[rescue] Noise levels

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On , June 18, 2002 at 19:57:36 (-0700), Gary Nichols wrote: ]
> Subject: [rescue] Noise levels
>
> Guys, what are geeks doing about equipment noise in their
> offices/houses/dens/bathrooms/etc - wherever you have cool kit
> installed?

My machine room is in the basement, below the TV den.

I found I had to add extra fans to my Best UPS units to keep them cool
enough (they have some major air-flow design flaw that causes the
internal fan to fail to move even 1/10'th the air it should), and so
I've recently increased the noise levels (and of course the window AC
unit is now blasting away 24x7 too).  So I finally re-installed the
ceiling tiles in part of my machine room on the weekend.  Now you can
almost hear yourself think in the bathroom while soaking in the tub or
sitting idly on the toilet.  The machine room is directly below and to
the "front" of the bathroom, and there's still some noise as the simple
plywood boxes around the heating duct and water pipes isn't much of a
sound barrier.  The TV den is noticably quieter too, though until all
the tiles are up it won't be really quiet.  I had to stop on the front
half of the room as I still have too many ethernet and power cables
strung up in the joists and need to get a cable ladder to hang down from
the ceiling for them.  There's also a still some electrical work to
re-do so I can move the light and have a local switch for it.

Unfortunately it seems I actually don't have enough of the old tiles
left over to finish the job, so I'll probably have to either do some
patch work or tear them all down again and find some new tiles.  The
tiles I re-installed are old-style heavy thick 1x1-foot tiles made of
some loose paper fibre or similar.  They're just nailed directly to
1x2's on the joists above.  I had thought of stuffing heavy fibreglass
batting up there too, but my joists are not evenly spaced, and not on
common modern spacings so there would be a lot of cutting required, and
the job would not go well unless I could move the machines out first.
Even putting up the old tiles again was a real pain in the
back/neck/arms, especially over the equipment cabinets with only a few
inches clearance for hammering in.  Perhaps I can find some new heavy
tiles that will dampen the sound even better, and if they're larger they
may be easier to install.

The noise in the den is still nothing compared to the roar of the old
Sun 3/260 desk-side I used as my workstation for a few years before we
moved (and that was after I disconnected the drive-bay fans and half the
fans in the fan tray under the card cage -- with all nine fans running
it was like having a hurricane machine in the room, and was competing
well with than the loudest window A/C unit I had at the time!)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods at acm.org>;  <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;  <woods at robohack.ca>
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