Moving your PC to another room
Although this specifiy possibility of noise reduction is certainly not an option for everyone and every use case, but it certainly makes sense in some situations and then it will least ensure an completely silent user experience at the location you are using your computer from -- even though the device itself might be as noisy as before. What I am talking about, you ask? I was referring to the option to reduce the noise of a computer by putting a sufficiently large distance between one's ears and the source of the noise.
One possibility is — assuming an appropriately designed apartment with the necessary space — to move the computer itself to a different room and to reroute the peripherals and the monitor cable to the place from which you want to use the device. Depending on the signal type, distances up to 5m (USB) or 10m (HDMI/DisplayPort) can be bridged without any problems, although this also strongly depends on the quality of the cables and of course — in the case of your monitor — also the display resolution.
So, if an relaxed gaming experience that you can you want to enjoy from the comfort of your living room sofa is your main purpose, then putting your computer in a different room is surely a good option. This can be an adjacent room where
your only route the cables
though the wall to keep their length within the allowed limits. But if necessary you may even move your gaming PC even further away and only stream image and peripheral connection to your TV over a network connection. This can be done,
for example, with Steam Link, whereby the corresponding clients are available in most modern SmartTVs as software applications. If
this is not the case, you can still buy the SteamLink box and use this one to for game streaming. There is one limitation that one has to consider and that is the maximum screen resolution. In the case of SteamLink you are limited to a
resolution of a maximum of 1920x1080. If you want more than 1080p for your game streaming, then there is another called Moonlight Stream,
which also allows resolutions of up to 4k and up to 120 fps.
All of those solutions in which an image needs to be transmitted in good quality and high resolution require a LAN connection with sufficient bandwidth between the devices. In theory it is also possible to
operate these
combinations via WiFI,
but this is definitely not ideal; unless you want to stream your games in 640x480 or intend to use this setup for more or less static content like Solitaire or Minesweeper only.
From my personal experience I can report that with both a SteamLink and a Moonlight stream solution, most games like Assassins Creed, Skyrim, or The Witcher can be run perfectly smooth and without any noticeable lag from the living room couch. What certainly works less well are more competitive shooters like Battlefield or Call Of Duty, but when playing those you usually sit in front of the PC with headphones and Teamspeak/Discord active anyway. And at least in the heat of those battles you most likely won't notice the increased fan noise anyway.
Date published: 16.06.2021
Contents
- General considerations — Why is my PC so noisy?
- The different sources of noise in your PC
- Disk Drives
- Graphics Cards (GPUs)
- Fans (e.g. CPU fans, GPU fans and fans of water cooling solutions)
- (AIO) water cooling
- Power Supply
- Voltage Regulators (VRMs) — How to reduce or eliminate Coil Whine
- Noise Reduction by using Silent PC Cases
- Moving your PCs to a differnt location
