Just a final quick thought.

Sometimes a PC case actually cools/vents better with fewer fans. It can be a useful experiment to try switching a fan off while closely monitoring temperatures. I built my previous tower with a case fan at the lower front blowing in and another at the back below the top-mounted psu blowing the hot air out because that's what intuition/experience/"common sense" suggested would be needed.

I found in the end that it ran coolest and quietist by removing the front fan, opening up the middle of the three top/front 5.25" bays so it was just a tunnel and reversing the rear fan so it pushed air in at the back which then escaped through the big fan and drive bay holes in the front.

Sometimes these things are counter-intuitive.

Paul G
I'm sure this has been discussed but I couldn't find the right search terms.   Anyway, you folks that have a 'one room' setup, how do you deal with the noise of the computer while recording? 
 
My 'so-called' studio is just swapping out a drive in my home office computer.  I generally only track vocals and I do that at the other end of the house.  It works but it's a pain.  An open mic in the office picks up way too much computer noise.  I've tried covering the computer with absorbent materials etc but it doesn't really work.  I'd really like to get set up so I could track here in the office.
 
Anyone in this situation, how do you do it?  What's your setup?  Any and all suggestions are welcome.  Thanks.
 
Paul

Perhaps it's the fan itself. I have a corsair case with 3 fans and a CPU cooler fan and I get zero noise.

Could always try and use a noise gate to filter some of the noise out while recording.

I have my PC in a closet.  I have long cables that run from the components (keyboard, monitor, mouse, audio interface, and an empty USB cable for thumbdrives), through a PVC pipe in the wall into the closet.  Pipe needs to have some kind of curve or bend in it to be really effective.  
 
It doesn't get terribly hot in there, but if it did I could just vent it out the other side if need be (it backs up to another closet).  I got tired of having to open the closet to turn the PC on so I mounted a power button to my desk and used a long enough wire to the power jumpers on the motherboard.
 
Of course, if you don't own your house or you don't want to cut holes in your walls then this won't work for you.

mettelus
If you have a version of Audition lying around, definitely check it out... any "consistent" background noise can be removed by it effectively with the "default" settings alone, which is why I do the "environmental sample" before/after each take. I have Audition 4 (that came with CS 5.5), and it has been effective enough that I have not looked into another solution. Consistent noise of sufficient sample size it all it needs (I have never modified the default settings myself, but have run it twice in a row to clean off recordings of analog tape, which was rather impressive as to what it is capable of).

I have Version 3.0 that Adobe gave away for free last year.  I do need to fire it up.  Thanks.
 

markyzno
http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html
 
quite useful.

Thanks, I'll check that out.
 

tlw
Just a final quick thought.

Sometimes a PC case actually cools/vents better with fewer fans. It can be a useful experiment to try switching a fan off while closely monitoring temperatures. I built my previous tower with a case fan at the lower front blowing in and another at the back below the top-mounted psu blowing the hot air out because that's what intuition/experience/"common sense" suggested would be needed.

I found in the end that it ran coolest and quietist by removing the front fan, opening up the middle of the three top/front 5.25" bays so it was just a tunnel and reversing the rear fan so it pushed air in at the back which then escaped through the big fan and drive bay holes in the front.

Sometimes these things are counter-intuitive.

Thanks.  The only downside to this that I can see is that by bringing air IN from the rear you would be, (in my case anyway), drawing heated air from the CPU over the hard drives at the front of the case.
 
Paul

Mistergreen
Perhaps it's the fan itself. I have a corsair case with 3 fans and a CPU cooler fan and I get zero noise.

Could be I guess, but mechanical noise and air movement have two different sounds.  I probably just have too many fans.
 

Milamber
Could always try and use a noise gate to filter some of the noise out while recording.

True and if I were tracking electric guitar or drums that might well do it.  In this case I track mostly vocals and I really don't want the noise in the recording.  In addition, a condenser mic picks up the noise at a level that's distracting in the cue mix.
 
Thanks.
 

vanblah
I have my PC in a closet.  I have long cables that run from the components (keyboard, monitor, mouse, audio interface, and an empty USB cable for thumbdrives), through a PVC pipe in the wall into the closet.  Pipe needs to have some kind of curve or bend in it to be really effective.  
 
It doesn't get terribly hot in there, but if it did I could just vent it out the other side if need be (it backs up to another closet).  I got tired of having to open the closet to turn the PC on so I mounted a power button to my desk and used a long enough wire to the power jumpers on the motherboard.
 
Of course, if you don't own your house or you don't want to cut holes in your walls then this won't work for you.

This sounds like the best overall solution if I can't get the fan speed/noise level down.  It would require a remodel of my office but that's pretty much been in order for some time now.  May have to push this to the top of the list.
 
Thanks everyone!
 
Paul