The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I suspect I'm having heat problems with my DAW..erratic CPU spikes in Cubase, dropouts etc....which seem to go away when the case is all opened up. This seems to have become a more constant issue since adding 2 hard drives in there, plus my graphic card upgrade (nVidia 5200 something, no fan), and my M-Audio card....it's gettin' kind of warm in there! Closer inspection shows that my generic BestBuy P4 box has only a PSU fan and a CPU fan/heatsink combo, but no case fan.

Does anyone have any advice in terms of cooling fans/setups that have given great results for them?

I've been reading a bit on replacement cases, which I'm open to as well...and if I'm going there, I'd sure like to quiet things down a bit, while keeping everything nice and chilly. One case someone suggested is the Antec Sonata II...thoughts? Alternatives?

Probably telling you things you know, but since there might be newbies reading, here's a list of ideas for making your PC quieter.

A fanless video card is a good start.

A new "quiet" PSU would help.

There are two sizes of case fan. Get one of the big case fans, not two smaller ones-- smaller the fan the noisier.

Zalman makes "quiet" CPU cooling systems. Some are just a giant heatsink with no fan. Others are a fancy heatsink and a larger-size case fan on top. Mine is the latter and works pretty well. It ain't silent, but all the noise it makes is what's in my recordings of the last few months-- and the PC is three feet from my Rode when I make them. Noticeable, but I didn't go all out on quieting the thing, just did a little careful shopping.

They have quiet mounts for hard disks-- little rubber things that go between the drive and the screws and the case.

Raising your PC on mounts like it's a stereo speaker may reduce low freq humming/rumbling/etc.

Put baffling on the wall behind the PC to cut reflective noise. That makes a noticeable differentce. Essentially, treat your computer like any other sound source.

They also make "enclosures" for PCs, so your computer can be as noisy as it wants, but it's sitting in this little air-conditioned box that damps all the ruckus. the enclosures are expensive, but once you've got it you can keep it forever and put different PCs in it. sweetwater sells a couple models i think-- you could probably figure a way to make your own.

A friend of mine has KVM'ed his computer and stuck it out in the hall. Works extraordinarily well-- even though it's about fifteen feet away the picture isn't degraded that I could tell, certainly not noticeably for his Sonar.

HTH


J

Oh! I meant to post about this but it slipped my mind. I recently upgraded to a silent PC setup - I did get the Sonata II and holy crap is it quiet (also the aforementioned Zalman CPU cooler). I haven't recorded a song with vocals since I got it, but I don't think the PC noise will be a problem on recordings (I had been using my laptop for this). I put together a barebones system from endpcnoise.com and have been very happy with it. I just transferred my old hard drives and soundcard to it.

**Note for those who try that with Windows:
The machine probably won't boot up because there's a new motherboard and all that stuff. I had to put in my Windows CD, choose "install windows" - but it notices the old install and will "repair" or "reinstall" the drivers for you. Then you'll have to install all those Windows Updates again and this may break things again

I haven't had any problems with overheating, even while playing graphics-intensive games.
-bill

this is a dangerous suggestion, and won't help any noise problems, but even just upgrading from stock thermal paste can help a lot. i put this in my laptop that was acting all heat-sensitive:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

it's made for overclocking and stuff, but i'm not doing that.

-craig

Great tips everybody, thanks a bunch. I think a new case is def. in order, and with some improved fans (larger, I've read that too) and such, hopefully things will settle down. Starfinger, also read about upgrading the thermal paste, but I'm nervous that my hand of thumbs will bust something! We'll see how brave I feel....

I've been pretty seriously recording music for awhile now, I guess it's about time I treated the DAW as seriously as I treat the other gear I've collected.

I wonder if that will fly with my wife....

the thermal paste thing is probably best as a last resort. with my laptop, i didn't have a lot of options.

-craig

I'll second the Antec Sonata 2 case. I've got one waiting for my next computer to be put in (come on tax return!).

I'd just like to add that CPU spikes in Cubase is part of it's charm. I find it is usually because of plugin conflicts and you can often find that there is some magic combination of plug ins that your computer doesn't like.

Ken

Especially when working in with a samplerate of 48k.

Some plugins do NOT enjoy this at all. Thanks Ken!

ken wrote:I'll second the Antec Sonata 2 case. I've got one waiting for my next computer to be put in (come on tax return!).

I'd just like to add that CPU spikes in Cubase is part of it's charm. I find it is usually because of plugin conflicts and you can often find that there is some magic combination of plug ins that your computer doesn't like.

Ken

This has been my Cubase problem. Freezing, tracks dropping out and pops/clicks. Every time they have been related to a plug-in conflict. But luckily, I have been able to find a different brand plug-in (with Ken's help) that does the same thing as the problem one, so I can move on with my work.
I mentioned this in my "mixing for the good of all" thread, that I also have freezing issues when I start adding more than 24 tracks. I often have guitar parts and drum parts that I do multiple ways to pick which one I like best. So it's not unusual to have 45 tracks on one song, even though I'm only using 15 or 20. But it's when I accidentally turn on ALL the tracks by mistake, and BAM, it freezes. But then again, I'm running a 900mghz Pen 3 PC with 1024ram, so that could be a big part of my problems. But at least it's quiet.