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Page 3 of 3 Stage 2: Hard Drives / CD-ROM
Hard drives are not as easy to silence as fans, but they can be worked with easily. First, consider buying a hard drive that's quiet (in the first place). There are way too many hard drives out there for me to recommend the "quiet kind", so I'll just mention what I've noticed. The 7200 RPM Maxtor drives are pretty quiet. Most IBM drives are really quiet. My Quantum SCSI drives are nearly silent (except the vibration!). Look around... play with your friends' PCs and decide what's best. The same goes for CD-ROMs, except if you get a Kenwood True72x. These spin at a lower speed, creating less vibration and noise.
If you're already stuck with a loud hard drive, you still have a couple options.
Insulate/Stabilize
Where a hard drive or CD-ROM drive mounts into the case is definitely a consideration. Make sure your drives are firmly mounted into the case. Don't have them dangling around or they'll make even more noise than necessary.
Also, you can insulate the drives when you install them. Simply put a rubber washer between the screw and the casing. This will cut down on the vibration between the drive and the cage. If you really want to, drill out some holes and put grommets through them to mount the drives. This would be even better. Remember, every bit counts!
The Obvious
One more obvious way to cut down noise from the hard drive is to defrag often (defragging is very noisy) to make sure your PC isn't using the hard drive more often than it needs. Adding RAM can greatly reduce hard drive noise, especially if you have less than 96MB or so. Less hard drive access during applications/games from swapping, less restarts while defragging/scandisk etc., all help reduce noise in the long run.
Stage 3: Crappy Keyboards
It's only a minor step, but in my opinion, it's an important one. I personally cannot stand a loud keyboard. It's even worse if someone else is typing on it. Do yourself a favor and buy a nice keyboard if you're still using that SuperMagicHappyBee 'budget board' that you picked up for $5 at a computer show. You can buy a nice Microsoft Internet Keyboard for around $20, or if you prefer, many of the others out there that are better than a generic keyboard. It might work for now, but it's probably on its way out anyway.
If you do have a nice keyboard and it was once nice and quiet, it could be dirty. Check out the Clean a PC guide.
Stage 4: Desperate Attempts to Kill Sound
If you really want to eliminate any more extra sound, it's going to either cost you some money or make your case ugly.
Before you head onto those steps, check a couple little things. When you are not using your speakers, turn them off. This will eliminate static or line noise that can add to overall noise. Remove CDs from the CD-ROM drive when you're not using it. This prevents any spin-up (the most annoying CD-ROM noise). Put your case as far away from you as possible. This, too, should have been quite obvious.
Sound Dampener
If you were to put sound deadener, such as Dynamat, into your case, it would definitely cut down on some noise. However, it would also further insulate heat (bad), and it's ugly. You could even surround your case in thick carpet material, but that, too is quite ugly. So what can you do? Build a fort!
Build a Fort
This probably sounds very awkward and it might not make sense. I mean, is making your case quiet really THAT important? Well, if it is, you can build a fort. No, that's not a typo.
It's a simple concept. What you do is build a sound dampener "fort" to enclose your PC case. It will look very awkward, but it beats gluing and taping crap to your nice pretty case, doesn't it? If you want to experiment with sound deadener, this is an easy and inexpensive method.
Take a cardboard box that's larger than your case, and shaped in a similar fashion. It shouldn't be too much larger than your case, but it should have an inch or so of extra space in every direction (unless you plan to cut blow holes). If it has too much space around it and the space is open to the ambient air, it won't dampen sound very much. If it doesn't have enough space, the lack of ventilation could make the case heat up more than usual. If necessary, you can cut grated blow holes in your fort, too.
Now, set the box up next to your case so it stands like a PC case. Look at your case carefully, then cut out spaces in the front of your cardboard "case" for the front drives to open, and cut the whole back side of the cardboard "case" out where the expansion slots would be if it was a PC case. If you want to dampen the sound even more, you could make swinging cardboard doors that you would only open when you want to remove a drive. Or you could just not cut out the front at all and simply lift the "fort" off your case whenever you wanted to put a CD or disk in. Maybe you could make a closed fort and only use it at night, or you could not cut open any parts except the blow holes, and simply run the cables under the bottom? Any way you choose to do it, it should help a bit. Just remember to account for some ventilation.
You'll want to line the inside or outside of the cardboard box with old carpet, Dynamat, styrofoam, or something else that will dampen sound. Glue it, staple it, tack it, whatever.
It should slip right over your case. If the fit is tight enough, it could eliminate quite a bit of sound!
Okay, maybe I should have omitted this section. ;)
Conclusion
It's getting late. I'm going to hit those switches to kill the fans, and put the fort on my case so I can finally get some sleep. Thanks for reading!
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