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Hardware Volume Controls

 Sometimes you want a silent computer... Sometimes you want to hear the fans a-runnin'
 
(0) 		  [vote for,
against]

an "antisound" system tailored to your individual computer, with an intensity knob on the end. Go one better than noise elimination - actually choose how loud your computer is.
—yamahito, Mar 19 2003

hardware volume control http://www.halfbake..._20volume_20control
[yamahito, Oct 17 2004]

Adaptively Cancelling Server Fan Noise http://www.analog.c...chives/34-02/noise/
Technical paper from Analog Devices. [pottedstu, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

GargantuFan http://www.halfbake...om/idea/GargantuFan
My ill-thought out attempt at CPU quietude. [bristolz, Oct 17 2004]

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       why? how?
—Worldgineer, Mar 19 2003
   

       why? For shits and giggles. It's not as weird (to me) as having neon bulbs in the damn thing...   

       How? if you've got a fairly predictable sound wave, by generating a wave exactly out of phase you can 'cancel out' (not quite, but hopefully you get the idea) the original sound. I'm hoping that the sound a computer makes is predictable enough to make this possible without having to resort to hugely processor intensive on the fly sound analysis.
—yamahito, Mar 19 2003
   

       Ok, now you're talking. You could throw a chip in it dedicated to active sound deadening so you don't have to use the processor.
—Worldgineer, Mar 19 2003
   

       Yup, sure.   

       You could even get it to boost the volume up, as well, for the 'power user' sensation.
—yamahito, Mar 19 2003
   

       whisper...yama...whisper... whats a?...whisper...int...ssshhhh...kn...shhh...whisper
—po, Mar 19 2003
   

       Silly po, its a ... whisper ... bucket ... anneka rice ... manure .. whisper .. which is why sctld amuses me so much.
—yamahito, Mar 19 2003
   

       whisper..lovely bum...whisper...knob? ...whisper...treasure hunt - great stuff.. bucket?..
—po, Mar 19 2003
   

       or... buy... a... freaking... iMac... which... is... already... quiet. (no fan=no fan noise).
—roby, Mar 19 2003
   

       [roby]: //iMac... which... is... already... quiet//
I wish that were true, but there's the issue of that spinning hard drive...
[miasere]: It wouldn't require alot of power. The noise coming from the fan is *very* steady and predictable. You'd only need to analyze the noise once, and then generate the resulting cancelling waveform.
—Cedar Park, Mar 20 2003
   

       +.
—sambwiches, Mar 20 2003
   

       But what happens when the waveforms drift out of sync? The dampening waveform would have to constanly and precicely synced to the fan's waveform. Also, fans dont spin at a perfectly constant RPM. If your motherboard supports fan speed monitoring, you will see that it drifts all over the place. A dedicated sound dampening chip would be requiered to make this work. It does seem like a nifty idea though.
—GuyWithAPointyStick, Mar 20 2003
   

       Active sound cancelling of computer fans is baked by Analog Devices (see link). It uses a very cheap DSP and simple hardware, so a mass market solution would not be expensive.   

       The article also has a detailed discussion of the characteristics of fan noise.
—pottedstu, Mar 20 2003
   

       [cedarpark] Hard drives spin only when data is reading/writing to disk. Less than 10% of the time. You should try an iMac.
—roby, Mar 20 2003
   

       Just fit a six foot diameter fan.   

       Instead of *hmmmm*, you'd get *whom, whom, whom*.   

       Very rhythmic and relaxing.
—Mayfly, Mar 20 2003
   

       Nice and cool in the summer too! Might have to glue your RAM and cables in though.
—silverstormer, Mar 20 2003
   

       for my needs, imacs suck. You can't customize them to the degree I want to, you can't overclock them, and most of all, you can't run 'doze XP on 'em.   

       Besides, I run at least one of my servers without a fan, but for the serious heat modern processors will produce, it ain't suitable.   

       Enough of the mac/pc flamewar, though - let's lose it from this thread from now on.
—yamahito, Mar 20 2003
   

       Idea = method of mitigating computer fan noise
imac = computer without fan noise
annotation = relevant
roby = just a mac fan
this anno = last word for roby (thanks yama)
—roby, Mar 20 2003
   

       //fans dont spin at a perfectly constant RPM. If your motherboard supports fan speed monitoring,//   

       You just answered your own point..
—yamahito, Mar 20 2003
   


 

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