Fan-less silent PC

[beeface]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

 

[Jimster480]

Personally I find both Windows 10 and 11 faultless for audio on my fanless MiniPCs. Even whilst playing DSD and running DRC, DSP.
Two of them only have 4GB RAM too. Personally I don't think that you should need much in the way of computing resources for audio.

This is completely correct. All modern day CPUs are completely fine for audio of all types. There's nothing that I have encountered which uses enough CPU on any modern day processor that would suggest that you need anything more than the most based model atom based chip.
At least if your sole purpose is just to play music on this system.

 

[Count Arthur]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

Also, how far do you sit from the PC. Once you're 2 to 3m away, you probably won't hear any noise from a PC if it's under 30dB right next to it.

That's well below the noise floor of most domestic rooms.

Decibel Distance Calculator

This decibel distance calculator is used to calculate how the sound pressure level (SPL) changes as you move closer or farther away from the source. The calculator typically requires you to input the initial sound level (in decibels), the initial distance, and either the final distance or the...

ctrlcalculator.com

 

[Jimster480]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

Maybe in my house that could be a thing, especially at night time, but I myself have computers with fans, so it wouldn't apply. But if I turned everything off, it's pretty silent because my house is in farmland.

However, I have never had a problem at all in terms of listening to my PC over my music or having it affect the music in any way.

 

[somebodyelse]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

With my HTPC I couldn't identify the fan when it was on, but could hear the change in background noise as it turned on and off (scheduled recordings while I wasn't otherwise using it) and it became irritating.

 

[pablolie]

With my HTPC I couldn't identify the fan when it was on, but could hear the change in background noise as it turned on and off (scheduled recordings while I wasn't otherwise using it) and it became irritating.

I can hear the fan of my work issued i7 laptop going off (even though Lenovo specs claims it is very low) but I never ever hear my home workstation -which I built myself to very silent (not fanless) standards- ever even when it compiles an HD video. That's also because I picked a "T" Intel CPU, which are just 35W but provide nearly the same performance.

 

[Jimster480]

I can hear the fan of my work issued i7 laptop going off (even though Lenovo specs claims it is very low) but I never ever hear my home workstation -which I built myself to very silent (not fanless) standards- ever even when it compiles an HD video. That's also because I picked a "T" Intel CPU, which are just 35W but provide nearly the same performance.

The T chips are just configured for lower wattage. They definitely have lower sustained performance as they have to stay within the thermal envelope. Burst performance is almost identical because of allowed boost wattages.

 

[beeface]

I can definitely hear the fan in my work-issued laptop, a Lenovo T14s with Ryzen 5. I figure the layout isn't conducive for good thermals. If I were to build a PC, next time I want to try a high airflow case with big slow fans

 

[Doodski]

I can definitely hear the fan in my work-issued laptop, a Lenovo T14s with Ryzen 5. I figure the layout isn't conducive for good thermals. If I were to build a PC, next time I want to try a high airflow case with big slow fans

I run a water cooled desktop with 200mm slow fans and it makes noise although the low frequency fan noise is acceptable.

 

[wwenze]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

I used to. At one point I was surrounding my HDD with cleaning sponge.

 

[wwenze]

I can definitely hear the fan in my work-issued laptop, a Lenovo T14s with Ryzen 5. I figure the layout isn't conducive for good thermals. If I were to build a PC, next time I want to try a high airflow case with big slow fans

Download universal x86 utility plus whatever fan control software (pretty sure Lenovo has their own software to do that) and be creative with the setting.

Set the fan speed to whatever highest you can accept. Then in universal x86 utility set max temperature to 89 or lower, max power 15W or 20W.

Then under Windows Power Options, set max processor state to 99% or 95% to disable turbo.

You can use HW Monitor to monitor the resulting power and temperature.

Getting a gaming laptop helps in this case, since even if you run the CPU at the same power, you have a much bigger heatsink to work with. My 7535HS runs at 20W, RTX 4050 runs at ~30W, fans at 2400rpm with a laptop cooling pad at 1400rpm, CPU still hits 89 (manual max limit) sometimes

 

[dlaloum]

one thing I'm curious about: how many people have a low enough ambient noise floor that a fanless PC is truly needed? unfortunately in my apartment I don't think I'd notice a quiet Noctua fan

The AC unit fans in the main listening/living area probably are louder than many quiet PC fans...

However... I like the dust free consequences of a no fan heatsink case.... over time, and I tend to keep my PC's for a decade or more (with upgrades as needed) - I find that fan based systems always build up a nice warm blanket of dust.... and require periodic cleaning to keep them performing as they should...

A good ATX heatsink case, can be used through multiple generations of CPU's and/or motherboards.... and remains dust free internally - normal external dusting is all that is required.

Designs based on a more traditional case with a large fanless heatsink, depending on convection for cooling definitely gather less dust than fan based designs, but still require periodic internal cleaning - whereas heatsink cases are basically internally sealed (more or less)

 

[dualazmak]

Would you please let me share these again?

Two of my completely silent fan-less spindle-less Windows 11 Pro PCs working in my audio(-visual) system/setup: ref. here #28, here #931 on my project thread

OpenHardwareMonitor (free) I use in my 9 (nine) Windows 11 Pro PCs: ref. here #216

My preferred "recipe" for powerful enough (for audio-visual) and almost (usually completely) silent DIY PC as of July 2023 (still valid now, I assume): ref here #274

 

[Chr1]

It's been many years since I only had only one PC. Reckon it's worth having a cheap low spec, low power fanless PC as well as a more powerful, fan cooled one too, (if necessary.) They are great for audio and very cheap to run. I only boot up my faster machine when necessary. No worries leaving the fanless ones on either due to minimal power consumption. No moving parts, so bound to last too.

 

[asibbald]

I know this is generally a PC related discussion - but I'll just throw in there that the Mac Mini makes a great music server. The new Mac Mini M4 if you want more power than you can shake a stick at for about £600 direct from Apple - or if you don't need all that power, an older one from Ebay - I picked up an i3 2018 version for £200. Pop a few external drives on it (Thunderbolt if you want blazing speed, USB if not) and you're done...

 

[Count Arthur]

When I first started messing about with overclocking, I had one these bad boys on the CPU cooler:

 

[Jimster480]

Download universal x86 utility plus whatever fan control software (pretty sure Lenovo has their own software to do that) and be creative with the setting.

Set the fan speed to whatever highest you can accept. Then in universal x86 utility set max temperature to 89 or lower, max power 15W or 20W.

Then under Windows Power Options, set max processor state to 99% or 95% to disable turbo.

You can use HW Monitor to monitor the resulting power and temperature.

Getting a gaming laptop helps in this case, since even if you run the CPU at the same power, you have a much bigger heatsink to work with. My 7535HS runs at 20W, RTX 4050 runs at ~30W, fans at 2400rpm with a laptop cooling pad at 1400rpm, CPU still hits 89 (manual max limit) sometimes

What software is this? I've never heard of it.
I've used fanspeed.

The AC unit fans in the main listening/living area probably are louder than many quiet PC fans...

However... I like the dust free consequences of a no fan heatsink case.... over time, and I tend to keep my PC's for a decade or more (with upgrades as needed) - I find that fan based systems always build up a nice warm blanket of dust.... and require periodic cleaning to keep them performing as they should...

A good ATX heatsink case, can be used through multiple generations of CPU's and/or motherboards.... and remains dust free internally - normal external dusting is all that is required.

Designs based on a more traditional case with a large fanless heatsink, depending on convection for cooling definitely gather less dust than fan based designs, but still require periodic internal cleaning - whereas heatsink cases are basically internally sealed (more or less)

My workstation case from 2014 has filters. I clean it once a year and it isn't too dirty. I recommend using a air purifier in the room with the computer for the best result.

I know this is generally a PC related discussion - but I'll just throw in there that the Mac Mini makes a great music server. The new Mac Mini M4 if you want more power than you can shake a stick at for about £600 direct from Apple - or if you don't need all that power, an older one from Ebay - I picked up an i3 2018 version for £200. Pop a few external drives on it (Thunderbolt if you want blazing speed, USB if not) and you're done...

A few have mentioned it, but then you are locked to MacOS and it has just as much logging as windows does these days... But you can't do much to stop it.