If your gaming setup is noisy, it’s rarely just one thing. It’s usually a mix of small sounds from your different devices, like the fans ramping up, parts vibrating, peripherals echoing off a hard desk surface, and all of this stack up together, creating quite the noise.
Before you think about replacing items within your gaming set up, you need to pinpoint where the sound is actually coming from, and which changes you can personally make, to try and reduce the noise.
How To Figure Out Where The Noise Is Coming From
Start by slowing everything down so you can fully listen to each piece of equipment.
Try muting your speakers, pause any music and cut out any ambient noises (like fans, AC or any open windows), so you can isolate real noise sources from within your gaming set-up.
Sit next to your PC and move around it, and listen to it from the front, the two main sides, and from the back, noticing any noise changes when the drives begin to spin, LEDs power up, or your peripherals begin to activate.
If you can, try briefly lowering the fan speed within your system’s software, allowing you to listen for shifts in tone.
You can also try clapping or speaking, to try and gauge how sound is bouncing around, as that’ll help you when deciding to use sound insulation panels on the surrounding walls.
Tame Your PC fans Without Cooking Your System
When you know where the louder noises are coming from exactly, start by adjusting fan speed curves within BIOS or software, so they start to ramp up smoothly, instead of powering up to 100% instantly.
Although, you’ll need to keep an eye on the temperatures, so you’re sure nothing is overheating.
If you notice your CPU/GPU runs hot, even at moderate loads, you can try refreshing the thermal paste, to improve heat transfer, and reduce how hard the fans need to work.
Stock coolers are often loud, so you could choose an after-market cool, with larger, slower-spinning fans with better noise dampening.
If you find that a specific fan rattles, buzzes or makes a whining noise, you can replace it with a targeted, higher-quality model fan, which can calm your whole system, helping to also improve performance.
Clean Up Dust And Airflow
Dust is a nightmare for technology, and I swear by using an air-duster for keeping dust at a minimum.
Dust quietly sabotages both noise and the equipment’s cooling features, so you need to frequently clear it out, to let your hardware breath.
An accumulation of dust will force the fans to spin faster, adding extra whirring noises, and shortening the component’s life.
Ensure you do regular maintenance – power down the gaming devices, open the casing, and use an air-duster to clear heatsinks, filters and fan blades.
It’s so quick and easy to use, and inexpensive, and you can blow away dust quickly and easy without needing to know anything about technology.
Next, focus on airflow optimization. You need to have a clear front-to-back or bottom-to-top path, not a tornado of swirling hot air.
Make sure you tidy your cables up, remove unused drive cages and check that nothing is blocking intakes or exhausts.
Reduce Vibration From Your Case, Desk, And Monitor
Even if your fans are pretty quiet, any vibrations from any of your equipment can create a lot of noise.
Add rubber vibration dampeners (they’re not expensive) to fan mounts within your PC casing, power supply, and hard drives, and make sure the case feet aren’t hard plastic.
Place the whole computer’s tower on a dense soundproof mat to reduce any vibration through the floor or desk.
If your desk wobbles at all, tighten any bolts, and add small rubber pads between the desk’s frame and the tabletop.
Put your monitor/s on monitor risers, with rubber or foam bottom, so their stands don’t buzz against the surfaces.
Lastly, you could try treating the nearby walls, but mounting simple acoustic wall panels behind or beside your desk, to help tame any reflected noise, and to keep mechanical hum from spreading, and being amplified.