Enterprise Acoustics

You have probably become accustomed to a variety of noises from technology in your everyday life, such as the sloshing noise from your laundry machine, whirring from a blender, static noise from the air conditioner, humming from your car and, yes, also flowing and beeping noises from your computer.

Understanding the dependencies and metrics of acoustics can help you make better product choices. Expectations for noise vary between different groups of technology users and depend on the environment and intent for use. Fans and hard disk drives are the primary sources of noise in servers. They generate hums, rattles, whistles and broadband, static-like noise.

Many different metrics used to provide objective descriptions are discussed in this paper. Not one single metric suffices to describe a noise — values for several metrics are usually necessary. Tones, modulation and sharpness are some sound quality metrics that are important complements to magnitude metrics such as loudness, A-weighted sound pressure level and A-weighted sound power level.

Acoustics is a part of the complete enterprise solution that Dell delivers to its customers. We have combined your feedback with data from product noise literature and conducted studies on customer response to noise, to develop products better aligned with evolving expectations. Configurations and operating conditions are key variables in noise, and Dell is providing configuration options to reduce noise.