Case Cooling

[tony draper]

Slightly off topic from puters,mate of mine bought one of the Hard disk recorders for recording the output of the CCTV cameras he has on his property,went over and rigged it up for him a week ago,works fine and the recorded image quality is first class.
The problem is it has a cooling fan that makes a noise that his whole family find exceeding irritating,didn't seem that bad to me, about the same as a computer,at full steam there is nothing wrong with the fan, it just emits a high pitched hum,anyway went across yesterday and opened the kit up to see whats what ,the fan is just a standard small 12 volt type that usually fits on top of the CPU heat sink.anyway I moved the fan from it's position on the back panel to the base over the vent slots,to me it sounded quieter but the chaps says his family are still bleating.
Just thinking,it has a single 350 Gig hard disk dunno what the CPU in it is but it does not even have a heat sink on it and it was barely warm to the touch,,any opinions on the wisdom of disconnecting the fan altogether?
This kit has the facility for a second removable hard disk but at the mo it has only one and he may not bother getting the second hard disk,how much heat does a hard disk put out?

[Avtrician]

It may be Tony, that the fan is a touch out of balance. To me the sound can be intolerable cos I hate high pitched buzzing. Maybe you can source a replacement fan with good bearings that is quieter. Some high speed HDs can get very hot if being used a lot. I guess putting the recorder in a small fridge is out of the question, but it would hide the noise, and keep the drive/s cool.

[carholme]

Could it possibly be the mounting structure itself, that is, rigidity to prevent the fan from vibrating. Or even consider rubber mounts between the fan and body? But if slight fan vibrations are being picked up by a weak mounting structure, they will certainly be amplified through the structure.

Regards

carholme

[Bushfiva]

Different hard drives put out varying amounts of heat. If you don't think it's running particularly hot, you could use a resistor to slow the fan down a bit. If it's not a temperature-controlled fan, you might want to swap it out for one which is. Or, swap it out for a better-quality fan. Most of my kit's had the stock fan swapped out for something better: it can make a huge difference. Go for something pumping a similar volume of air at lower speed. Go for a ball/roller/pin bearing or fluid bearing if you can get the latter in the correct size.

Also, if the thing's screwed directly to the case, try loosening and retightening the screws a few times, in case they're stressing the fan housing, or put a bit of flexible material under the mounting points.

Finally, since it's new kit, this won't be a problem yet but keeping the blades clean cuts noise too. But I'm guessing you've simply got the usual cheapo fan in there.

[Parapunter]

In my experience most standard fans are cheapos & not great quality. The guys that build home theatre pc's are usually the most obsessive about quiet computing, so a search at somewhere like kustom pcs or overclockers might bear fruit for a replacement.

[tony draper]

Tried most of the above suggestions tightening the mounting screws,the fan does have rubber washers betwixt itself and the case,,the case itself is not that spectacular, about the same size as a VCR made of pressed thin metal which does not help,will tell the chap to see if he lay his hands on a better quality fan,trouble is it's a tad smaller than the modern CPU fans more like the one's from a puter ten years ago and the possible spaces to fit it are limited.
Anyway thanks for the help chaps.

[spannersatcx]

Silenx are supposed to be very quiet fans amazon people use them in their sky+ boxes after replacing the sky+ HDD, as the fans then run all the time. You may need an adapter to connect it up, but there are plebty available.

I use this in my sky+ box, thermostat controlled, not sure if it'll work in what you have but may be worth asking.