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Quieting a Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4
Authored by: lyd on Mar 03, '07 05:56:23PM

I did case and power supply fan replacements, insertion of a few bits of dense foam for isolating mechanical vibrations, and some simple airflow mods (to improve cooling efficiency with the lower rpm fans) with strategically placed cardboard years ago. It made my dual 1.25 much quieter, but by no means turned it into a "silent PC."

This past summer I was doing some recording using the MDD as my DAW platform, and the previous mods were not going to cut it.

I went back in and removed the perforated plastic panel on the rear, completely disconnected the small fan in the door that blows into the optical bays, and revamped the plenum completely using more cardboard and aluminum duct tape to seal all gaps and holes that interfered with smooth airflow through the case. Then I covered every surface -- sides, bottom, top and interior parts like the optical bays and sides of the psu -- with some dynamat (a very dense, self-adhesive vibration-damping material commonly used in car audio) that I had lying around. After reassembling it, I lined the corner where it sits with acoustical foam to further absorb any remaining high-frequency noise.

You can no longer tell it is running at all unless you are sitting right next to it, *censored* your ear and concentrate hard on listening for it. From 4 feet away you can not hear it at all. I can record spoken-word with a hot condenser mic ~10 feet away and have no problems. And all of that is in a completely silent room. With the heat or AC running, or normal house noise, you don't even know it is there when you are right on top of it.

lyd



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Quieting a Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4
Authored by: lyd on Mar 03, '07 06:02:56PM

I should add to the above the clarification that all the dynamat is on the inside surfaces of the case. The outside appears stock, except in the rear where I removed the useless plastic grating (leaving just the metal) to reduce flow restriction and noise from air turbulence.

lyd



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Quieting a Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4
Authored by: trevbucky on Mar 10, '07 02:30:05AM

Interesting... what does "revamped the plenum completely "actually mean? what is the Plenum?

Do you think you could take some pics of what you did & upload them somewhere for us to look at?



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