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Currently I'm recording on my 2007 vintage laptop. It was smokin' fast and powerful in 2007 and I have no issues with performance as far as recording goes with it now -- but it's very loud as it has two internal fans that I cannot turn off.

Performance used to be a function of power - and power needs cooling - particularly in laptops. As I look to the future I know that a dedicated PC for recording looming - and I assume that if I want silent that I'll be looking at desktop -- but is this a given?

Are there obvious strategies for Silent or quiet PC's that I am overlooking? How have some of you dealt with noisy computers?

Comments

pcrecord Tue, 10/14/2014 - 05:30

DonnyThompson, post: 420168, member: 46114 wrote: No computer expert here, but I would think you'd need to be careful when putting your tower into a small dedicated space; in regard to temperature and ventilation, no?

Entirely true Donny,
Some hi-end cabinet are made for that with noiseless fans but they are expensive.
I guess that if using SSD drives, you would only need to buy some computer noiseless fans and change them, to have a very silent PC..

Chris Perra Sun, 10/26/2014 - 20:23

I have an Antec PX 280 with an Enermax power supply you can turn down the fan speed if you want. It's very quiet. Just keep and eye on your temperatures at first so see what a good speed versus cooling ratio is. It would be cheaper to spend the the money on a great tower designed for noise reduction than a laptop as you can use the tower over and over throughout the years.

TheJackAttack Thu, 10/30/2014 - 20:53

Most laptops run very hot. You do not really want the fans to shut down for very long. Either the GPU or the CPU will toast and then you are after a new computer.

When a silent computer is needed because you HAVE to be in the same room as the source audio, then you are kind of looking at the desktop genre. The bigger cases can be built with many large slow spinning fans that more efficiently do the job than two tiny high rpm fans that barely keep up.

To help with laptop heat, a chill mat of some kind is recommended and I have even set my laptop on those blue ice pads when I wanted cool and quiet.