DIY isobox?

[joninc]

I've been in my new studio for 3 years and although in almost every way it is vastly superior to my old studio - my computer isn't as isolated as it was in the old studio and the sound is bugging me. It's somewhat isolated in a corner air intake chamber but i can still hear it faintly and i want it GONE.

A prefab ISOBOX is way too much $$ and it doesn't need to be pretty or sit right beside me (it's currently about 15 feet away)

In retrospect, building a small machine room into that corner might have been best. But really i don't need a whole room - i think something the size of roughly 2x4x6 feet would suffice. It has to house my PC tower and Radar V.

I have a metal touring rolling rack type thing is a bit bigger that i could use and encase in rigid fiberglass or something maybe. Not like an skb type - more like a heavier duty version of this (minus the glass front): https://www.wayfair.ca/Kendall-Howard-L ... e=hotdeals

has anyone built something like this and have any tips/plans?

I know that heat is the main thing i am concerned about as computers need ventilation so it would require some sort of silent fans and duct work.

would love any input.

[vvv]

Cheap and lazy as I am, I would approach it from the other direction.

That is to say, try and quiet the computer, mebbe by changing out the fans.

Or the computer.

[roscoenyc]

There's gotta be some used ones out there too.
I know we practically gave one away that had been in storage.
It had previously housed our "hoover-mac"

[Drone]

I think the problem will always be ventilation / keeping it cool, else I'd suggest dropping it in one of those old iso speaker cabinets that seem to pop up now and again used fairly cheap.

[Nick Sevilla]

Try replacing the computer's fans with quieter ones.

Otherwise you'll spend about a hundred bucks in materials to build a good ISO box.

Make sure the ISO box has a small vent on the bottom, and one on the top, for airflow. Fans are optional, and the computer will run
a little bit hotter, making its lifespan a little bit shorter.

[variableD]

Maybe there's a small, quiet refrigerator that would work. Fridges tend to be noisy, but if you could find a mini fridge that's quiet it would probably isolate sound really well, and of course it would keep the 'puter cool. Might run you some bucks though. And if there's some extra room, you could keep some beer in it.

[Snarl 12/8]

When I had this problem many years ago I poked a hole in the wall and ran the cables through to the other room. It worked great. Dunno if that's an option in your space.

[Randyman...]

Another vote for doing what you can to place the PC in an adjacent room. I did just this for my home theater setup and noisy fan-cooled amplifiers and HTPC (PC was pretty quiet to begin with - more to get the heat out of the main room).

Large (120mm) slow-spinning fans and mammoth CPU heatsinks with large slow-spinning fans can go a VERY long way towards a quiet PC. You'd be surprised how much you can quiet down a noisy PC with sensible airflow management and some panel damping. Will very likely run COOLER when you are done The PSU's internal fan can be a huge source of noise - so don't overlook that...

The Fridge idea is not likely to have enough cooling capacity to keep up with anything more than an Atom or very low-power PC. A fridge would likely do well for sound isolation, but you'd end up cooking the PC in a matter of hours due to lack of ventilation and not enough internal cooling power. Also have potential condensation issues at start-up...

Toodles!

[vvv]

And here and I thought the fridge idear was pretty, eh, cool ...

I'll leave now.

[joninc]

THERE IS NO ADJACENT ROOM. sorry for yelling but I thought that was clear in my initial post.

That would obviously be the best option and as stated, my old studio had a hallway behind it which worked beautifully for this.

However, my current (awesome in every other way) studio is a detached building and our initial design of housing the gear in a corner plenum, was flawed - it doesn't isolate the noise enough OR keep the computers cool enough.

[Drone]

So you are planning on getting silent fans, to bring air into the noisey fans, which you are hiding in a box because they are noisey.

You can see where we're all going

[joninc]

I took my pc into the shop today and got an water cooling system added in place of the 2 main noisy fans - it's quieter and should keep the temp down - that helps a bunch. good ideas everyone.

BUT the radar is more tricky as it's under warranty and i don't want to tamper with that by modding it. also the company is based close to me so i am likely to use their support and services more than if they were across the country or border etc... So it needs to be somewhat isolated.

I think I am just gonna build a big ass box for it, use a silent fan to send the hot air out a duct and vent it into the plenum in the corner.... that's the current though anyway.

[Drone]

The RADAR is noisy?

Is that normal, I thought it was this super expensive, creme de la creme type thing, can you ask them to repair it?

I get you wouldn't want to mess with it, but surely it should be quiet out the box?

Maybe some other RADAR owners could chip in here?

[joninc]

There are various models and certain ones are noisier than others - older ones being worse. it's no secret, there's posts on gearslutz and elsewhere about guys trying to deal with this and some attempting to mod the fans etc.

It doesn't need to be repaired - it's not broken. it's a computer so it has fans in it.

Mine isn't too bad when I am just using it as converters (louder with a drive engaged) but i guess i am sensitive to sound and also i work on a combined live room/control room - so i don't want to hear it creeping into quiet stuff during tracking and it's just annoying during mixing. When i close the door to the corner plenum I can see the heat quickly rise and that's not good for computers so it's always on my mind and stressing me out so I want to come up with a better solution.

I just hauled out my big metal rack to look at setting that up for the radar but the radar is quite deep/long and won't fit!!

Guess i'll continue to brainstorm a DIY rack/box thing.

[Drone]

It's in a corner now? What's on the other side? Can you wall it in, but have it open on the outside? The airflow I'm guessing is key, if you could get it venting outside your space somehow? Grille into a hallway or thru an outside wall?