was the clear, acrylic case. Here's an experiment. Fold a sheet of paper in half and make about 4-5 slices that run half the length of the paper, and put them close to each other. Unfold the paper, hold the sliced area up to your mouth and blow. You get an awful noise, right? That's not the wind, it's the wind over the paper.

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