sound dampening material...

[Bires]

noise likes hard surfaces, so I was thinking of putting sound dampening material on the bottom surface of my case (where a mirror is now).

The commerical-grade stuff is $20 a square foot...a little rich for my tastes. Has anyone else used something that might work?

[DaFunkyUnit]

i also heard (no pun intended) that installing rubber gromets where your case fans are attached alleviates the noise

[sho.gun]

I've seen those dynamats but they're expensive... they seem to work pretty well though.

Just had a thought: You know those nonslip rubber mats that you can buy from kmart/walmart... the ones that are all bumpy and you can put stuff on top of it so it doesnt slip, would those work?

[Bires]

Originally posted by sho.gun
You know those nonslip rubber mats that you can buy from kmart/walmart... the ones that are all bumpy and you can put stuff on top of it so it doesnt slip, would those work?

I bet they would! :thumbup: I'll pick some up this weekend. Good idea. If I can't find that...I may buy a cheap auto floormat and cut it to fit.

And...I've stopped all my fans one at a time...they produce a negible amount of noise (panaflo fans). Most of the noise is coming from my HDs...they may be wearing out, but work fine now.


Also, all my fans have 8 rubber gaskets (1 on each side of the case).

[spigidygak]

If you think its your hds. . . buy the seagate baracuda series IV drives. . . mmmm deliciously silent. Thanks to liquid bearins.

[iDave]

I have wondered about cutting up the foam that comes in the box with a new hard drive and gluing it around the inside of the case. I have not tried it yet though.

[Merlin]

Originally posted by DarkFury




Another "Ghetto Case" in the making... :hihi:

Very Funny :bigmouth: :heh: :bigmouth: :heh: :thumb:

[Bires]

Originally posted by DarkFury
Another "Ghetto Case" in the making... :hihi:

Yup.
My case is an old '96 Enlight mid-tower. I've sealed all the holes with e-tape, cut a window in the side, painted the case gunmetal and sealed it with acrylic, and painted the bezels on my CDs to match. Yesterday, I painted all my molex connector and LED/case switch cables black. I covered the back of the chassis and the inside with ghetto chrome (very cool look, actually). I had plexiglass mirrors on the back walls and bottom of my case (one as a baffle), but I'm removing them as they reflect sound really well.

I have a pretty lousy digital camera, but I'll take some pics as soon as I get my copper-sheilded IDE cables. (I've been rolling my own cables for years, but the clear, copper twisted pair cables look really nifty.)

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by spigidygak
If you think its your hds. . . buy the seagate baracuda series IV drives. . . mmmm deliciously silent. Thanks to liquid bearins.

definitely... my seagate IV's make absolutely no noise :)

Let me know how the mat thing works out Bires!

[sho.gun]

Now that I think about it, how come my physics/chem teacher wasn't like Bires. It would kick so much ass to talk casemod to your teacher...

[Merlin]

Originally posted by Bires
...I've been rolling my own...

Well I guess that right there explains those mods. :bandit:

[Bires]

Originally posted by sho.gun
Now that I think about it, how come my physics/chem teacher wasn't like Bires. It would kick so much ass to talk casemod to your teacher...

Ah... :D Thanks sho.gun. :cheers:

I wish more of my students were into computers. Mostly console gamers in my school. Last spring I had some seniors in my advanced hardware course that played netgames at my pad until the wee hours of the mornings.

BTW: I also got my cables from SVC (http://www.svcompucycle.com/18dualdevatr2.html). Their prices are about 2/3 of most places and they have always shipped the same day I have ordered from them.

[sho.gun]

Whoa look what I found... today only: http://www.nexfan.com/41/349.htm?894

Akasa sound dampening mat for $10

review: http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/Akasa_Sound_Mat/

saw it and remembered this thread.

[Bires]

Good find.

I already bought a roll of no-slip-tool-gripping-stuff at Walmart ($7.50). It actually looks pretty nifty on the bottom of my case, and I'm devising a way to attach it to some of the bare-metal panels in my case.

For $10 plus ship ($17), the mats may make a good experiment...but I want to have my case done Monday (when my cables arive), so I'm going to go the walmart route.

update: nexfan has the highest reseller rating I have ever seen: 9.56 (http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2006.html)

[Bires]

I used spay adhesive to glue the no-slip stuff to all the flat metal panels I could find. I used about 2/3 of the roll.

Does it work?

Yes. (The difference between having the case panel on and off is astounding.) Instead of the higher-pitch wind noise, the closed case sounds like a lower-pitch hum.

It actually looks pretty nifty too. One downside: dust will be just about imposible to clean from the foam grid.

When my cables come on Monday or Tuesday, I'll take a few pictures.

[sho.gun]

Ah that's good to hear... I didn't think as far as the dust problem though. If you can manage to stick it on with velcro you can take it off when you need to and just wash it with water... not sure of the exact environments of your case though. Yeah, pics :D

[Merlin]

Just curious, how had adding all of that insulating material effected your case temps?

[Bires]

Originally posted by Merlin
how had adding all of that insulating material effected your case temps?

Negligible. My case is fairly large, with a 120mm intake fan and two 80mm exhaust fans, so it moves more than 50cfm. So, the air in the case doesn't get hot. My CPU and GPU speeds are limitted by

CPU: Memory speeds (currently, 140 FSB max with the memory OCed from CAS2.5 to CAS2) At 1.55V, the cpu (1.6A) under full load, gets up to 52 degrees Celsius. Idle=34 degrees.
GPU: GeForce 4200's 305 MHz upper limit and 5ns memory.

The air leaving the case is very seldom more than 10 degrees higher than ambient temps. Enlight made some very good cases in 96,97.