Re: [PLUG] How to Quiet a Server for Desktop Use?

I actually do both of Keith's recommendations.

I bought an older enclosed mobile rack with front door.

I lined the inside walls of the mobile rack cabinet with sound absorbing waffle foam.

When the front glass door is closed the sound goes down to about 1/4 of previous level.

This is my VMware / networking / storage lab environment.

https://nuanceofiqlusion.com/2018/12/29/vsphere-esxi-homelab-setup/

This is in my basement workspace / storage area.

The fan speed is controlled by software BIOS, so you likely screw up the control loop

if you try slowing down the fans with resistors.

Lee

From: "Keith C. Perry" <kperry@daotechnologies.com>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2019 7:55:05 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] How to Quiet a Server for Desktop Use?

Casey,

Other than what Chris said, in my experience you're looking at either using it remotely or putting it in an enclosure that can dampen the noise.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
Managing Member, DAO Technologies LLC
(O) +1.215.525.4165 x2033
(M) +1.215.432.5167
www.daotechnologies.com

From: "Chris Thistlethwaite" <chris@thistlethwaite.net>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2019 7:52:45 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] How to Quiet a Server for Desktop Use?

Pull it apart and put it in a tower case.

You can also check the bios to see if it has an eco mode or something similar.

Depending on the age/model, you could also be running up your electric bill.

I have a few servers running in my homelab. So I'm not trying to discourage you from doing it.

-Chris T.

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019, 7:45 PM Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org wrote:
My company was disposing of an old IBM server and I was able to pick it
up rather than have it get recycled. The thing has 2 Xeon processors,
24 GBytes of RAM, and 1.3 TBytes of RAID disk space. I'm thinking I
might want to put a PCIx graphics card in it and use it as a desktop.
I'm very curious to see how long it would take to compile a Gentoo kernel.

Except for the NOISE.

The 3 fans in this beast sound like a hurricane. Anybody got any
suggestions on how to quiet the noise?

My thoughts so far:

1. Put resistors in series with the fan power wires to slow down the
fans. (It'll get hotter, but I'm not pushing it much anyway)

2. Muffle the darn thing in some type of enclosure. (The thing is
gigantic and LONG, so an enclosure would be even bigger and clunkier.)

3. Put it in the basement and use my desktop as a remote terminal.
(But this would probably screw my plans for multiple monitors.)

Anybody got any suggestions?

TIA!

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

"Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion..." - Kryptos

Lee Marzke, lee@marzke.net http://marzke.net/lee/
IT Consultant, VMware, VCenter, SAN storage, infrastructure, SW CM