Silencing the beast

[larssmith]

So I've had my hughes dvr2 for about 5 years now and I had originally upgraded to a Western Digital WD1200JB. I'd been using the WD800JB in my Shuttle and I'd been impressed with how quiet it was, so I got the same model for my tivo.

All was fine for about 3 years, but then I'd been noticing that the noise from the tivo was much louder than it originally was. The noise had a fairly high-pitched whine too it and was loud enough that if I had guests crashing on the couch, I'd have to unplug the tivo so that it wouldn't bother then all night long. This would really suck if I forgot the plug it in the next morning and I've missed a few shows this way :(

Silly me, I figured it was the fan so I went and found what was supposedly a super-quiet panaflo fan to replace what I figured was the culprit. After swapping the fans I noticed (1) the original fan in there was the same as what I was replacing it with -- a nice panaflo -- and (2) due to some variance in manufacturing, the original fan was actually quieter than the new one :eek:

But at least it became clear that the hard drive was the source. My best guess is that the constant operation had worn out the bearings somewhat. Makes me think that maybe the Seagate marketing stuff about how desktop drives aren't well suited for PVRs might not all be bull****. So to make a long story short, I replaced the Western Digital with a Seagate DB35.

While I was at it (and because I'm a little insane), I went ahead and replaced the fan screws with soft fan mounts (from Acousti Products). This was a little bit of a pain because I could get my fingers in to pull the little stub so that the flange went through the screw hole. I ended up having to take out the power supply so I could get the fan setup right.

Then I went to put it all back together and realized that part of the noise I had been attributed to the hard drive was actually the vibration from the hard drive causing resonance tivo case. Even with the DB35, I could still hear some slight humming from the vibration. With a little hunting (and props to the guys at silentpcreview), I found that a good technique for handling this was to isolate the hard drive from the case; the two common techniques being suspending the drive in slings or setting it on soft foam. Seeing that I couldn't really figure any way to set up a suspension system (I _don't_ have a machine shop to make custom mounting pieces) I went with foam.

So I bought some Sorbothane, an ultra-soft polyurethane, from McMaster-Carr (a 4" x 4" x 1/4" piece, 40 OO softness, part 8514K53). I cut 5 strips about 1/3" wide, stacked them 2 high on the end with the IDE connector and 3 high on the opposite end (which has a 1/4" cut-out at the end necessitating the higher stack). I took out the hard drive rail and set the drive directly on the mount where the rail used to attach.

So far, much much better. I can still tell that the tivo is on in a silent room, but the noise is much better. I'm thinking that maybe I should try other positioning for the sorbothane or thicker stacks.

Does anyone else share this insanity and has tried to make their Tivo quieter? Anyone else try anything along these lines? Other suggestions?

Has anyone tried any acoustic dampening material? (something like the Acousti Product stuff or the Nexus DampTek -- like what you see in music rooms) Or has anyone considered some was to otherwise deaden the top part of the tivo case? Maybe some additional stiffening material...

[funtoupgrade]

Why don't you just run it without the top?

[larssmith]

Heh, yeah, I thought about that. A little worried about the unshielded power supply though. How dangerous is it really? What exactly do you to touch to shock yourself?

[jtown]

The kids will probably only touch it once. Then they can tell you which part not to touch. I wouldn't really recommend it, tho, as the cover is blocking the high frequency noise generated by the drive and fan(s). You'll just hear a different kind of noise.

FWIW, you're always going to hear the tivo in a silent room. It has moving parts. The only way you're going to get all the sound out of the room is to remove the tivo. Some people actually do that. Put the tivo on the other side of the wall and use an RF remote extender to control it. Punch a hole in the wall for the cables, a little box to hold the mounting plates, etc.

If you call it done and forget about it, it'll blend into the background in a few days. If you obsess over it, you'll be hearing noises forever.

[technomutt]

The Western Digital WD1200JB is kinda old now, isn't it? and yes, they're noisy, especially the ones with the silver case and the label that isn't curved (manufacture date 2002 or 2003). I've noticed the newer WD caviar drives in the black cases are quieter.

If you can get 'em, try new Hitachi OEM drives (formerly IBM). Very Quiet.

[curious3]

Well, I would like to relate my story on silencing the TiVo, and hopefully it will give you some hints. I have been running 2 "silent" TiVo's for a year now, this is how I did it.

I am very sensitive to the noise from the TiVo I have 2 model 240***'s together in the same cabinet, under the tv. Together they were too noisy and I wound up unplugging one of them before I made them both quiet.

The two noise sources as we know are the fan and the drive. First I tackled the fan, I went as far as ordering Silenx fans from the only dealer in Canada, on the other side of the country. If I remember correctly I think they wound up being around 30 dollars each after shipping. Well, these new fans were only slightly quieter than the stock fans and I noticed that the noise would increase after I put the TiVo case lid back on. The sound was simply from the rush of air coming out of the case. I took my hint from my Zalmann fan that I have in my pc, it came with a little connector in it that is essentially a 100 ohm resistor that slows down the speed of the fan. I use the resistor in both of my TiVo's and has eliminated the fan noise completely. My temperatures have gone from around 38 degrees C to 41, which the TiVo's report as being normal.

Next were the hard drives, I replaced both of them spending a lot of time researching the noise output reports. As trials, I bought a 250G Seagate for one and an 80G Samsung for the other. Really, they are both very silent...... running in your hand. It is when you screw them into the TiVo they begin to make the entire case resonate. I tried isolating them with silicon mounts but that didn't really help much.

The way I made them silent seems silly, but it works perfectly. I have a bengal cat (google it, they are very unique looking) that is obsessed with playing fetch. I noticed that her soccer balls were incredibly soft and about the size of a golf ball. I took 2 of them and cut them in half to use as "feet" under the TiVo. The TiVo squishes down the ball halves and when you push a corner of the TiVo with your finger the entire assembly "jiggles", that is how soft the balls are. This has completely eliminated all noise coming from 2 TiVo's at a distance of about 6 feet.

This all worked out great until I saw that every morning the TiVo's were sitting crooked and a couple of the "feet" had disappeared. So, off to the pet store for more balls. I don't know the name of them but they come in a 4 pack, are about the size of a golf ball, are painted like soccer balls, and are pink, green, yellow or blue.

[supasta]

Some people have had success with lining the TiVo case with something like Dynamat to silence the vibration of the casing. I would also suggest larger rubber feet (they are out there in the wild, designed for this exact application).

IMO my sleek entertainment center just would not look right with the cat's toys serving as feet for my TiVo, let alone risking it falling off if it moved too much...