Noisy Machine: Any Tips?

Hi,

I got a new PC in April last year and I have always had noises from the chasis. There are fan noises, humming, buzzing and shaking sounds all irritating me at the same time.

It's bothering me more just now since I'm leaving the PC on to death-level Charr at nights and I'm wondering if any of you kind people have any tips as to how to reduce the noise?

I searched on Dell Community's forums and other people had the same problem with similar machine builds as mine and they were using rubber mats, polystyrene (styrofoam) and other dampening techniques which I'm wary about. I believe they're safe so long as they're secured and not blocking airways but I'd like more opinions.

Dell Dimension 9200
Intel Core Viiv 2.13GHz x2 Processor
2046MB Ram
Radeon X1950Pro 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Graphics
Windowz Vista Home Premium 32-Bit

Thanks in advance for any help. Just don't make me go to Dell's techsupport.

The only advice I can give you on the matter is to do three things if you dont want to do anything invasive or heat-building like stuffing it with stryrofaom and the such.

1.) Get new fans that are the same size if possible. Dell doesn't use the highest quality fans. That should solve severe fan sounds if the fans aren't built into the chasis (which knowing dell is a big possibility).

2.) Lower fan speeds. This is risky because it can increase heat in the cage, but will definitely reduce sound. This can be done in teh BIOS or maybe even in a tweak program like nTune.

3.) Tighten any screws you find that hold the chassis together. Dell chassis construction is crap, try to pinpoint structural sounds from fan sounds and tighten them down.

Other than that man, sorry, Dell makes bad cases.

Yea, I'll have to agree with that. I also have Dell and it can be very noisy at times with the humming, buzzing, and spinning up sounds.

Thanks very much for that. I'll give these ideas a shot.

This could be the first and last Dell I buy. I had a Fujitsu Siemens PC for a few years and it was a marvel in all aspects. I'm kicking myself now for shifting to Dell.

All the dells I ever worked with are pretty quiet. Most of the noise is from that video card. There are aftermarket heatsinks/coolers that cool the card better and are much more quiet. They cost $20-$50+ and are fairly easy to install. Check one of the tech sites like anandtech.com for more info.

The mechanical noise is most likely from your hard drive. You might have a bad drive or if you have a performance hard drive (raptor etc), those are noisier than other drives. You can get decent fast hard drives for around $50 at newegg etc. Just read reviews. Also you can go to deals forums to find stuff on sale.