
Completely Silent Computer - signa11
https://tp69.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/completely-silent-computer/
======
biztos
Am I the only one who thinks of smartphones and tablets as silent computers?

Granted, they can't do what this person's high-spec workstation can do, but
they do most of the computing tasks most people use (used) noisy fanned
computers with clacking disks for and in many cases do those tasks better.

And unless I'm just losing my hearing, my smartphone is _completely_ silent as
long as I don't accidentally press the Golem Invoker, er, Siri button.

~~~
pmcollins
The MacBook is (at least in theory) noiseless as well. It has an SSD and no
fans.

~~~
ckastner
Funnily enough, my MacBook Air 2013 produces a buzzing sound on SSD access.
It's barely audible, but it's there.

~~~
tigershark
Oh...it’s not just me then.. Every couple of months I check my 2015 MacBook
Pro system info because I’m utterly convinced that it has an hard drive
because of the SSD noise. It’s quite frustrating actually..

~~~
cptskippy
Imagine being a kid in the 80s or 90s at school and hearing the distinctive
20k tone of a CRT Television humming and wondering if you were going to be
watching TV in one of your classes that day. It was like a dog whistle for
kids.

~~~
hunter2_
If you're in the US or anywhere else with NTSC, the horizontal scan rate (and
thus the whine of the flyback transformer) is 15.75 kHz :)

525 lines / 2 for interlacing * 60 fields per second = 15750

~~~
burfog
times 1000/1001 ever since color was introduced, so about 15734 Hz

------
bertjk
In the past when I tried to build a silent PC, I found that even after
removing / stopping all the fans, there was still often an electronic humm or
buzz left over. That is when I gave up.

Later I changed desks to one that had one of those built in computer cabinets
made of thick particle board. That did as much to silence a pc as all the tens
of hours of effort I had put into meticulously researching and specc'ing the
build before.

~~~
johnchristopher
The only time I achieved silence was when I moved the computer case outside
the room and used a 2m VGA cable and USB chord extenders. That silence was
weird though. No audio feedback at all from the computer, just the clicking of
keyboard and the mouse.

~~~
Klathmon
I did exactly that too!

I was tired of the never-ending quest for silence, so I bought 3 50-ft dvi
cables and a couple usb-3 cables of the same length and put the PC in the
attic.

It worked great, except any hardware issues resulted in a trip to the attic.

~~~
johnchristopher
Did you leave the machine always on ?

~~~
Klathmon
Pretty much. I've never really shut down my main machines when i'm not using
them.

I work from home, so i'm on it several hours every workday, combined with the
fact that I tend to have multiple things in-progress all the time means it
would be a giant pain in the ass to shut it down fully.

------
jiveturkey
> (Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The
> whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure
> and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)

That's a silly and extremist position to take. "insecure" is relative, not
absolute. It's a certainty that the software he's running has far more
quantity of vulnerabilities and a much longer history of them. I don't know
his exact use case, but arguably his use case isn't one where Spectre is
particularly more severe than even a userland, non-priv-escalation vuln. (eg
ransomware doesn't require root access to hold all your files hostage.)

> Eliminate the moving parts (e.g. fans, HDDs) and you eliminate the noise —
> it’s not that complicated.

Ha! And yet it deserved a detailed blog post. I'm surprised he would say this
even after the amount of effort he spent.

~~~
iblo66
After having purchased an AMD GPU, they would have to pay me for me to buy
anything from AMD ever again.

~~~
sliken
Their CPUs are pretty good, their GPUs are pretty good, however their GPU
drivers are terrible, especially under linux.

~~~
Laaas
what? It's the exact __opposite __, their GPU drivers are great on Linux. I
've literally never had a problem with AMDGPU.

Also, you can't even compare NVidia's drivers to them, since they don't even
_support_ Wayland properly!

~~~
y4mi
you're probably getting downvoted because of your 'never'.

AMD linux support was downright abysmal pre ~2015.

------
baseethrowaway
One can make a passive build much more powerful.

NSG S0, once out, will most likely be the go-to case for such setups. Until
then, an HDPLEX H5 is cool.

My desk has a H5 on it, housing an i7 8700 (non-K) and a GTX 1060. The TIM
under the heatspreader is replaced with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is used as every other TIM that the case setup needs.
The CPU is on stock clocks with a voltage offset of -30 mV. The GPU has the
power target reduced to 90% and clocks increased by 130 MHz, so that it is
effectively undervolted as well. The PSU is a Seasonic Ultra Prime Titanium
650. Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps,
but is a very unrealistic load. Non-AVX stress tests and FurMark take a while
to start throttling (20 minutes?), as the thermal capacity of the aluminum
case is quite big. After hours of gaming, the GPU and CPU float around 80 C
while providing full stock performance. I don't do 3D rendering (other than
in-game) or video en/decoding, so have not had long, real-world, full loads to
see how temperatures behave with those.

From the discussion I've had and forums I've read, I think that people are
afraid of putting more power in passive cases and having their components at
"high" temperatures, despite those being rated for them.

~~~
xxs
>Prime95 with AVX throttles really, really fast, under a minute, perhaps, but
is a very unrealistic load

I suppose blender would thermal throttle the cpu as well. If you run any non-
Xeon/non-Laptop Intel chip (greater than 2k series) and care about
temperatures - delid the bugger. (Xeons are soldered, laptop chips don't have
IHS). Intel uses something that's worse than toothpaste, plus tons of glue
between the die and the IHS. If you see temperature deltas under full load
more than 9-10C between the cores, the thermal paste between the die and the
IHS might have missing spots or have dried out. In your case removal of the
IHS altogether would provide decent results.

You might wish to check the VRMs, they are rated at 125C but if the case is
hellishly hot inside, they might not be able to dissipate the heat.

~~~
Misdicorl
Somewhat unrelated, but maybe you can shoot me down since you seem to have
some experience?

Metal is an incredibly good conductor on its own, and the properties of
thermal paste (typically) are just barely better than air. So long as your cpu
and heatsink are fairly flat surfaces and mashed together physically, it seems
like either forgoing or having the absolute minimum amount of paste is ideal.
I've used a razor to leave an absolutely minimal layer of paste (e.g. filling
in sub-millimeter surface structure) on my latest build, and cpu temperatures
are well within a reasonable range. But I'm also not trying to OC the cpu or
anything.

Thoughts?

~~~
xxs
>...and the properties of thermal paste (typically) are just barely better
than air.

I am not certain how you have managed to come to such a conclusion. Thermal
conductivity of air is around 0.03W/(m·K)[0]. Good thermal, non-conductive
paste is like 12.5W/(m·K)[1] (or 400 times better than air). Conductive ones
are in the region of ~40-80 W/(m·K) and Aluminium is 237W/(m·K). Also air also
expands pushing the cooler and CPU away.

Normally you if choose between "too much" and "too little" paste, you pick the
former. The pressure pushes out the unneeded amounts.

[0]: [https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-
d_42...](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html)
[1]: [http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-
en](http://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/products/16-kryonaut-en)

~~~
Misdicorl
Don't, you need to multiply the raw conductivity by the linear distance
occupied by the thermal paste? I presume that distance will be at least two
orders of magnitude larger than that occupied by air in a metal contact only
setup.

I would be extremely surprised if increased pressure due to air at higher
temperature played any role whatsoever unless the bolts connecting the
heatsink and cpu were very loose. If anything, I'd expect the increased
conductivity of air at higher temperatures to dominate.

I'd also expect there to be effects at the metal-paste and paste-metal
interfaces which reduce the effective system conductivity (i.e. phonons are
much more likely to reflect in this scenario than in a metal-metal interface).

------
emptybits
Clearly a work of passion and I appreciate OP sharing.

I enjoyed earlier days of "Silent PC" building, ten or fifteen years ago. For
example, building a silent tower or desktop for a DAW or softsynth back then
in a recording/studio environment required some ingenuity. SSD? Not on a
hobbiest budget. I recall one build, not mine, fully immersed in a bucket of
oil (mineral?) for passive heat dispersion.

Today, as a new reference point, any MacBook Pro within the last few years may
qualify as truly silent for many people's everyday usage. It does for me. And
when I do heat up the CPU/GPU with heavy tasks, the fans spin up but then they
go away completely as soon as the hard work is done. Back to silent.

No more spinning platters or crappy fan bearings or poorly engineering airflow
nowadays. :-)

There's no hacker pride in buying off-the-shelf, so the performance bar for
DIY is higher. Progress!

~~~
tp69
I'm glad you enjoyed the post. My first silencing attempt (in the early 1990s)
was to seal a hard disk in what amounted to little more than a couple of oven
bags, custom-make a long IDE cable, and then — literally — dangle the drive in
a bucket of water that was under the desk the computer sat on. That ended
poorly, with thermal cycling inducing microfractures in the bags, which
resulted in leaks, a dead drive and a blown controller on the motherboard. Ah
well, we live and learn. Take it easy.

------
recursive
This says that a completely silent computer would be 0dB. But it's a
logarithmic scale, so I think it should say -Infinity dB.

This is admittedly pointless pedantry.

~~~
jiveturkey
He’s using the term incorrectly to begin with so corrections aren’t really
possible.

Of course it can’t be completely silent. Heat generates air movement which is
“sound”.

By 0dB he means 0dB SPL which is give or take correct.

~~~
contravariant
If the air moves at a constant speed I don't think you'd get sound. Any
fluctuations probably won't be in the audible spectrum, although whether that
still counts as 'silent' is more of a philosophical question.

------
dragontamer
So these sorts of builds are way harder than they look. You need to spend a
good amount of time planning out motherboards, and willing to go back to the
shop to buy another motherboard (because this motherboard might have a big
honking capacitor where you expected to run a heat-pipe).

So you either need to carefully look at pictures / guestimate the location of
components, or hope that someone else on the internet has figured it all out
for you. Alternatively, you could just be ridiculously lucky.

But I don't really believe in luck personally. If this guy has been doing
these builds for as long as he claims, he probably had a fair bit of thought
go into the particulars of this build. The kinds of thoughts that don't go
very well into blog posts because they're uninteresting (but very important).
Like, does X combination of components fit or do I do Y instead?

\------------

With respect to the build itself: I'm surprised he was able to get 60+W CPU
and a 60+W GPU in there. Most silent builds I see basically use laptop parts
(30W or less) to keep the heat down.

32gb of RAM will be plenty, and 8 Zen-cores is plenty strong. The GPU is a bit
weak for gaming, but he should be able to play plenty of the lower-end games
without much issue, even at 1080p / 60fps (probably Overwatch for example). He
probably can't run Witcher3 at 4k on Ultra, but such a GPU would blow out his
thermal-design completely.

~~~
tp69
Yep, it took weeks to finalise the parts. I had to contact multiple vendors
and get them to check component heights, track down motherboard layouts,
compare review photos from different angles, plan heatpipe runs, resolve
conflicts with VRM heatsinks and power connectors, watch assembly/review
videos over and over again, scrutinise manuals, determine hardware/OS
incompatibilities... probably well over 80 hours of work before I could even
order the parts.

But, like you say, even though I had done all that, there was still the
possibility that I might have missed something and would need to
return/replace some parts and rework the plan. My mouse hovered over the
"Order" button for quite a while before I finally committed. An anxious
moment.

Virtually none of that methodical and boring research/prep work made it into
the post — it's just not that interesting. Necessary, yes, but not something
that the vast majority of readers would want to read.

The setup should be able to handle a 105W CPU and 75W GPU. At this point 65 +
75W is confirmed. When I OC the 1600 I should be able to verify up to ~95 +
75W.

The strategy was to start with a really well engineered passive case, then
select components that could be pushed right up to the thermal limits. It's
worked well so far. I'll keep publishing all of my test results for those that
may be interested.

------
tsomctl
I'm pretty happy with my setup. My garage shares a wall with my living room,
so I put the tower out there. I then ran high quality, 25' long dvi and usb
cables to the desk in my living room.

Edit: I currently have two gtx1050 in it running at full power, and can't hear
the fans at all.

~~~
saagarjha
Personally, I just don't like computing at a distance. I actually like hearing
things like fan noise or hard drive sounds, as long as they're not incessant,
because it can serve as a subtle notification that the computer might be doing
something in the background that I might not have realized otherwise.

~~~
fipple
But then a silent build wouldn’t be interesting to you at all. The garage idea
is good for someone who does want Silent computing.

~~~
saagarjha
Hmm, I guess. I think my MacBook Pro strikes a nice balance: it's silent 95%
of the time, and I get some fans up when I run builds or something hangs in
the background.

------
fhood
All of my raspberry pi's are completely silent.

On a more serious note, would it be possible to achieve said silence without
too much compromise by some variant of water cooling, with a good sized
reservoir? And use the heat to drive circulation rather than a pump?

~~~
bluGill
Maybe, but it is tricky.

Because there is no pump the water will flow much slower, therefore you need
much bigger pipes. Think at least 3x the diameter you would think you need.

Also because you are depending on thermo siphon you have to ensure you have to
ensure the water flow works with gravity. The heat source must be at bottom,
and the radiator must be at the top. You don't get any flexibility go around
something that might be in the way, the pipes must always be sloped in the
correct direction.

If you are using anything other than water you need to pay attention to
specific gravity (and how it changes with temperature), and viscosity.
Probably something else that I'm not thinking of.

It probably can work. I have an antique tractor that uses such a system. A
2.2L, 16hp engine, has 24L of coolant, and the pipes between the engine and
radiator are noticeably bigger than my truck with a 7.3L 250HP engine.
Remember that this was designed to run at just under the boiling point of
water (antifreeze is too modern). You probably want your computer considerably
cooler, which implies even larger systems than a similar active one.

~~~
fhood
What kind of tractor?

~~~
bluGill
1939 John Deere B. My Grandpa bought it in the mid 1960s, for $300, my dad
drove it home. Now it is mine.

------
chx
If you are interested in this topic then
[http://www.silentpcreview.com/](http://www.silentpcreview.com/) is your
friend, they have been doing this since 2002 although certainly activity has
been lees the last few years. The forums are also good.

~~~
paol
Activity has ceased unfortunately. The last articles are from 2016.

~~~
tempestn
That's a shame; they've been my go-to resource for my last three builds or so.

------
blattimwind
IME components need to be selected for low coil whine (and the related
brethren, namely electrostriction and piezoelectrics), because it easily
dwarfs (both in loudness and annoyance) the air flow and fan noise of a well-
built air-cooled machine.

------
tetha
Hm, this reminds me of two interesting tidbits.

One is the good old P1 125Mhz router we had like 10 - 15 years ago. The only
active cooling in that system was in the PSU and that thing throttled it's fan
off during normal operation. It had zero moving parts outside of the PSU. You
couldn't even get fans for those CPUs. These old systems were fun :)

And beyond that, this makes me think of the computer requirements of coal
mines, and I think mining in general. In a mine, a piece of compute has a
defined maximum energy emission per square inch surface. If you exceed that,
you risk coal dust explosions, which are rather inconvenient, loud and adverse
to throughput. The stuff in the article is very similar to industrial
computers in such a setup. Quite interesting.

~~~
kakwa_
At my college, we had a bar with a custom account management system (it
managed the credit of each students).

The thing was all text/ncurses.

The terminal was an under-clocked PII, with all the fans removed and connected
to the server using a serial cable and it was kind of necessary since the
environment was quite hostile and sticky (spilled beer, some fat deposit,
etc).

If I recall correctly before the PII, it was a VT-100 console, so even more
basic than the PII.

------
egfx
A long time ago I was dreaming of a completely silent computer and bought the
Antec 350 for my birthday. [https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec-
phantom-350w-psu/](https://www.bjorn3d.com/2004/11/antec-phantom-350w-psu/)

It cannot power a single mid-range video card today or pretty much any modern
equipment. I would have loved to be able to use it.

Anybody making fanless PSU's today?

~~~
aesthetics1
Seasonic does. They make excellent power supplies. I've used a 400w fanless in
a media center PC, but they also make higher wattage units like this for
example: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-
fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)

~~~
polshaw
A higher wattage than 400W is utterly pointless for a fanless PSU; if you need
to dissipate constant loads of >400W of heat, you will need a fan somewhere
(exotic options like mineral oil cooling aside).

~~~
vertexFarm
Well you can always add absurd amounts of surface area and mass to the heat
sinks to take advantage of thermal inertia, or possibly change components to
simply raise your safe operating temperatures to absurd levels. But that's
pretty involved. Spacecraft take care of huge temperatures with no fans or
even conductive or convective cooling. But that requires enormous, sail-sized
surfaces to take advantage of extremely slow radiative cooling.

It would be an exotic option for sure. And not something you'll find pre-
built.

~~~
jamiek88
[http://fanlessfan.com/](http://fanlessfan.com/)

Massive heat sink you say?

This is cpu and gpu fully passive. Amazing. But $1000.

~~~
vertexFarm
Wow. That thing has more surface area than a motorcycle engine. I guess it
really needs it with such a relatively low temperature gradient, not to
mention the absence of airflow from movement. I'd love to see how that really
performs.

------
weinzierl
Completely silent and zero time boot are the two features I still miss from my
C64. The only thing that came close in the meantime was my Palm III, but it
wasn't a desktop computer. To be fair I rarely boot a device (be it mobile or
notebook) nowadays, but still..

------
Escapado
Nice article. About two years ago I wanted to make my pc completely silent as
well. It turned out that the cheapest solution for me was to put the pc in
another room that I don't sit in and put long hdmi + USB cables through the
wall. I also soldered on a longer cable with a power button so I can start the
pc from my room. The only downside for me is that I had to run cables along my
walls through a conduit but I think in total I paid less than 40€.

~~~
tomaskafka
"How long HDMI cable do I need to call this a cloud?" :))

------
monkpit
> The whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system
> insecure and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel
> CPUs.

Is any system honestly 100% “securable”? I would argue that any computer,
regardless of cpu manufacturer, is “unsecurable”.

~~~
wilsonnb
A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure. Just
not very useful.

I imagine any computer that approaches maximum security also approaches
minimum utility.

Presumably the author just thinks that Intel is a little too low on security
compared to the other offerings, and not that the other offerings are actually
"secure".

~~~
saagarjha
> A computer with no input mechanism or output mechanism would be secure.

Information can be extracted from airgapped computers by measuring magnetic
fluctuations, so this isn't quite true!

~~~
wilsonnb
I suppose that would count as an output mechanism then, wouldn't it?

Perhaps it is impossible to build a computer without an output mechanism.

~~~
luminiferous
If you're going to count all possible side channels as output mechanisms, then
I'd imagine that it is indeed impossible to build a computer without an output
mechanism.

Unless you limit your scope to say, Earth, and somehow build a computer
outside of Earth's light cone. It is thus causally disconnected from Earth and
has no output mechanisms that can be read from anyone on Earth.

------
TwoNineA
There is one flaw in his setup, he doesn't seem to cool the VRMs of his video
card (only memory chips). Not doing that is asking for trouble when load is
put on the card.

~~~
thinkingemote
You can fanless video cards of the same spec as in the article (1050ti) e.g at
[https://www.quietpc.com/palit-
ne5105t018g1-1070h](https://www.quietpc.com/palit-ne5105t018g1-1070h)

(I can personally recommend both the vendor and the card!)

~~~
TwoNineA
For these cards the giant heatsink is connected to the VRMs so cooling is a
non issue. In OP's pictures, he seems to have replaced the heatsink of his
card with one from the case without cooling the VRMs.

From personal experience, I tried to silent cool an RX 550 (50 watt vs 75 watt
of 1050 ti) without VRM heatsink and the VRM temnperatures were up to 100-103C
during a torture test. Adding a fan lowered the temperatures by 20C.

~~~
Ratiofarmings
Both the hi-side and lo-side mosfets (they might be 2in1 on a card like this)
are rated for their amperage at 125c and are typically capable of dissipating
that through their contact with the pcb. Airflow is nice, but not required.
Neither is direct contact with a heatsink. Those are for higher end cards (who
also rate their mosfets at 125c for good reasons. Max tCase for mosfets is
usually 150c. Beyond that they just die.

------
walrus01
Quick note for everyone who might want to build a mostly-quiet home theatre
PC. There are several versions of the geforce1030 that use passive cooling/no
fans. With H265 acceleration in the GPU drivers, more than fast enough for
2160p, 60fps movies in VLC. They're right around $85.

Same basic chip architecture as the much more expensive 1070/1080\. Not
something you'd want to run newer 3D games on, but perfect for media center
use.

~~~
IronBacon
Last time I've looked there was a passive cooled 1050 GeForce model and an
equivalent (more or less) from Amd that I don't recall the name.

~~~
walrus01
There are several passively cooled geforce1050 (not ti), but you really don't
need it for any form of 4k video. My output setup is to a 70" 60Hz TV over
HDMI 2.0, with a ryzen 1500X that is slightly overclocked, this setup handled
2160p60 H265 up to around 300 Mbps, at which point it CPU bottlenecks. Which
is a vastly greater bitrate than any bluray or torrented 4K content.

If you wanted a setup slightly more capable of 3D games then the 1050 would
definitely be a consideration.

~~~
IronBacon
Well, 300 Mb/s it's a lot of headspace, it's nearly nine times the bandwidth
of a Bluray. ^__^

I'm itching to stuff one of the recently release Raven Ridge APUs in a 3
liters case with a PicoPSU and have a portable, reasonably powerful desktop
that I can stuff in a backpack, I'm waiting for a little more mature Linux
support, at least a stable 2.4.17 kernel...

------
soVeryTired
Stupid question from a non-hardware guy. If you wanted a completely silent
computer, could you build one in a vacuum chamber and just suck all the air
out?

~~~
beckler
Yeah, but without air, the heat won't dissapate.

------
shurcooL
As someone who has used the fanless 12" Retina MacBook, I can't put in words
how nice of a feeling it is to have a fully silent computer. It's hard to
understand why without actually experiencing it yourself, but it was a really
big deal. If not for the awful keyboard ruining the experience, I wouldn't
ever give it up.

It may sound (no pun intended) like an exaggeration, but I think more powerful
computers going completely silent (fanless) will be the next most noticeable
breakthrough since we got Retina displays on computers in 2012.

~~~
tp69
Yes, the feeling you get from pure silence is hard to put into words.

------
aembleton
My Xiaomi Air 12 Laptop is completely silent, fanless and uses SSD. Very happy
with it and it comes like that out of the box.

[https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html](https://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_416105.html)

~~~
absove
I got mine last week, pleasantly surprised at how good it was considering the
price. The display is gorgeous and linux support is excellent. Far from usual
experience with linux on laptops.

------
cellularmitosis

        It can’t be heard from 1cm away
    

I doubt that. A while back I removed all of the moving parts from an old 486
and netbooted it, only to find out I could actually hear the network card
making very faint screeching noises whenever there was network activity.
You've probably heard the same effect on a much larger scale, at much lower
frequency, when you hear the 60Hz hum of a "silent" transformer.

------
baus
I thought AMD processors were also susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre. The author
mentions Intel's vulnerabilities as a reason for choosing AMD

~~~
sp332
They weren't vulnerable to Meltdown, only Spectre. The author expands on what
happened to his particular PC in the comments.

------
zokier
Kinda unfortunate timing for him that AMD released Ryzen 5 2400GE about the
time as the article was written, which seems like pretty much perfect chip for
silent reasonably powerful computer. Sure, it might not be quite as beefy as
his 1600+1050Ti combo, but the energy efficiency should be much better. 2400GE
is rated at 35W, while 1600+1050Ti is at 65W+75W=140W, or full four times
more.

~~~
tp69
Yep, you can't always wait for the perfect product to come along — sometimes
circumstances force your hand.

Not only did that processor not exist at the time, but even if it did there
were going to be a bunch of compatibility issues with it on Ubuntu (like there
always are when new hardware is released). I simply didn't want to have to
deal with those sorts of issues for — potentially — months.

Maybe the Ryzen 5 3400G(E) will be a compelling upgrade? We shall see.

------
xtrapolate
> "(Astute readers will notice they are all AMD (Socket AM4) motherboards. The
> whole Meltdown/Spectre debacle rendered my previous Intel system insecure
> and unsecurable so that was the final straw for me — no more Intel CPUs.)"

This is just random FUD.

(1) AMD boards are vulnerable to Spectre -
[https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution-
previ...](https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/speculative-execution-previous-
updates).

(2) There are other vulnerabilities that affect AMD boards -
[https://community.amd.com/community/amd-
corporate/blog/2018/...](https://community.amd.com/community/amd-
corporate/blog/2018/03/21/initial-amd-technical-assessment-of-cts-labs-
research)

(3) Vulnerabilities are found everywhere. That's not the first time
vulnerabilities are found, and it won't be the last. How is that an argument
for anything exactly?

~~~
diffeomorphism
But not to meltdown and AMD did not try to spin it as "everbody is just as
vulnerable as us, move along" like Intel did.

Irrespective of how serious you consider these vulnerabilities, the way Intel
handled them can very well be a "final straw".

------
KaiserPro
Silent Pcs are hard, however the simplest way to make your PC silent is to put
it elsewhere....

I worked at a VFX company, where we did interactive client sessions (think:
zoom! enhance!) which required a totally silent setup. In somecases that meant
trying to silence an entire rack of disks (baselite
8,[http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/ba...](http://erwanlecloirec.typepad.fr/digital_flipbook/2000/10/baselight.html)
big glowing thing at the bottom of the page)

Obviously this is impossible, so we used DVI senders
([https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design-
mic...](https://www.eastwoodsoundandvision.com/blackmagic-design-micro-
converter-sdi-to-
hdmi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk8en9fKJ2wIVlIXVCh36ngJ_EAQYAiABEgK8o_D_BwE) they are
HDMI nowadays) and remote USB

This has the advantage that we can have a full bore machine with no
compromises.

~~~
pvdebbe
I just put the machine to a closet and buy long cords for all peripherals.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Congratulations tp69! The article details how miners made it difficult to
procure components for the build, but the irony is that the miners might be
specifically interested in this build for its power efficiency.

A decade ago, I was obsessed with fans and at one point I had more than 10 in
my workstation. The noise it created kind of resonated with me, like I would
be able to tell when the job was CPU intensive, HDD or GPU; I guess it felt
more lively!

But after the smartphone boom, I got more adhered to power efficient, noise
less systems (Smartphone/Tablet/SBC's/Chromebook) & after the meltdown spectre
(pun intended) my adherence got reinforced.

Anyone looking for low-cost completely silent yet portable system in laptop
form-factor can take a look at Chromebooks, now that Google has announced
Linux apps support it's usefulness would tend to grow.

------
danboarder
Compulab Airtop makes a VR ready tiny gaming rig i7 gtx1060 that is similar.
There are very few fanless rigs with discrete graphics for gamer and
workstation use like this that I can find: [http://airtop-
pc.com](http://airtop-pc.com)

------
thibran
Raspberry Pi + i3 + Chromium + Emacs = <3

100% quiet, not super fast, but fast enough.

------
nootropicat
I wanted complete silence too, but realized it's way easier to just move the
PC elsewhere. I moved it into an adjacent room, made a small hole in the wall
for cables (10M hdmi+usb+audio) and that was it, it worked perfectly. The
price was trivial - about $40 total for cables. I already had a usb extension
hub.

Sadly, that's only useful for 60Hz, as high refresh rates require a short
displayport cable to work. For this reason I no longer use this solution.

If you're ok with 60Hz and have compatible room layout I recommend this. The
biggest advantage is that it's completely PC agnostic, which makes upgrades
way easier, as standard cooling solutions are fine.

------
nwah1
I bought an HD-Plex case to use with the 35W AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE processor w/
integrated GPU which was just launched. Looking forward to using it.

[https://www.hdplex.com/](https://www.hdplex.com/)

~~~
vidoc
You wont be disappointed. I've been running a router/kodi-box machine with a
low power i5 in their h1 case for almost 4 years now, it works like a charm.

------
Jaruzel
Not quite the same thing but... I'm in the middle of building a totally silent
Retro DOS machine. Using an old low-spec passively cooled VIA Mini-ITX
motherboard in a small case[1] with a passively cooled internal PSU. The
storage is an SD card on the main IDE channel. The motherboard also has
hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB support, so all the DOS games sound really great!
[2]

I've just written a front end launcher for the apps/games, and I found some
working USB drivers for DOS that makes transferring software over nice and
easy.

I'll probably post a Show HN when I'm done.

\---

[1] 22cm x 22cm x 4cm

[2] DOOM as it was _meant_ to be heard.

~~~
eggsome
Which model VIA mb? And what do you mean by "hardware Soundblaster/ADLIB
support" \- do you have to run a TSR to make it work?

~~~
Jaruzel
EPIA 5000 Motherboard. The chipset on the Motherboard directly includes
Soundblaster, ADLib, and MPU-401 support. You can enable/disable each one in
the BIOS.

And yes, you need the EPIA Soundblaster drivers for DOS, but that's not that
different from normal Soundblaster cards. It was a bit of an uphill struggle
getting it working, but it's quite simple once you get the right version of
the drivers.

------
saagarjha
This was a major selling point of MacBook–it had no fans whatsoever, making it
completely silent even under load.

------
jtbayly
I've heard noise (high-frequency whine, changing depending on load) from my
laptop power supply at times, I think. I wonder if that's not a problem for
some reason on desktop power supplies.

~~~
onli
It can be a problem, also with PC psus. Not all of them have coil whine, and
it depends on the connected components, but it definitely happens.

In my case it is the monitor that of all my components has the worst coil
whine (actually the PWM brightness regulation).

~~~
Drdrdrq
In my case also, unless I set the sound volume of built in speakers to 0.
Since they are not connected anyway that solves it for me. It is still
annoying that we have to put up with this though.

------
peterjlee
Alternatively, you could put your computer in a tank of mineral oil.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V06LLTNxc4)

~~~
FRex
There's also using ARM, Calyos stuff[0]

Some old Macs were also 'potentially' silent if you were to today remove the
HDD and the optical drive, which were the only mechanical parts[1].

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LauL5JxYis)

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube)

------
bullen
I made a similar build but with the Streacom FC9 Alpha case. I put a slim
1050Ti in there and replaced the GPU fans with Nuctua 1cm thick 9,2cm fan with
Zalman Fan Mate 2 that I turn up when I play games. I have to run it without
lid though, as any computer I have really, convection is your friend.

I also went with 32GB RAM because I make multiplayer games and I need to be
able to run multiple clients at the same time which takes alot of memory.

This build is my last computer, peak moores law will make it so.

------
tomaskafka
For gaming I occasionaly rent an instance on Paperspace and play through
Parsecgaming client (1440p@60fps, <10 ms lag). Totally quiet when a PC is in
Amsterdam datacenter :).

------
matchagaucho
_" For what I will be doing with this computer"_

Would love to know what application this was built for.

As a recording studio enthusiast, I can appreciate the pursuit of silent PCs.

What other use cases?

~~~
tp69
It's my new daily driver. I do everything on it except play games. My previous
rig is now dedicated to that task.

So we have the usual suspects: Watching videos and movies, staying abreast of
current affairs, listening to music.

Then some not so-usual suspects: Research and self-education, software
development, and a simulation that I've been running and tweaking for several
years.

This computer is on for an average of about 15 hours every day of the week,
and is pretty-much always doing something. It spends virtually no uptime
idling.

------
lmilcin
It is my ongoing mission to find completely silent phone and laptop chargers
and PC monitor.

I have three monitors and a laptop and not one is inaudible. They all become
inaudible when I set their brightness to 100% but this is not acceptable to
me.

I was able to mostly fix my Dell U3011 by replacing power supply capacitors.

These were placed in worst possible spot, bathing in hot ascending air
assuring shortened lifespan. One could wonder if it was done intentionally...

------
szemet
I've built a fanless desktop too last year. Because I only use it for browsing
and as a media player, I've chosen a 35w i3 CPU with integrated GPU. This way
I could use a cheap semi-fanless PSU - which never switches on its fan -
because the system just never exceeds its consumption limit.

Because of the 35W CPU, the system was cheap and easy to build.

What I have learned from it, is that my screen has a silent buzzing sound...
:)

~~~
PretzelFisch
try turning the brightness up or down. I had the same issue with many of my
monitors and this would sometimes fix it.

------
shmerl
Nice, but it won't work with higher end parts like Vega 56. They are just way
too hot by design.

There was also some ready solution like this, that used heat dissipation
through the walls of the case: [https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-
technology/](https://airtop-pc.com/airtop/natural-airflow-technology/)

------
Nasrudith
I am both impressed and left wondering "Why go through such trouble?" Not in a
dismissive way but an inquisitive one since it has been such a long term goal.
I can see some power usage reasons given how much fans use and that noise like
heat is a proxy for inefficiency whenever it isln't the direct goal but that
isn't his main goal.

~~~
tp69
Ratiofarmings is on the right track. The noise coming from the computer drowns
out the subtle sounds of life all around me.

Someone suggested in the comments that I should just wear earplugs instead.
This was my response to him: "But the rest of the world doesn’t make annoying
noises that I want to block out — only the computer does. I still want to hear
the birds tweeting in the trees and the wind blowing past the awnings and the
rain hitting the roof and the ice-cream truck driving by and my wife chuckling
at something she’s watching and the cats running along the floor and the
microwave oven heating a meal and the kettle finishing its boil. I’m not
trying to disconnect from the rest of the world — I’m trying to reconnect to
it."

A lot of the most interesting and enjoyable sounds in life are very, very
faint. It doesn't take much noise to drown them out. Even a single fan will do
it. Now I can hear those noises and get 'work' done at the same time. It's
really hard to describe, but 'magical' comes close.

Thanks for asking.

------
nabla9
Just wait a little longer before making a judgment. Some noise from coils and
capacitors might start to emerge during heavy load.

~~~
tp69
If something starts making a noise I'll update my posts and let people know.

------
stcredzero
Hardware Canucks covers the Streacom case in the article.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxHPdoHNRDM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLuNQPiI-7E)

Of interest, "Jay's Two Cents" did this clickbaity video where they daisy
chain 4 radiators together. This would be one of those entertainment value
only stunts, except that they discovered that they could shut off all the
fans. Having only a pump running, you can passively cool both the top-end CPU
and a high-end GPU. If someone can put the pump inside a nice machined
aluminum case, this could be a DIY recipe for a fanless silent PC.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2SIrV_4-dM)

------
gautamb0
This is a wonderful project. It looks very sharp and has pretty good
components.

However, it's usually significantly better, cheaper and easier to build an
"almost" silent system, just by using good heatsinks and very slow fans. A
small amount of airflow is usually significantly better than none at all.

------
djhworld
I really enjoyed this post, the author seems passionate and really happy to
have achieved their dream

~~~
tp69
Thanks, and you're right — I am. :)

------
fipple
Why not just put the computer in the adjacent different room and install a
DisplayPort and USB patch panel on each side of the wall? Monitor and
peripherals in one room and the computer on the other side. It’s what I would
do if I owned a house.

------
arca_vorago
I've had much success with fanless industrial computers for certain
applications in certain environments. Seeing someone do it manually though is
super cool (especially the vram chip heatsinks... why have I never thought of
that before?!)

------
bschwindHN
Speaking of noisy computers and electronics, I designed a PCB with an ESP32
bluetooth/WiFi chip on it. I'm far from an expert in board design, and my
board unsurprisingly emits a buzz when the Wifi/BT radio is transmitting or
receiving. It's interesting though, when it's using BLE you can hear the
frequency hopping as it changes channels, and then you get entirely different
sounds when it stops BLE and uses just WiFi. But yeah I should probably fix
that...

Possibly caused by the piezoelectric effect on an SMD ceramic capacitor,
making it vibrate and hit the PCB surface at an audible frequency.

------
hetman
I finally got my work desktop PC quiet enough for my liking by replacing fans,
heatsinks and a passively cooled graphics card.

Now all I can hear is everyon else's PC's whining around me (there not even
that close!).

------
kakwa_
It's less powerful, but personally, I've replaced my Intel NUC case with one
of these Akasa fanless chassis:

[http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list....](http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?tpl=product/product.list.tpl&type=Fanless%20Chassis&type_sub=Fanless%20NUC)

The thing is not perfect, the case can get quite hot, specially in summer, but
it works reasonably well.

I use the thing as a media center (xbmc/kodi), and it's quite nice to have a
fanless/zero noise setup for this usage.

~~~
Symbiote
I have exactly the same, and I'm very pleased with it. I use it as my main
home computer, which includes occasional use when I'm working from home.

It overheated once (Linux/Ubuntu suspended automatically), my room was also
28°C or something and I'd been encoding videos non-stop for hours.

------
skate22
Quiet enough to protect against this attack? (Using noise of cpu to extract
data)

[https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775](https://m.slashdot.org/story/195775)

------
Drdrdrq
This is some seriously slick design! Congrats to OP for achieving the goal.

~~~
tp69
Thanks, and yes — Streacom did really well on the design. It has a brutalist
aesthetic to it that folks will probably love or hate.

For those that like the looks but want moar powerrr, Streacom have an
actively-cooled version on the drawing board. Do an image search for "Streacom
DA4" if you're interested.

------
Boulth
Excellent post, reminds me of [http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless-
server](http://www.aleutia.com/products/r50-fanless-server)

------
jonathanstrange
Interesting project. I was playing with the idea of running Linux on one of
those little Chinese Qotom PCs without fan for a server, but I live in
Portugal where it can get very hot in the summer and decided that the
potential fire hazard is not worth it.

Overclocking, fanless PC, etc. are all fine if you can make sure that there is
no problem if the ambient temperature raises to 40 C - or even higher, if the
machine is accidentally exposed to sunlight. I don't trust most existing
fanless solutions to work reliably under such conditions.

------
sp332
If you're removing the GPU heatsink and fans, buying a dual-fan card isn't
necessarily a dealbreaker depending on the design. For example, this 1050Ti
from EVGA has two fans but the board itself is pretty small.
[https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs](https://imgur.com/a/AFvUlZs)

[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681448...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487292)

------
matthew-wegner
Real late to this thread, but for the last ~10 years I've run my desktop in
the adjacent room's closet. My desk has the monitors, speakers, USB hub for
peripherals, with cables running through the wall to the actual tower/UPS/etc.
It's a great setup if your living space can accommodate it (the adjacent room
is my bedroom, but I shut this computer down at night).

I started doing this because quiet computers just weren't available at decent
horsepower. Rad to see a build like this!

------
circular_logic
I was wondering about these cases where the metal outside is directly
connected to the CPU. Would this make it possible to kill your machine by
touching it with a static charge?

~~~
baseethrowaway
The CPU's heatspreader is not connected to any leads on the CPU. The case
should be grounded through the power supply, therefore, it should be like
touching ground with static charge.

------
floatingatoll
Apple’s iMac is an excellent budget alternative to this approach, as long as
fan noise under high load is acceptable. 99% of my usage is not under high
load, so it works out to be silent effectively any time I’m not wearing
headphones. Using the CPU and/or GPU and/or writing gigabytes to the SSD will
wind up the fans, so this is not even remotely “always silent for power users”
– but it’s always silent for general non-coder usage!

------
mostlyskeptical
I won a silent computer 5+ years ago as a prize at a lan party. SSD drives,
two of the best passively coolable gpu at the time (ATI I Believe?), passive
CPU cooler, and the whole case was lined with musicians sound absorbing foam.
I think it did have an optional 240mm fan but I never heard it even when I
turned it on. It was so nice that I have built my newest computer in the same
way (though I did put some big storage drives in it).

------
xarien
I've been using a fanless Steacom case for my HTPC for years now. It's a
little pricy, but well worth it given that it looks like a high end DVR.

------
Clubber
My 2009 Mac Pro is the quietest computer I have. I gave up when I installed a
server cabinet in my computer room though. Those 1U units are friggin loud.

------
arketyp
I dream of a passively cool stationary machine with a heat sink case that is
essentially a Menger sponge. For maximizing the surface/volume ratio.

------
etaioinshrdlu
I did a similar (but much more ugly) project a few years ago, and found that
the result was that one could then hear various electrical crackling sounds
from inductors transformers and capacitors, especially from the power supply
and motherboard. It actually sounded worse than a macbook pro which didn't
make as much electrical noise.

------
gnode
I've been interested in passively cooled PCs for a while now. Particularly,
I've been considering building a computer which outputs its heat into a wall
using heatpipes and a metal plate heat spreader. Although I can't find any
case of this being done by anyone else, so I'm not sure if it's a crazy idea
or not.

~~~
nottorp
It's been done with water cooling and a car radiator on the wall ;)

------
dabockster
So I'm guessing passive cooling like this is only obtainable at stock clocks
and low voltages? How does it handle PUBG?

I'd also like to present the loudest computer I've ever seen as a
counterexample.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM2G5vLGcQQ)

~~~
Ratiofarmings
Since he described how his cpu cooling is capable of dissipating up to 105W
and he uses a 65W cpu, he can overclock a little. He is also using fast memory
and a 1050ti is quite capable of running pubg well. Based on that pubg should
run well.

------
DINKDINK
>[it] doesn’t have a single fan. Indeed, it doesn’t have any moving parts at
all. It’s totally silent — 0dB.

Things without moving parts emit sound. LED lights are a simple example.
Anytime you have a wave -- be it mechanical or electrical -- you'll have some
of the harmonics will 'bleed' into the acoustic spectrum.

------
acd
Built a for normal desktop use a nearly silent gaming MiniITX build, it hums
from the graphics card when gaming. Fractal Design Node 304, ASUS Z170I Pro
Gaming, Intel i7 6700k, Samsung M2 SSD, ASUS Strix Gaming OC Nvidia GeForce
GTX 1070, Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler, Corsair PowerSupply (PSU) CS550M. Runs
Linux well.

------
yason
I don't have a desktop PC right now but if I needed one I'd just place it in
the basement or a closet (with enough ventilation), and wire the screen, HIDs,
and a few USB connectors to my desk. Bam, no noise. However, it's cool
(indeed) to see these silent constructions, though.

------
hollerith
My Mac mini does not have a hard drive in it. It is completely silent most of
the time. (A fan is running, but I cannot hear it even in the middle of the
night.) When building software or playing certain videos, the fan speed
increases with the result that I hear a quiet white noise.

~~~
cJ0th
Yeah, I love my mac mini for that. For a computer this silent I even find it
remarkably good value. However, there isn't much else positive I can say about
mac/their eco system...

------
agumonkey
[https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-
disk/](https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-disk/) <= has a
bit about sound too, read it it's worth it

------
daveheq
But can you make it completely black?

~~~
tp69
The DB4 already has a black version:
[http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-
chassis/](http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-chassis/) then click
the Gallery tab.

------
antocv
Samsung Evo drives have a built in hardware error, where the read speeds
diminish with age.

The firmware hides the read-speed decrease, or prolongs the detection of it,
by shuffling data around in the background.

Poor choice of SSDs, Id go with SanDisk Extreme Pro or any other version even
Intel.

------
antongribok
My first silent system was about 17 years ago that booted Linux from a floppy
drive into RAM.

This was before solid state storage options were affordable.

It was a Pentium 1 (can't remember the model) and I had disconnected the PSU
fan. Ran for a long time and I used it mostly as a router.

------
richx
I have a completely silent PC from Cirrus7. I'm pretty happy with it. But it
does not have dedicated GPU like the one in the article.

[https://www.cirrus7.com](https://www.cirrus7.com)

------
walrus01
Seasonic has has a 400W fanless power supply for a few years now.

The new 600W: [https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-
fanless](https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless)

------
dest
See linutop fanless computers, less powerful but much more compact
[http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html](http://www.linutop.com/linutop6.en.html)

------
nullifidian
many components on motherboards assume at least some airflow Encasing in
horizontally in a metal box could lead to premature failure due to increased
temperatures, even if the cpu is relatively cool.

~~~
mark-r
The entire outside of the case is a heat sink. If there's any convection flow
whatsoever it shouldn't be too far above ambient.

------
zemo
please tell me he has a really loud mechanical keyboard to go with it

~~~
tp69
Nope, rubber dome.

I'm actually on the lookout for a wired, backlit, white/aluminium, chiclet,
TKL keyboard. Basically something like the Apple Keyboard but sans NumKeypad,
backlit and keyed for Linux/PC. Bonus points if it has a column of macro keys
on the left.

If anyone knows of one please drop me a line.

~~~
zemo
didn't notice this comment until now.

This is a somewhat deep rabbit hole, but what I will tell you is that you'll
probably have a hard time finding what you want in a chiclet keyboard because
there's not much of a market for chiclet keyboards among keyboard enthusiasts.
Chiclet is both a switching mechanism and a keycap; most of the keyboard-
enthusiast community is working with setups that involve separate switches and
keycaps that are interchangeable.

What you probably want in practice is the following characteristics: a
specific key layout, all of the keys should be the same height, the key travel
should be low (i.e., the amount of distance you have to depress the keys
before registering a keystroke). No idea if you want the keys to make noise or
not, or how stiff you want the springs to be, but that's customizable too. If
you want chiclet keys because you want low key travel, you have a lot of
options. If you want something really thin, there are way, way fewer options.

A single left column of macro keys is not something I've ever seen, but the
one keyboard I can think off of hand that has a similar layout is the Red
Scarf II, which has two columns of macro keys on the left side; unfortunately
it's not currently in production. Some people use an external num pad and put
the num pad on the left for this purpose. [https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red-
scarf-ii-ver-b-custom-mecha...](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/red-scarf-ii-ver-
b-custom-mechanical-keyboard-kit)

I personally use a KBD75, which is an aluminum body, tenkeyless layout with a
right-hand column, and it's all programmable with QMK so you can make any key
do whatever you want. For example, I have a key that, when I press it,
reverses the position of the Alt and Win keys, so that I can switch between
layouts for either PC or Mac and have the Alt, Command, and Windows keys
always in their correct location. Images and build information here:
[https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A](https://imgur.com/a/5pSva2A)

you can get keycaps that have a flat profile that are interchangeable with any
MX-Compatible switch. DSA Granite is a super popular flat-profile keyset like
that: [https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite-
keyset/](https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-granite-keyset/)

it's pretty common to add rubber o-rings to the keys to reduce the travel. But
chiclet keys are generally going to restrict the rest of your options.

Anyway reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards has a bunch of info on all this stuff.

~~~
tp69
Agreed, it's a very deep rabbit hole. The 12" PowerBook G4 that I bought back
in 2004 had the best keyboard I've ever used — I still have it and
occasionally use it. But I've been trying to hunt down a desktop equivalent
ever since (but with backlighting and TKL ANSI layout). Haven't succeeded so
far. Still trying though.

Although my highest priority (by far) is low noise, I do prefer short
travel/registration and a soft landing as well.

Prompted by your post, I did some more research and decided to upgrade(?) my
gaming keyboard to a Logitech G Pro TKL [https://www.logitechg.com/en-
us/product/pro-gaming-keyboard](https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/product/pro-
gaming-keyboard). I haven't tried Romer-G switches so it will be interesting
to see how they turn out.

Meanwhile, now that Corsair's exclusive rights to the Cherry MX Silent (Red)
have expired, I'm hoping to see a lot more keyboards with that switch make
their way into the market. The Corsair Strafe RGB was tempting, but the light
spill from under the caps was far too gaudy and distracting for my liking.

Cherry MX Silent (Red) switches with landing pads and o-rings seems like a
combination that would work well (for me) for gaming.

For the DB4 and daily driver usage, though, the hunt goes on. I'll keep using
the wired Apple Keyboard until someone else comes up with a TKL clone.

------
walrus01
For those interested in doing this, the case manufacturer Zalman also makes a
series of atx format cases where the whole body is a radiator, with heatpipes
to a cpu block.

------
amiga-workbench
My machine is almost completely silent.

Semi-passive power supply, passive GTX1050 and a noctua CPU cooler that is
just barely audible when the room is silent.

The coil whine is irritating though.

------
kuon
Isn't there any liquid we could immerse the electronic in for cooling? I'm
sure this must exist in high density industrial applications.

~~~
danlan
3M make a non conductive solution for exactly this application. I remember
reading about an overclocking rig using something like it pumped through a
radiator submerged in liquid nitrogen. Was pretty cool but the solution ended
up turning into a gel at low temps [https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-
us/applications/immersion-...](https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-
us/applications/immersion-cooling/)

------
CharlesW
My computer is completely silent. (It's an iPad.)

------
unixhero
How about a fanless Intel NUC, boom done.

------
cdelsolar
Why is this person going off the grid

~~~
tp69
The Australian state I live in has the highest electricity prices in the
country, and amongst the highest in the world — so there's a simple financial
reason to defect from the grid. Then there are the self-sufficiency angles
(produce/control your own power) and the preparedness angles (grid power
always fails in bushfires) to consider as well. They are all the reasons I
need.

------
SeanLuke
I'm not sure. Is it wise to be putting heat pipes that close to an
electrolytic capacitor?

------
Gracana
This ought to go perfectly with my IBM Model M keyboard.

------
chrismorgan
Now I want to know whether it has a system beep. ␇

~~~
tp69
No, it does not. :)

------
fiddlerwoaroof
Do the skull canyon NUCs have fans?

~~~
ridiculous_fish
All NUCs have fans. The Skull Canyon is infamously loud.

~~~
fiddlerwoaroof
Interesting, I've been looking for a small computer that would make a good
HTPC, and I thought the Skull Canyon NUC might be a good choice. I sort of
assumed that that form factor would always be fanless.

------
noja
I wish they made a smaller chassis.

------
ymgch
simplest solution: buy an iMac.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
Regular iMacs are jet engine loud once you throw any CPU or GPU load at them.

I think the iMac Pro is much better in this regard but it's not sustainable as
a workstation machine.

------
heimji
Same system on silent laptop :)

~~~
mlok
I'd love to know more about this : what "system" did you use on a silent
laptop, how do you get rid of the fan ?

------
user15128
you do not hear your pc when it is located in another room/building :)

------
jgritty
Steve Jobs dream machine.

------
anotheryou
I shot a cheapish Lenovo YOGA 710 laptop. It also has no fans.

~~~
Ratiofarmings
It also has no power ;)

~~~
anotheryou
fine for office stuff :) but you are right, no main computer

------
ythn
Sometimes I can "hear" my processor working through my headphones. I'm not
sure how, but, for example, when I scroll down a page I can hear high
frequency chirping in my headphones which stops as soon as I stop scrolling.

~~~
sliken
Likely it's your GPU or LCD panel leaking RF. Try turning your monitor off and
see if scrolling is still audible.

~~~
blattimwind
These phenomena are more typically caused by ground loops and shield currents
in the computer itself. Reordering plug-in cards (e.g. moving a sound card to
a different slot) or isolating/removing the slot bracket can help.

------
yAnonymous
High pitched electric buzzing or hard disk screeching seem to be worse than
fan noise nowadays with all the great coolers available.

That being said, within a year of using Windows 10 four (!) of my hard drives
have begun making loud screeching sounds. They're technically fine, but still
unusable.

~~~
ovao
I built a fanless (technically had fans, but only turned on if needed), semi-
high-performance open bench-style system several years ago.

It's really pretty nice in theory. The reality is that some components still
emit a good bit of noise, and unlike fans, the noise they tend to emit isn't
very pleasant. Power-hungry graphics cards are by far some of the worst
offenders; without being masked by fan noise, they can be incredibly loud and
irritating. An open bench PC is definitely cool, but was kind of a mistake in
my case.

Fan tech has improved to the point that I think, more often than not, you
really _want_ to have them. Otherwise it's time spent trying to eliminate
other noise sources that would otherwise be conveniently and usually
pleasantly masked by a little wooshing.

~~~
yAnonymous
Completely agreed. When GPUs do this, I just declare them defective and send
them back. It comes down to a lack of quality of the electrical components and
simply shouldn't be a problem, especially with the current GPU prices.

