Sound damping in a cubicle

[Sam Beard]

Kevin,

   The only suggestion I can make is try moving the servers out just a
touch, if possible, getting some foam egg crate material (even if it's
relatively small), and placing that on the wall behind the exhaust fans.
At the very least, it'll redirect the airflow in different ways,
probably, as well as the sound waves, and might help some.

   As for the snow, we had snow this morning (not cold enough to stick
on the ground here, but snowing quite heavily), and we're about 1-1/2 to
2 hours north of Houston, TX! My baby daughter is not quite a year old
yet and she's already seen snow TWICE while living in southeastern
Texas!

Samuel I. Beard, Jr.
Technical Writer
OI Analytical
979 690-1711 Ext. 222
sbeard at oico.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On Behalf
Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 2:41 PM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: Sound damping in a cubicle

Hey all.

Does anybody have any simple, cheap (free) ideas for deadening the sound
of four 1U rackmount servers sitting (and working) on a makeshift rack
under the desk in my cubicle?

 

It's not a really loud or grating sound, just constant and a bit
wearing.  Feels good when it stops.  But then I have to start them
again. There are legitimate reasons why they live in my cube and not in
the lab.

 

It happens that their back ends (where the noisy little exhaust fans
are) point toward the only wall of my cube that is hard, not fabric, so
sound reflects back toward me. I don't really have alternate placement
options due to the construction of the cube. 

Stuffing balled-up bubble-wrap into some of the gaps had very little
dampening effect. I probably need something that absorbs the specific
major frequencies - whatever they are - something in the mid-to-upper
range of what a 50-year-old male human can hear. Sit beside a
medium-large laser-printer in alert-but-not-printing-this-very-minute
mode, and hold a large conch shell to your ear for an approximation.

 

Thanks for any helpful suggestions or really funny smart-ass comments.

 

Kevin 

(in Ottawa where, dammit, it's started snowing again)


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