Re: NoiseControl NoVibes - possible in a G5

In article <dbspn5$sin$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ian Oliver <ioliver@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I've just upgraded to a G5 and, while I really appreciate the (general)
> lack of fan noise, I'm a little disappointed by the busy clacking of the
> drives. I presume the drives in my old G4 were equally noisy, but the
> sound of the fans masked them.
>
> Whatever, I was looking at a kit called 'NoiseControl NoVibes' -
> basically a frame which suspends each drive in a rubber-band cradle.
>
> It looks a little large, though, for a G5. I'd order one and risk it
> being impossible, but post and packing from the U.S. would make the
> total cost rather high (more than $50US).
>
> Has anybody tried this in a G5 and made it work?
>
> Grateful for any feedback. Cheers,
>
> Ol.

The clacking is the disk heads seeking to different tracks on the disk.
I do not expect that changing the way the disk is mounted will do
anything to reduce that noise.

And I too just got a PowerMac G5, and the reduced noise level is really
nice vs my old PowerMac G4, and I too have the noise of the 160GB disk
seeking. But overall I don't mind it that much. In my time I've had to
live with disk drives that made far worse noise.

One thought is why is the reasons your disk is being accessed. If it
because you are accessing different files (like viewing your iPhoto
library), or launching programs, quiting, launching new programs, etc...
then my next idea may not be that interesting.

But if you have already launched the programs and the disk noise is when
you switch programs, then maybe you can cut down a little of the noise
if you get more memory (most likely more expensive than the $50 :-)

You could run MemoryStick to see information about the swap files and if
you have lots of them.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13636

You could run the Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor ->
System Memory and look at the bottom for VM Size and Page ins/outs. But
this is a bit difficult to make a judgment with.

I personally like to open Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal and use
the command "vm_stat 10" and watch the last 2 columns (Pageins and
Pageouts) while I'm doing work. This will tell me more closely when I
have pagein/pageout storms. The pageout entries are more important as
they generally mean that you need to push dirty pages out of memory to
disk, a sure indication that more memory could be useful, but only if it
is happening a lot. If it happens just once in a while, don't sweat it.

Now pagein is a much more difficult set of "tea leaves" to read.
Launching a program is down by actually paging it into memory directly
from the executable program file. So when you launch a new program,
there is going to be pagein activity. However, if you have mostly
enough memory, but it is just on the edge of being tight, then the
operating system might be discarding clean pages, knowing it can just
reload them from the swap files or from the executable programs. So if
you just switch between 2 applications, and you get a pagein storm, it
may indicate that MacOSX has taken clean pages from the previously idle
app to give to the current app, and now when you switch, it needs to get
some of those clean pages back and its paging them back in (most likely
getting the pages it needs from the app you are switch out of (or other
idle apps).

But like I said, this is a bit of a tea leaf reading session, so don't
put too much stock in it.

Also as a way to reduce disk seek activity it may not be all that
successful, and it will surely cost you a lot more than the above
mentioned $50. Then again, having lot of memory can speed things up.
I've got 2.5GB in my PowerMac, and generally run 15 or so apps and
background utilities during the day, and while I do get pagein activity,
and occasional pageout, for the most part, my system just blazes away.
And I don't worry about the disk activity. There is sufficient other
noise in the office that I don't really notice it often.

Good luck.

Bob Harris
.

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