Reducing Noise from Case

[Chipa66]

I saw some material in CompUsa yesterday that was suppose to reduce the noise level coming from your case. It was basically a flexible sheet of porous plastic that was designed to line the exposed metal areas of the box and absorb some of the unwanted fan noise, etc. It's a pretty basic concept that is very easy to try but they wanted $20 for this stuff! I'm going out to Home Depot today to snoop around for something comparable but was wondering if anyone else has some inexpensive ideas. I'm SURE there is something out there for just a few dollars that would would as well or better than this stuff they are trying to push for $20.

And by the way, I know I could buy a water cooler but right now I'm looking for something cheap that I could try as a simple one hour(or less) project.

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

The compusa stuff is totally not worth the 20 bucks. It makes your system hot and doesnt bring the noise down hardly at all. I wanted to put a window in my case the other day and had to take that stuff off and it was SO IRRITATING. It was completely plastered to my case and would not come off. Its not worth your trouble. Save up for some water cooling if you can, thats the best bet. If you just cant make it maybe you can get something from home depot

 

[Chipa66]

Yeah, I figured as much. I was also worried about the insulating factors of the material and having it drive up the temperature in my case. I think that I'll just skip this little project and concentrate on something else. Thanks for the input.

 

[Bleep]

ThirtySixBelow is right. That stuff actually does increase the inside temps. It also doesn't really do an adequate job cancelling noise, but it does decrease the "whine" from fans.

The problem is...if you have a window in your case, the rubber noise mats won't do a thing for ya.

The best way to reduce noise is to use quieter fans, and a quieter PSU. I found that a good quality power supply, with good fans and fan speed settings does wonders for noise reduction.