[ardour-users] Session export ?

[Michael T Nelson]

Josh Karnes wrote:

> With readily-available, cheap fans and a regular PC case, a little 
> duct tape, some creativity and a little bit of rewiring, you can get a 
> PC very very quiet.  I record quiet acoustic guitars all the time next 
> to my PC (1.4GHz AMD with three hard drives).  HD spindle noise is the 
> only audible noise.  The fans are not audible even with 60dB of gain 
> and an omni condenser mic less than 10 feet away.
>
> The key is to rework the air flow so the only exhaust fan is in the 
> power supply, air inlet is at the opposite corner of the box, run all 
> the fans on 7V (gotta rewire, and open the p/s and disconnect the fan, 
> run the wire out of the p/s and power the p/s fan from the mobo).  Use 
> sleeve bearing fans that are very quiet.  Grommet-mount the hard disks 
> or suspend them with ponytail elastics & zip-ties in the 5.25" bays to 
> decouple the vibration noise.  Then once the machine is together, find 
> all air leaks and seal them with duct tape (except the CD drive, 
> intentional air inlet...).

You can also run the fans on 5V...

I took my CPU heatsink, and fanned out all the copper fins by hand, 
allowing for greater airflow. I then unplugged my mobo chipset fan, and 
rested the CPU fan diagonally over the fan and chipset (NForce2 board).

Next, I *underclocked* my Athlon XP1700+. Then I stress tested it, 
slowly raising the clock speed, until it overheated and crashed. Then I 
slowed it down one notch, and stress tested it some more. I think I got 
about 1GHz from it - at a stable temperature with heavily reduced cooling.

The real trick is learning *not* to spill lemon barley water into your 
open computer case, resting on its side. My graphics card was not happy.

Regards
Michael Nelson