PC Too Loud? Here Are The Tools To Silence It

After I set up my new PC I noticed that it was considerably louder than before. That was somewhat puzzling as it was still making use of the same hardware, and that it therefor should not really be louder than before. The first thing that I like to do in a situation like this is to assess the situation. I try to rank the components based on the noise they make. It usually boils down to fans, and to a lesser degree hard drives making that noise on your system. You may need to open your PC case for that, as it may be difficulty otherwise to identify the noise makers. In my own experience, the most likely candidates are the video card fan, the cpu fan and the power supply unit fan.

We will be using the following two programs to reduce fan speeds of select components of the PC. Keep in mind that you can’t regulate all fans with software, and that you may need hardware solutions in some cases. One example: If you find out that your case fans are to loud, you could get an adapter to undervolt them to lower their rotating speed – and thus noise – or buy better fans that reduce the noise level automatically.

Speedfan – A comprehensive temperature reading and fan control program. May not work with all set ups though, as components need to be supported.MSI Afterburner – For video cards, not only by MSI. I prefer the beta version, but the functionality is also available in the latest stable version of the software.

Speedfan is a monitoring program that displays fan speeds, voltage information and temperature readings in the program interface. When you start the program you are presented with a screen that looks more or less identical to the screenshot above. The two important information on this screen are the fan speeds on the left, and the temperature readings on the right.

You can use the Pwm controls to reduce the speed of the fans on your system. If you have less than six fans installed, only some of them will work. The three controls on the left usually control the first three fans in the fan listing, the three on the right the second batch. I suggest you take a look at the RPM values to find out which control you need to change the fan speed on your computer. In the case of the screenshot above, there is only one fan recognized by Speedfan, and it is controlled by the first control on the right.

Click on the down arrow to reduce the fan speed, or click on the field to enter a new value for it. I would not suggest going down to 0, as it could very well cause overheating issues which you need to avoid. If you use the controls you often can listen to the noise generation and will notice that it goes down considerably once you reach the 70% and lower region.

Pro Tip: Keep an eye on the temperature for the next time to make sure that it does not reach critical values after you have made the change. Critical levels are indicated with red flames in the program which can be easily spotted.

This program can handle the fan speed of your PC’s video card and a lot of other cool things, like over- or underclocking the video card or record full screen game videos. You can control the fan speed right in the main interface. I suggest a different approach though that makes more sense. Click on Settings and there on the Fan tab. Here you can control the fan speed in relation to the temperature of the graphics card.

This basically means that you can configure the fan to rotate slower when you are on your desktop (when the video card is not taxed that much), and faster when you start to use taxing applications such as games or applications that use the video card for hardware acceleration.

When you make changes to the fan speed, you need to monitor the temperature for a while to make sure that components do not overheat as a consequence. You also need to pay attention when you approach the warmer Spring and Summer period, as higher general temperature levels will have an impact on the PC as well. You may need to speed up the fan again in those periods depending on the location you life in, and the PC setup.

I’d like to hear about your experience, and of course suggestions for other programs that helped you tone down your PC to acceptable levels.

Reduce The Fan Speed Of NVIDIA Geforce Video Cards
NVIDIA System Tools
Use Speedfan to control temperatures
Practical Tips to Decrease the Temperature of your Computer
Lower Video Card noise by reducing the fan speed

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday March 27, 2012 -
Tags:fan-speed, msi afterburner, noise, speedfan

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Windows 8 Still Offers Quick Admin Tools Access

One of the biggest concerns IT Pros and businesses had about Windows 8 was the hiding of the administrative and computer management features in the OS.  With the new Metro interface being brought to the foreground, and the options available within it strictly limited people were concerned that the removal of the Start Menu, where traditionally a right-click on the Computer link would bring up the administrative options or where there was single-click access to the full Control Panel, would restrict or make difficult access when they needed it.

Now though it has emerged that the options are probably easier to find and get access to then in any version of Windows before as moving your mouse cursor (yup, folks you can’t do this with touch) to the extreme bottom left of the screen and right-clicking will display a menu with the administrative options all available.

In this menu are Programs and Features for uninstalling software, Network Connections, Power Options, the Event Viewer, System, Device manager, Disk Management, Computer Management, the Command Prompt (also with Administrator rights), the Task manager, Control Panel, Windows Explorer in case you accidentally unpin it from the Taskbar), Search and Run.

It is excellent having access to this menu and the administrative tools so easily and this menu will appear both on the desktop and on the Metro Start Screen.

Additionally people who need to diagnose and troubleshoot problems within the operating system will be pleased to hear that the Problem Steps Recorder still exists.  Originally designed as a reporting tool for the Windows 7 Beta, Microsoft kept it in the final product after huge volumes of requests by testers and IT Pros.

As with Windows 7 it doesn’t appear in any menus but typing (searching for) PSR on the Start Screen will reveal it.  This tool records screenshots when things change on your screen, highlighting the item that has changed and annotating the screenshots with information about running processes, memory and more that’s going on with your computer at that time.  All round it is an excellent tool.#

Finally it’s been discovered that the PrintScreen key screenshot grabber has finally been upgraded and now also saves your screen grabs automatically to your Pictures folder if you press the Windows Key + Print Screen.  Alas there’s no way to capture a single window with this feature now as you could previously with the addition of holing down the Shift key, which means that it’s still no full-time substitute for third-party grabbing and annotating tools, but as a step forward for most people this will be most welcome.

There are also manner of additional things now being found in Windows 8, such as now having to press Shift+F8 at start-up to access the boot menu.  We will continue to report to you here the most important and significant finds.  Though one thing that I sadly have to report is that there is definitely no kill switch for the Start Screen in Group Policy, something that even some ‘softies told me to expect.  It is interesting to note though that even the references to the Classic Start Menu still exist there however, so it’s only a matter of time before third-party hackers and software companies come up will all manner of useful tweaks and mods for the OS.

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About the Author:Mike Halsey is a Microsoft MVP for "Windows Expert". He is also the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press and the Windows 7 Power Users Guide, a how-to guide for non-technical Windows users on how to get the best out of Microsoft's new operating system, with step-by-step and quick guides. You can follow Mike on Facebook, Twitter or on his own website The Long ClimbAuthor: Mike Halsey MVP, Saturday March 3, 2012 -
Tags:windows 8

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