I have set down a h4n this is a zoom h4n
which I've got on a tripod Stara mic
stand here this is recording with a mic
sensitivity of 40 so the the volume
level if you have an h4 n I've got this
set to 40 so it's picking up the ambient
noise right now it's not broadcasting to
you I'm going to switch to this
microphone in just a second but it's
picking up that ambient noise so that we
can see those levels I've turned off the
auto mic levels on the h4 n so what
you're gonna get to hear and see
visually in goldwave are the wave tables
directly from this with no resampling
and no changes to the levels so that's
exactly the same from point A to point B
I mean there it's not going to change
the levels of the microphone that's
gonna help us to be able to see tonight
what kind of a difference we can make by
changing a simple fan can attend all or
part reduce the noise in such a way that
it's actually worth our while
so this is our backup Drive it's an a
raid 3500
- GP these things are fantastic it's a
mirroring unit so we've got a master
Drive and a secondary Drive and I can
pull this secondary Drive it's a 10
terabyte hard drive I pull that out pop
in a different one and a tree images and
I have an exact mirror at all times of
my backup then the server is down here
and this is actually the storage and the
Samba shares and everything else and
that's generating a lot of noise - so
right now let's just check out the
levels of everything running the way it
normally would I'm going to shut up for
a second and let you hear that and see
that visually
okay so that's the ambient noise just
coming off of everything the server the
backup everything running I'm gonna halt
the server which I've just done let's
listen
waiting for it to shut down
and it's still powered on so I'm going
to now power that off here we go
okay so with the server off there is a
notable difference but there's still a
lot of noise coming off just the backup
unit
all right so I'm gonna power that off
and we'll see how the room sounds what a
difference eh
okay so let's get this out of the way
and I'm gonna actually remove this
backup drive and so what I'm gonna do is
we're gonna throw a little nine dollar
fan in here to replace the stock fan and
the intention today it's not a
sophisticated tutorial or anything like
that it's not overly geeky however
something that we don't often think
about is that there are very simple and
very affordable solutions that we can
put into place that can help with this
ambient noise it doesn't just apply for
me here at the studio it applies for you
at home if you've got computers that
maybe you're generating a lot more noise
then they need to be maybe a solution is
to look at those fans and see if you can
cut that down look at the hard drives
and say hey I've got a lot of spinning
hard drives in there right now let's
instead replace those with some Kingston
SSDs which are they have no moving parts
and they make absolutely no noise they
also incidentally generate less heat
which is a nice bonus as well so this
backup unit is generating in my opinion
way more noise than I should be having
from a backup unit I mean it's it's my
backup it's incredibly important however
it is just my backup it's just two hard
drives spinning away generating that
much heat that it has to be running a
fan at full capacity eat all the time
so the fan that I got is a pretty
popular one it's an Arctic f8 silent so
do keep in mind it is the silent model
and it says on the box extra quiet fan
and you can see on the back of this unit
it does have a fan to keep it everything
cool so that's what we're gonna be
replacing
I feel like maybe the stock fan is
louder than it has to be you guys could
hear that you could see that visually
how much ambient noise this thing was
generating it's really really easy to do
this kind of it's not even a repair it
would be a repair if the original fan
wasn't wasn't working in this case I'm
replacing a working fan but it's just a
noisy fan all right so what do we have
here we've got some we've got a tie wrap
here that I'm gonna have to cut I don't
even have the correct tools yet like
scissors or wire snips do not do this at
home I'm gonna be really careful I'm
gonna say that then I'm gonna cut my
finger real bad I'm not I'm not don't
worry don't do this don't ever do this I
just I'm gonna get in so much trouble
for doing that I know give me a hard
time YouTube all right so there is the
fan and this is the molex connector for
that fan ideally if I could take this
outside and blow it out with with a
camless air something like that that
would be ideal because there's a lot of
dust in there too
Wow all right so let's get into here so
simple folks
but the ultimate test is going to be I
want to know when we've got that
recorder recording so that we can
compare the actual ambient noise this is
generating when you get a fan you can
look at the fan and it will show you
because you wonder which which way is
the fan going to be blowing and I would
have thought the fan was blowing out
this way but if you look really really
closely see if you can get a fix on that
you guys see that there's actually an
arrow which points the way that the fan
is going to be blowing
so that's important to note it's exactly
the opposite of what I would have
thought so easy install and what I did
is I just I measured first and this is
an 80 millimeter so it was easy enough
to find online and as I say it was nine
bucks to get a hold of this fan so let's
get that in there just gonna use the
same screws it came with screws too but
doesn't matter they're the same so I'm
hoping this is gonna make enough of a
difference here in this room that my
nine dollars is well-spent the a raid
3500 is a great backup Drive check it
out I'll put links below this one was
gifted to me which was a real blessing
buy one of our long-term longtime
friends of the show who unfortunately
went out of business and they said hey
would you like that backup Drive and so
they gifted it to us and I've used it
ever since and it's wonderful these are
great devices okay so you notice I had a
molex on the old fan but I've got a
three pin on this fan so I've also
grabbed myself a molex to three pin
adapter so just pop your fan in there
and that's just for the a raid because I
knew that the a raid was using molex and
here we go
come on these adapters can be a beast
they're not really just gonna line them
up right okay so let's put this on I'm
not gonna screw it all together just now
just for the sake of good TV because
that's not really all that exciting but
even without the screws we're gonna have
exactly the same ambient noise as with
the screws I don't think that's gonna
affect the accuracy whatsoever of our
test so I'm going to just put this back
on my server rack plug in the SATA cable
eSATA which just goes in the back here
if I can find it I wasn't even in the
right place there we are and it's a
full-size power cable just like a
computer cable and if we're ready now
this is still recording and place it
right at the exact same spot and fire up
what a difference oh my goodness I have
to actually make sure that this is
working and it is sure enough she's
blowing air
beautiful all right I am gonna fire back
up the server because the server
generated a lot of noise too and there's
not a lot I can do about that it's an
hour 5:10 they're pretty noisy servers
but let's fire it up just so that I can
compare the ambient noise difference you
can hear that the backup Drive alone
huge difference now let's fire back up
the server this can get loud for a
second because they fire up loud
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still notably quieter but let's wait for
it because these servers will those fans
are gonna calm down in a moment they
blow out the dust and everything before
as they're just first booting up once
the drives start flashing that means
it's booting
it's still pretty loud but it's nowhere
near and here you can hear wine in them
I can't at least
and there she goes starting the boot up
process
so once it's finished booting we'll have
a pretty good impression as to the
difference that this is made for nine
bucks I can also be doing the same thing
you remember that my laptop computer had
a really noisy fan my ThinkPad and so
I've also ordered a replacement fan for
that which has arrived I haven't gotten
into that but while we're waiting for
that to boot so like this is a really
simple fix that you can just do for a
lot of your devices I mean who would
have thought your backup drive even
let's get into this box though let's see
what they've sent me yeah there we are
there it is so that's the cooling system
for my laptop and that's going to make
that same amount of difference for for
my laptop computer so you can get these
kind of replacement parts and you don't
have to replace a whole laptop or a
whole backup drive to reduce the ambient
noise so now I'm gonna switch back to
this microphone so that we can hear with
the server running the backup drive
running how does this compare to when I
first started this segment as still
booting it's doing a lot of reading so
it might be a little bit inaccurate
let's there you can hear that it's
slowing down
let's give it just another split second
here you can see the drives are going
crazy so that means it's still in the
boot process
what a difference there I'm gonna in
post-production I'm gonna just go back
over so this is the array Drive by
itself just the backup servers off all
by itself before I replace the fan and
here it is after I replace the fan and
here they are side by side those wave
tables just so you can see the the
difference in the ambient noise alright
so that server is still booting still
going through its thing but let's let's
get a look at how the ambient noise
altogether now so the server and the
backup driver back up and running just
like they were before how is that
affected
so the verdict for 9 bucks for 9 bucks
we brought down the ambient noise quite
noticeably here in the production studio
it's something I mean we all have
computers sitting next to us and
sometimes they're louder than they need
to be and sometimes we don't even
realize it but listen to your computer
and just see hey could this be a little
bit quieter and maybe replacing the CPU
fan or as I say switching out from a
spinning hard drive to an SSD from
Kingston technology something like that
would make a huge difference to the
ambient noise in the room and it just
makes things so much better for
broadcast it's gonna be a lot better now
that's a noticeable difference it's not
perfect they're still you can still hear
the server but the backup drive is no
longer creating the unbelievable amounts
of noise that it that it was well there
you have it you can look up your
products online I mean get on to B&H
Photo Video is a great place to get
stuff also a marriage riod has a lot of
great fans I've got some fans for my
server case that I'm gonna put in from
Ameri just check what they've got you
can find them at like pretty much any
online stores got this stuff so really
really cheap really really easy to
replace and we did it here
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