|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
65.95.33.61
Going nuts in my room with all five hard drives in there whirring away. I have my computer's hd, I bought an external hd, my son, when I took the wrong-headed decision of putting video in the room, installed all sorts of video games in there, so the X-box, or whatever it's called, has a hard drive. My son then suggested a PVR for HDTV and that unit has two hard drives. Listening to "classical" music, it all drives me up a tree since whenever there is a silence in the music I hear that awful sound. BTW I suffer from tinnitus and the sound of hard drives seems to exacerbate my condition.
Follow Ups:
My PVR is in the mud room (the sometimes noisy ISO transformer lives there too). Even though it is RF it didn't work well until I added a piece of coax and moved the antenna to the living room.
Hey MG,All my music is in my highend "music computer" and the hard drive is very quiet if not inaudible. SInce my computer is fanless, the hard drive is the loudest part behind the cd-rom drive, which is super loud, but thank goodness I don't use it. I never hear the drive with any amount of music playing, and barely when there is silence.
Lap top drives may be a good option.
ANyhow, there are drives that are quieter than others, and hard drive cases that make them nearly silent. Check out the following site for the hard drives they recommend.
Unfortunately, the only ultimate solution I have found is to unplug the tivo. You sacrifice being able to record anything, but you get your quiet. Some tivos are louder than others. Dynamat did work a little, but you still have a fan and hard drive. Perhaps places like dvrupgrade.com or weaknees.com has some ideas - with replacement fans and drives, etc.
I love the Tivo for it's great time-shifting abilities...but it is noisy! When the TV is on, or other background noise levels are high, it's not much of a problem, but when it's quiet, that high pitched whine seems to cut through everything right to the center of my brain...Ideas for noise reduction - on the more expensive, troublesome end, some hard drives are quieter than others...check a site like newegg and read the reviews, many times posters will indicate which drives are louder than others...I had to replace the drive in my laptop, and the new one is dramatically quieter than the old, so I know it's possible.
Less expensive ideas...perhaps lining the cases (Tivo and otherwise) with Dynamat or equivalent...I might try this with the Tivo as I have some scraps of Dynamat around...make sure not to block cooling holes...and of course, therein lies the rub...as much as you do to dampen the case, it's full of holes...
Years ago, I built an external drive array using a salvaged case...I could not believe how loud it was...I tried lining the thing with some foam rubber mat, about half-inch thick stuff, and guess what? Very little improvement...partly because of fan noise, and partly because the fan area and other holes give lots of room for noise to travel...
The final answer in that case was to put the thing in the garage...which brings me to 'the final solution;' separate enclosures. If you can put the offending devices into cabinets or other suitable enclosures, it should help considerably...
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: