15 replies to this topic

[k_nitin_r]

I am surprised that this thread does not have more posts than it does. There are lots of laptops out there that barely make a sound but if you try to place them on a bed on a summer afternoon, they would overheat and shut down. You can get something quiet but you would have to work with it in an environment that is cool enough to allow for heat dissipation. If the system has been tuned for performance, it would generate a lot of heat and you need to get a lot of air flow. A lot of air flow means a lot of noise, just as we see with air conditioning systems in cars - set the blower to its maximum setting and you probably would not even be able to hear somebody on the other end of a cell phone connection unless you have a pair of ear phones or head phones.
While you do have options to build custom laptops, such as the kind that Shuttle offers to original equipment manufacturers (and perhaps even to consumers, but I am not aware of whether it is available for a small number of orders), you can do so much more with a desktop 'project' because you don't have to think about portability. To start off with, you need to get a barebones system with just a case, a motherboard, a processor, and some memory. The processor and the case will typically have a fan that you want to get rid of. The case should ideally be large enough to give you room to add on additional components and work around them without having to take the screws off one component and yank it out to gain access to another component - if you have one of those cases, you might as well use a wooden cabinet and have it modified for the project. Next, the case power supply would have to be replaced with a fan-less power supply. You may even get a laptop-style motherboard that has a single DC-in connector and a laptop-style power supply that comes with a brick in the middle - these are for small form factor desktop computers (you might even but a small form factor computer, but that's beside the point in my post because we want performance as well as a quiet work, gaming, or entertainment environment). Next, you want to get rid of the fan on the processor and replace it with a liquid cooling system. You might want to run a demo of the unit you want to buy because the pump may generate some noise - it is usually very inaudible compared to the fan that sits on the processor. An alternative would be to use a motherboard-processor combination for a processor that does not require a fan, which is what many small form factor computers use, but that isn't what we are looking for because we are aiming for performance. Next, you would want to have graphic cards but you have to think about the temperature forming within the case. The 'horizontal' desktop cases are great because the hot air from one component does not get to another component but there is little verticle room for the hot air to rise. A tower case is great for heat dissipation if you plan it right. Cooler components at the lower end of the case and the hotter components are you go up is the rule of thumb because you don't want the hotter components generating enough heat transferred by means of hot air to get another component over heating. If you are using fans for cooling, which isn't what we are aiming at, you may want to have the hotter components located right in front of the cooling fan irrespective of where the other components are placed.
An LCD screen is typically the way to go if you are on a budget but if you can spare the cash, an LED screen is the way to go for energy saving. Neither really matter when it comes to noise.
If you want a quiet keyboard, a washable rubber keyboard is as quiet as it can get, unless you count the on-screen touch keyboards as a keyboard - those can get annoying if you do a lot of typing so I would advise against an on-screen keyboard unless your usage is primarily point-and-click.
Computer mice come in all shapes and sizes and button-less mice are as expensive as they can get. If you want to have some quiet time without the sound of those mouse clicks, get for one of the touch mice if they can fit your budget. If not, have a go at something that has a littler push to register a click. Some mice are quieter than others so you might want to try them out to figure out what you want to get. The scrolling wheel can get noisy too so a button-scroll instead of a wheel scroll may fit your needs if you are comfortable using it. If not, get a touch pad or a track point mouse instead of a regular mouse. A track point is a single pencil eraser head that works like a joy stick - you move it in the direction that you want to cursor to move and it is pressure sensitive so you can push it harder to make the cursor move faster. Some track points also have a press to click feature but it does not help much unless you are very skilled with a track point because the press-to-click can register as a mouse move if you don't push vertically down. A touch pad is the standard piece of pointing equipment that you get on a laptop and it integrates scroll and edge motion as additional features that you can enable or disable. Multi touch is something you may want to consider if you work with photographs and the zoom feature, but most people don't so you can stick with a cheap touch pad unless you have a reason not to.

[jinnydor632]

Well going with a laptop with a SSD is a good way to start off with getting it be quiet.

My MacBook Air is 100% about 90% of the time. When the fan isn't running it there are no moving parts, thus nothing ot make noise. But when the fan does kick on, man it is loud.

Strangly the fan turns on more when I have it on a raised file holder (while plugged in on my desk, plugged into an external monitor, lid open). The file holder is metal with a bunch of holes, so you'd think it would be great for keeping it cool. Maybe having it plugged into the external monitor has something to do with it. IDK.

[k_nitin_r]

Perhaps the reason why they call it the MacBook Air is now apparent to you - it blows Air around with a fan most of the time :-)
What you can do to make sure that you have some quiet time to spend watching a movie is to move to a cooler environment. Have the air conditioning running at its max and if you can adjust the air vents of your air conditioning, have it facing the computer (or place the computer to some place where there is a direct flow of air from the vents of the air conditioning).

I doubt the fan would run faster when you have the computer raised. I imagine what must be happening is that when the laptop is close to a surface, such as a desk, the laptop sits so low that the fan noise is insulated from you and when you raise the laptop, the fan noise becomes louder because you lose that noise insulation.

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad and the problem with these laptops is that the fan runs just barely. It doesn't cool the computer enough and so when I use it in hot environment, it has a thermal shutdown event, which basically means that it is overheating and it powers itself down to prevent any damage. A thermal shutdown occurs at a very high temperature - over ninety degrees centigrade, which is under two hundred degrees on the fahrenheit scale.

[techigopi]

Dell Vostro V13.. so far amongst all the laptop i have used the most silent. . have replaced the SAATA HDD with SSD, and even when the fan is spinnin there is no noice... before when this was housing a SATA HDD it used to produce a lil noice and a lil vibration.. but since i have started using SSD the laptop's noice level is next to silence..

[rpgsearcherz]

The Acer Aspire 5250 is pretty quiet. Timelines are as well. Basically if you want "quiet" you want something that isn't too powerful. Anything with a built-in video card is a huge no-no, as are the more powerful CPU's.

[rhyme2henry]

I would rather say you should go for a mac