This all started a few months ago when he-who-writes-the-cheques finally conceded that my poor old PC wasn’t really up to handling today’s software. So we purchased a new computer - at the time, the fastest and best-performing system we could find.

Performance-wise, it was superb (once a couple of bugs were ironed out). But it was noisy. Anyone walking into my office could instantly hear the noise of the computer above the ambient.

Back to the supplier

We're not sure of the origin of this picture - it was sent to us via the 'net (so we apologise if we are breaking anyone's copyright!). Some people do go to extraordinary lengths...

First thing I did was to return the computer to the supplier. Along with the request for the bug fix (it tended to lock up when transferring data via the USB port), I asked them to check out the noise.

A couple of days later the machine was returned. They reckoned they’d fixed the lock-up problem but the noise was exactly the same. Not happy, Jan!

I queried the noise and their service manager told me that the noise level was "absolutely normal" for a fast Pentium IV machine.

Sceptical me didn’t really believe him but on investigating further, I found that noisy PCs really were a widespread problem. From the many comments I found on the web and various newsgroups, it would appear that a lot of people are concerned about PC noise. And most put the blame squarely with the CPU manufacturers. They bust their buns to produce faster and faster CPUs (which of course run hotter and hotter), then go and let the side down with just-good-enough fast-revving fans which scream their heads off, relying on after-market suppliers to solve the problem for them.

We’ve since heard many different stories about noisy fans. Every supplier, it seems, has a different version. Then the techs put a different slant on it. One that does keep popping up is that Intel had a bad (ie noisy) batch of fans towards the end of last year. Is that true? No-one is admitting anything, of course.

But here's the rub: we asked one of the companies featured in this article to supply us with a Pentium 4 CPU for photography. It was brand new and came with an Intel fan, nearly identical to mine. Just on a whim, we measured the sound output: a full 7dBA less, just sitting on the bench! That's not far off sounding half as loud. Mmmm. Makes one wonder, what?