
Completely Silent Computer - ductionist
https://tp69.blog/2018/04/17/completely-silent-computer/
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userbinator
_This computer makes no noise when it starts up. It makes no noise when it
shuts down. It makes no noise when it idles. It makes no noise when it’s under
heavy load. It makes no noise when it’s reading or writing data._

I've used completely silent computers before --- some laptops --- and actually
found the experience rather unsettling --- to me the fans, the soft
humming/whining of the CPU voltage regulators, and the grunting of the hard
drive all give subtle cues as to what's happening with the system at any given
moment. Without them, I have to spend extra effort looking at the indicators
(if any) or monitoring apps. The white noise is somewhat comforting too.

There are certainly people who like the silence, but I prefer the extra
feedback; I wonder if it's related to how I'll easily get nauseous in a car
that's too quiet and has a very soft suspension, but have no problems if I can
hear the engine and "feel" the road.

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lostmyoldone
Tips on getting rid of coil whine?

Because that's literally the only sound I hear from my computer unless it's
heavily loaded. Most annoying is an intermittent whine when it's idle. Loud
enough to hear from the other end of my - admittedly small - apartment.

~~~
IronBacon
The drastic approach: finding the culprit and replace it. Years ago I had a
combination of MB and PSU that produced an annoying whine. Putting a different
PSU model eliminated the noise. Sometimes it's the combination of GPU and PSU,
YMMV.

The thinkerer approach: find the noisy coil and bury it with a generous amount
of hot glue or some other similar dielectric material. You are trying to
reduce the coil "vibrations" and dampening the noise.

Personal anecdote, both mine and my sister's Dell XPS 13" (9333 model) have an
annoying coil whine that is really evident on quiet rooms, in a normal office
environment I can't hear them tho. From what I've read online recent XPS
models still have that defect. Baffling, a lower specs Latitude 15" that was
provided to me in a previous job didn't had any.

In my case an user has solved the issue disconnecting the audio speakers,
don't recall if it was one of them or both, if someone is interested the post
is somewhere in the Dell support forum.

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logicallee
hey isn't there some kind of inert (non-conductive) oil you could fill the
whole thing with that transfers heat better than air does? if nothing needs to
be moving in there then viscosity etc shouldn't matter.

it just shoudn't leech into or out of anything and be chemically inert in the
relevant ways. most oils are pretty cheap and probably every little bit
matters in this kind of setup. removing components would be pain though.
(everything oily).

~~~
rolleiflex
This is what you're looking for:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrJreUX3TCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrJreUX3TCk)

And yes, it does work - but it's a maintenance nightmare, since oil can eat
some types of plastic that are commonly used, especially at their seams.

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cptskippy
I have yet to encounter an electronic device that doesn't emit a high
frequency whine at some point.

~~~
saagarjha
I've never heard my iPhone make an audible noise that I didn't trigger.

~~~
cptskippy
The iPhone 6 I have for App testing does when charging. Some devices do it at
certain display settings or under certain loads. Modern Smartphones are
virtually silent 99% of the time but invariably they'll all whine at some
point.

I am the type of person who is unsettled until I pinpoint the origin of a
sound and my partner will find me with my ear against the wall tracing a drip
or creak in the house.

I guess I must also still have some high frequency hearing left because I can
still hear every electronic device hum at least under certain conditions.

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etaioinshrdlu
5 years ago I built the highest performance gaming rig I could using entirely
fanless parts.

It got very hot to the touch and probably was rather bad for the chips long
term.

The electrical whining was terrible! You could hear all CPU and GPU activity
depending on load.

Now I use a macbook and it's far less irritating...

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chris_va
Original discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17075489](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17075489)

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zadwang
About 10 years ago I purchased a Dell mini 10 laptop that has no fan and SSD.
I was satisfied with the silence. Now the closest I could find is intel NUC.
With Linux and proper fan control it is quiet (no fan turning) most of the
time - almost all times. And I kind ma like the fact that the fan is there
just in case. The noise from the environment is the major issue for me now.

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vbezhenar
IMO proper huge slow fans are silent. No need to compromise.

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amluto
> It’s totally silent — 0dB.

Sigh. Totally silent is -∞dB. 0dB just means that it matches the reference
volume, which is nominally the threshold of human hearing. (And the
definitions vary depending on whether it's dbA, dbC, or something else.)

~~~
Ao7bei3s
Don't be overly pedantic. As inaudible to human hearing is exactly what the
author meant, 0dB (implicitly relative to anything reasonable) actually
matches the intent better. Also 0dB (relative to no matter what) is closer to
the machines actual noise output than -infty dB (think high frequency hum
emitted by the PSU and similar).

~~~
amluto
Since the OP didn’t talk about coil whine at all, I would guess that the
actual SPL was well above 0 dbA.

