mine rest about a meter to my right behind my midi controller on a separate desk

 

heavy duty transport board with wheels, moving cart of whatever it's called, from Hornbach, OBI or some other local hardware store,
they sell various designs and dimensions, load capacity around 100-200kg is more than enough for any PC, and big sturdy wheels are designed to work well on various floor types including pavements and carpets

old photo for reference, fits Fractal Design Define R5 perfect:



I believe it's this exact rack, maybe it's redesigned revision:
https://www.obi.de/p/1872084/transportbrett-te-200-rechteck-200-kg

 

Fans used are "BeQuiet" Silent Wings 3 PWM 140mm - Case is a Carbide Air540 (dunno if it's still made or not) because I wanted it future proofed to able to easily add more storage + it has two optical drive bays which I use a lot. Surprisingly there aren't many good cases available with 5.25" drive bays anymore which is retarded IMO... The asus system board has full management of fan operation and is tweakable to keep it all running silent. Personally I believe this system to be way quieter and more efficient than a H²O cooled system in the fact that there is no huge radiator that has to be constantly cooled.

 

Last edited: Apr 10, 2024

try a cpu caddy - used to use these for various medical work stations.




didn't see any on Amazon, probably still available on ebay.
Allsop Metal Art CPU Caddy, Adjustable Width Mobile Computer Stand with 4 Caster Wheels - Pewter

 

a very good very quiet case fan is the Noctua NF-R8 redux-1200, Ultra Quiet Silent Fan, 3-Pin, 1200 RPM (80mm, Grey)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KF7T9MI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

12.95$ from Amazon....

 

Yeah Noctua's rule, cut the noise in my E6400 Ultra right out, I barely notice when its on now.

 

Thanks!

 

those have shitty wheels and metal frame may scratch or not even fit a modern PC case

if those are what Sonnet uses on Echo III rack, I can tell they're annoyingly loud, better go with something like Noctua NF-A12x25-ULN which is around 7dB, lower "tone" and better airflow

 

I think there's a lot of focus on one element here = the noise. However, that's the least of my isues as my machine has the Corsai ML-120 and 140 fans in, which are the ultra quiet magnetic levitation fans. I also have about 8 in all in the case, so they spin at ultra low rpm and still able to cool it down. I am also (in a separate post here: What is the best RAiD to use for Backups? | AudioSEX - Professional Audio Forum) looking to get a decent DAS setup going, which will mean I can remove the heat of the HDDs from my desktop, leaving the mobo, CPU, RAM, GPU, NVMe, and SSDs in there, which will hopefully bring the temps down to where the fans will barely spin as it's the 2 x HDDs that are generating a lot of the internal heat.

Anyway, my main dilemma was more around how to sort out the connections when placing the desktop further away from the desk, in terms of cable runs, any max length cables for DP/USB, any decent powered USB hubs that work well with MIDI devices (including Push 2 and it's screen), and so on

 

good quality DisplayPort cables can go 15-20m without problem, but do note you may loose high resolution and especially high refresh rate with lower standards - I personally wouldn't go over 5m with my 3440x1440 100Hz screen connection,
USB cables are more tricky, because they're susceptible to power loss with more hungry devices, anything over 2m is tricky, so when going around 10m I highly recommend USB 3 with dedicated power brick - and even so you may have problem because of Windows/BIOS obsession with power saving

 

My main(frame? lol) computer is here with me in the room, in a huge and silent Antec case. It looks like the black monolith from "Odyssey 2001". There are only 2 silent and low rpm 120mm fans in it - one on the CPU and one in the PSU. The PSU one doubles as an outtake fan. Interesting that the CPU temps are very decent anyway. Arctic MX-2 is still one of the best thermal pastes, I've been using it exclusively for decades, and Scythe low rpm 800-1200 fans controlled through BIOS. My main concern is outside noise as I'm living practically in the centre of the city, so during the day I have to close the double window to isolate from the outside noise. Cities are incredibly noisy. My room is somewhat treated, so the little noise there is doesn't resonate in the room. it's practically silent. I also love and use dynamic mics, and they don't pickup as much environment noise as condensers.

 

lol, yeah I swapped all the fans in my samplers (Kurzweil, Akai, Yamaha) for low rpm Scythe's. Those old fans were incredibly noisy in comparison to new low rpm ones, and the new ones create good enough airflow, if not better.

 

btw if you're on Windows, I can't stress how great FanControl is - being able to configure fan rpms conditionally based on sensor, regardless of manufacturer, sensor/curve mix etc...

 

You don't find the low frequency vibrations that get transferred from the case to the table annoying? I used to have my comp on a side shelve like this, but it created too much low freq noise and I could feel them on the table, so I moved it on the floor, and put thick rubber feet (~ 1") between the case and the floor. Much better. I also have a thick carpet. The thing is, that way the case in itself is also vibrating less being on a big, firm surface.

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2024

You should put it on the floor... but if the desk is massive enough it could be alright. The problem is also the noise that spreads at the ear height this way.

 

When it comes to fans, there's no use to pile up the fans in the case, 3 fans at the most. I've done lots of experimenting at the time.

The primary goal is to create a good enough airflow over the mobo and components (hd/sdds), and the case should be tightly closed. When the case is closed and has a hole at the back and front, that's perfect. Especially if the hole in the back is up and the front hole is down (heat goes up and out, cool air goes in from the bottom). So one fan in the back, one in the front, and one on the cpu. Control their speed through BIOS if you can - no unnecessary software. Perfectly, the outtake fan in the back should work a bit faster than the one in the front, but same speed is also alright. Having it lower speed than the intake is not. The one on the CPU can be set quite low 800-ish. In fact you might find that all of them can be set at 800 rpm. Mine are and only rarely speed up to more than 1000 rpm, and as I said I'm not using an intake fan.

Having more fans in the case just creates chaos and pure, efficient airflow can't be established.

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2024

not sure what you mean, PC is on a rack (rubberized wheels) on hard floor, not attached to desk in any way,
only low frequency rumble I notice is from subwoofer xD

 

If you can't feel any vibes, that's perfectly alright.
Some funny fags can help with the vibes.

joking a bit, but I meant what I said that it's alright if you can't feel them on the desk. Those low freq vibrations can spread to the whole table and who knows.. things can rattle and stuff...

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2024

sorry, i meant replacing the ones he have for silent ones
(as in more-silent ones vs less-silent ones, if that makes any sense)

Edit:
that's funny, what i said earlier. needs more cowbell

 

Last edited: Apr 12, 2024

if you go with KVM over ethernet, the only thing connecting your computer to your peripherals is a cat 5/6 cable. You plug your monitor,keyboard,usb etc ports into the kvm host, you plug a cat 5/6 into the kvm it goes the kvm client on your desk, you plug your mouse,keyboard,monitor etc into the client.

as far as external storage goes, usb3 is fast enough unless you are a video editor. Just buy a pair of 14 tb usb seagate external drives and
once a week image your work 14tb, to your spare 14tb. It will only be up and running when you are rewriting the image to it, so its MTBF will be 7 times as high as your work drive.

check the site we have discussed backup plans and methods until the sky began to cry...