Help elsewhere? (forum ettiquitte?)

[ddrueding]

I've never had this problem before, and I'm not sure what the rules are like.

My OCD side has driven me to pursue some hardcore computing silence. My travels have taken me over to SPCR, where I've been spending quite a bit of time reading. I'm now ready to put forth a rather unusual idea that clearly belongs there rather than here; but I am quite interested in the opinion of the people here. So how is this supposed to work? Do I post a link here to the thread there requesting advice? Or do I repost here so that the discussion can occur on this forum? Some mix in between?

Whatever; here is the thread I started @ SPCR. If you guys would check it out and tell me what you think, I'd appreciate it.

 

[ddrueding]

oh yeah....pui (as always)

 

[time]

I guess you read this thread?

I looked for it because after seeing the Zalman so-called cooler, I expected to find someone reporting how little (in this case no) difference it made. :-?

The contact between the drive and the heatsink is just too poor, so I wouldn't expect that adding a second one would help at all. If you must use a heatsink, it should probably go on top of the drive with thermal transfer compound, like this one.

If you're worried about the drive temp, there's really no substitute for a fan, no matter how slow. Try not to have a hangup about them.

I personally am wary of suspending drives from rubber bands. Mickey pointed out that the drive will have trouble with head settling (Newton's Third Law), and I worry about what will happen if the case gets a big knock - it's like a car without shock absorbers!

Still, I don't know what else you can do about resonance, which is of course partly the fault of the case. What possessed you to try to build a quiet PC with an aluminium case? Theoretically, you should be able to reduce the vibration substantially just by bolting the drive to a heavy enough piece of non-rigid metal.

Other options include laminating sound-deadening material to the case panels - Dell uses plastic, but low-density fiberboard would be best. In fact, I'd speculate that it would make a great drive cage as well - as long as there was scope for air movement around the top and bottom of the drive.

 

[ddrueding]

It looks like that person had issues with the Zalman because it wasn't installed correctly (wasn't making contact with the drive). Considerin that a lot of the heat from a drive is easily felt through the sides, I'd think pulling heat from there would make some sense.

I've modded the front of the chassis to have completely unrestricted airflow directly onto where this drive is going to be mounted. Even the small amount that the PS is pulling through should be enough if I can present enough surface area.

 

[time]

No, airflow doesn't work like that. You need strong extraction at the back of the case to have a tangible effect on something at the front. It's much easier to locate a fan close to whatever you're trying to cool.

In fact, air velocity around the drive may be down if you have a giant hole in the front of the case. But opening the case up will certainly help any fan you put there.