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STUPID QUESTION

T

The Lamprey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 17, 2004
19
0
Overlooking border and beach
I HAVE BEEN WONDERING THIS FOR YEARS, SO I PUT IT TO YOU ALL HERE.
Why is it that PC are more noisier than macs?

My PC(dell)'s hard driver makes clicking sounds noticeable louder when accessing and reading files than my mac G4(an no it is not the click of death either) it seems to me that when using an X86 processor makes the Harddrive work harder. Any opinions?
 
It's perfectly possible to make a silent PC, so maybe it's because most PC manufacturer's doesn't care much about noise?

Apple isn't competely innocent in the noise department either. They've had a couple of not-so-silent boxes.

In this case it has nothing to do with architecture, it's just that DELL most likely have chosen a noisy harddrive.
 
The Lamprey said:
I HAVE BEEN WONDERING THIS FOR YEARS, SO I PUT IT TO YOU ALL HERE.
Why is it that PC are more noisier than macs?

My PC(dell)'s hard driver makes clicking sounds noticeable louder when accessing and reading files than my mac G4(an no it is not the click of death either) it seems to me that when using an X86 processor makes the Harddrive work harder. Any opinions?
Click to expand...

Clearly you have never used a Dual G4 Mirror Disk Drive "Windtunnel" model...
;)

Many PC's have cheap cases, thin steel that happily resonates with any sound. THe rest of them the owners have the sides permanently taken off 'cause they have to go in an fix them so often...

Inexpensive power supplies and 80 mm. fans are also horribly noisy. The hard drives in cheap cases are screwed solidly to a metal chassis, which transmits HD vibration directly to the case, where that thin steel again makes a wonderful radiator.

Up until the G5, Mac CPUs generally ran cooler than Intels, which required fewer fans. The G5 is a hot sucker, so Apple have gone all out on addressing cooling and noise issues. If you look at a PowerMac G5, you see a lot of composite material inside the case, of much thicker construction. The hard drives are suspended on little rubbery hemispheres, which decouple their vibration from the case. You'll also see large, slow moving thermostatically controlled fans, which make much less noise.

Apple puts more money into engineering the machines and better quality components... which is one reason why you can buy a $300 tower PC but not a $300 PowerMac.

You can build an admirably quiet PC, if you choose cases, power supplies, drives, fans and mounting hardware that are built for low noise. It'll cost about twice as much for each of the components.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 
CanadaRAM said:
If you look at a PowerMac G5, you see a lot of composite material inside the case, of much thicker construction.
Click to expand...

No kidding. That thing is a MONSTER!
 
Yup, it is a monster, and I can't wait till my 2ghz Dual Processor monster shows up here...6 days and counting!
 
STUPID TITLE

In the future, it helps to have a more informative title for your thread, and to not use all caps. At any rate, i'm in physical pain everytime i use a dell, so I actually might prefer having a nice mind-numbing loud hum being errupted from the machine when i'm using it to distract me from the pain.
 
same for laptops i suppose. my Gericom laptop 3Ghz P4 beast practically lifts off the desk when the fan kicks in (which is every 5-10 seconds for 5-10 seconds). PowerBook fan spins more but is so much quieter. my old Celeron laptop would run silently, until you started playing Quake 3 or Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

my P4 desktop runs loud, even with procedures taken to keep it quiet. the P3 runs very quietly.

but y'know i cant stand the sound of the Hard Drive constantly ticking away on badly kept PC's. sounds like a Geiger counter ticking away. for gods sake defrag the drive! :D
 
runplaysleeprun said:
STUPID TITLE
Click to expand...


i very much agree- seems like very other day someone posts a thread with the same title 'stupid question' or 'dumb question, need help'

info about the actuall problem or question will make people want to click on your thread. i often breeze by threads with titles like this
 
gwuMACaddict said:
i very much agree- seems like very other day someone posts a thread with the same title 'stupid question' or 'dumb question, need help'

info about the actual problem or question will make people want to click on your thread. i often breeze by threads with titles like this
Click to expand...

Well here we are anyway. I have just gotten use to the noise at my G4 PM makes.
 
CanadaRAM said:
You can build an admirably quiet PC, if you choose cases, power supplies, drives, fans and mounting hardware that are built for low noise. It'll cost about twice as much for each of the components.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the point... the only goal for PC manufacturers is to lower the price to keep up with the really low prices of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and so on...

...first bye-bye is to quality, of course. :rolleyes:
 
stoid said:
The hard drive itself my be of a different brand, a lower quality drive in the PC. That's most likely.
Click to expand...

-stoid

Hey! In all likelyhood, if it's an OEM drive in a Dell - it's a Hitachi, and they're pretty damn good if I say so myself. :)

The noise difference is more often than not because Apple takes that into consideration with box design (these are the guys who BEVEL the styrofoam after all). They pay close attention to airflow - fairings, fan seetings and numbers, etc. Dell and others don't have that as major a part of the business model as it's a nit to they bulk selling they are after.
 
All the PCs I've ever come across make a bundle of noise compared to my Macs, but then again, PowerBook, Cube, G5 :p Not the noisiest bunch
 
greatdevourer said:
All the PCs I've ever come across make a bundle of noise compared to my Macs, but then again, PowerBook, Cube, G5 :p Not the noisiest bunch
Click to expand...

It really seems to depend on manufacturer priorities... It astounds me that some companies don't feel bad at all to design a notebook so that the fan runs constantly. Ugh ugh ugh. :(
 
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