PC upgrade - a diary

[Drew Stephenson]

Cheers Richard, here's hoping; the last one did stirling service.

[Martin Walker]

As it came from Scan I suspect your new PC will have a long and happy life like the previous one

Well done Drew!

Do we open a bottle of champagne in its honour now?

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Give me a couple of days to transfer everything across and we can do it at the SOS meet on wednesday.

[Martin Walker]

[Drew Stephenson]

Hmmm.
Well, all is not completely well in newPCland.
One plugin refuses to play ball, sadly it's not a gratuitous freebie compressor, it's my piano instrument; SoniVox EightyEight. I have tried a number of approaches now and Reaper just won't find it as an instrument and the authenticator file does nothing. I'm at a loss on that one so waiting on a response from Sonivox support.

The other interesting thing is the C:drive is very noisy, which is a bit weird because it's SSD, I thought that it'd be pretty much silent.

[Kwackman]

The other interesting thing is the C:drive is very noisy, which is a bit weird because it's SSD, I thought that it'd be pretty much silent.

That's odd, I'm pretty certain they are silent. It wouldn't be a hybrid drive or whatever they were called?

[Drew Stephenson]

Says it's an SSD?

On the positive side, following the age old tradition of trying the same thing 'just one more time', EightyEight is now working.

[wireman]

What did your configuration say?
You may have an M.2 SSD for your C drive (which is physically small and plugs into a slot on the motherboard) along with a separate hard disk.

[N i g e l]

I have had PCs with Crucial & Sandisk SSDs. Totally silent & lighter than a guitar string winder. Just ICs inside, no moving parts.

If you put your finger on the case can you feel a vibration that is not fan related ? is the part number visible ?

My M.2 SSD that plugs into the motherboard is just an exposed PCB with chips on it.
Faster than a main SSD drive and favoured for streaming of mega sample libraries.

[Drew Stephenson]

What did your configuration say?
You may have an M.2 SSD for your C drive (which is physically small and plugs into a slot on the motherboard) along with a separate hard disk.

Yep, this is the set-up.
I'll try and grab a video of it next time.

[Drew Stephenson]

I have isolated the noise source. I've added a card reader in the empty front slot (I didn't realise modern machines didn't have them as standard!) but it only attaches on one side. When the fan kicks in it's vibrating, a bit of finger pressure silences it so I shall find a suitable wedge material and sort that out.

[Martin Walker]

It's always rewarding to cure a studio rattle Drew - well done in anticipation!

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Been having a lot of blue screen of deaths over the last couple of days. I think I've narrowed it down to installing Microsoft Teams (for work). Removing that seems to have fixed it. Nice to see that MS are still as co-ordinated as ever.
Slightly vexingly it's got a pretty loud hum at 120Hz, it disappears entirely when I close up the my cabinet (so fine for recording) but it's enough to intrude on listening with it open.
I don't know if I'm being unreasonable in my expectations here but we're talking borderline not fit for purpose.

[Martin Walker]

A loud hum at 120Hz Drew? Quite possible in the US, but not so likely in the UK.

If you're referring to a mains hum then this is more likely to be 150Hz (3rd harmonic of the UK mains frequency (unless you've got a really distorted mains signal, in which case it could be 100Hz 2nd harmonic )

If it's a mechanical transformer-style hum then you can probably reduce it by placing your new PC on some Sorbothane rubber feet.

If on the other hand it's a large metal side panel vibrating in sympathy with hard drives then attaching a self adhesive damping panel as used in cars will deaden it.

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Definitely 120 Hz and no fundamentals below that. With the cover off my cabinet it's registering 57/58dB (C-weighted) at the mixing position, which is much louder than my old machine and is really far too intrusive to mix with.
I've dropped Scan a line though so we'll see what they come back with.

[merlyn]

It could be a fan. There will be a few fans -- power supply, case fans, CPU cooler, and a fan on the graphics card.

[Drew Stephenson]

That's my assumption, but it happens from start up with virtually no load on the CPU and all cores down at healthy levels (sub 30 degrees) - but I don't know what temperature fans start kicking in.
I've fired a note off to Scan though so we'll see what they come back with.

[Martin Walker]

Strange coincidence that it happens spot on a US mains frequency harmonic though

If you suspect a fan, I'm really surprised that Scan might have fitted one that was as audible as this at all time (i.e. even when idling at lower temperatures).

To me that might suggest a continuously rotating graphics card fan (again, an unlikely choice for a Scan machine), since most system cooling fans nowadays tend to be temperature-controlled vari-speed devices.

When you mention a 'cabinet with a cover', have you got your new PC inside some sort of wooden casing? If so, it might be that some PC component is causing some part of this to resonate in sympathy, in which case a little internal bracing might do the trick.

Is the noise still there at the same frequency when the PC case itself is in free air?

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

I think the cabinet must be having some kind of an effect, the noise was there before but is louder now. It's seriously rigid* though and, when closed, almost completely soundproof. Perhaps a bit of padding underneath the unit might help but it feels like I shouldn't need to be doing this - I didn't with my previous machine and that was running a lot hotter.
I shall await a response from Scan, I'm sure they'll be responsive.

* 12.5mm MDF and 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard on all sides, screwed and glued!

[Martin Walker]

* 12.5mm MDF and 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard on all sides, screwed and glued!

Well that shouldn't resonate!

Quick test - place a cushion or two under the PC inside your cabinet and see if that cures the noise. If so, a little decoupling such as four Sorbothane rubber feet should certainly help.

Martin

[MOF]

Strange coincidence that it happens spot on a US mains frequency harmonic though

A transformer would vibrate at that rate though.

[Martin Walker]

Strange coincidence that it happens spot on a US mains frequency harmonic though

A transformer would vibrate at that rate though.

Only when plugged in the US

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Well Scan have come back and said the noise level is normal - which is a bit disappointing as I'd hoped the new machine would be quieter than the old one. I'm still getting regular BSOD's at start-up as well, which is frustrating, so I'm waiting to hear back on that.
Beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have just stuck with Dell.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Definitely 120 Hz and no fundamentals below that.

Could it be related to the spinning hard disc? I had problems with HDD noise in my Scan computer. The drive was originally mounted directly onto the caddy frame in my case, but even after installing anti-vibration mounts it still generated more acoustic noise than was acceptable. In the end I swapped it out for a solid state drive and I've had no further problems.