Hearing the quiet message
While total silence is still a goal largely reserved for enthusiasts, mainstream consumers are starting to hear the quiet message as PCs perform new tasks such as home media servers, a role that often puts them into environments where noise is more obvious than an office. Just try enjoying the pianissimo of a Chopin nocturne with three case fans whirring in the background.
"We found a lot of our early customers were building custom computers for their home entertainment systems," Farnsworth said. "It can ruin the movie experience when the main thing you hear during a quiet scene is a fan running."
Media applications are the main market for specialty PC makers such as Hush Technologies in Germany, which makes high-powered, silent PCs that use clever ventilation instead of noisy fans to run cool.
"The concept of a silent, good-looking PC to go into the living room drives the majority of what we do," said John Booth, managing director of Hush.
The cost of silence
Booth said people instinctively like the idea of having a PC that doesn't make a racket, but selling silence as a premium product feature is still a marketing challenge.
"I think generally... people like the idea of a silent PC," he said. "That's not a problem. The problem is when they have to pay for it." Quiet PCs can cost up to $500 more than their noisier counterparts.
Hush's approach is to give equal attention to other aesthetic concerns, particular visual appearance. "We conspicuously make our boxes look very attractive... as part of positioning this as a premium product," Booth said.
That may work in specialty markets, but not with mainstream consumers, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst for researcher Insight64. That's why major PC companies have made only incremental concessions to acoustics, he said.
"Any of those (fanless computing) approaches tend to add cost compared with the more straightforward cooling methods," he said. "PC buyers historically have shown a real aversion to paying for things that don't contribute directly to performance."
Instead, major PC companies are adopting techniques that shave off a few decibels of fan noise without requiring expensive redesign.
