Are VAX and DEC Alphas noisy??

[johnslayton1]

Hi,

I just wish to know if the VAX and the DEC/Alphas are loud or noisy??

Do they produce alot of noise thats more suited to be kept in a server room rather than an office area?

thx.

[Robert Gezelter]

John,

It depends on the model. Some models are quite loud, other models are not unreasonable in an office environment.

Can you be specific which models are of concern?

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Craig A Berry]

The emulated ones have no fans at all and are very, very quiet :-). See:


http://www.emulatorsinternational.com/en/products.htm

http://simh.trailing-edge.com/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/es40

[Volker Halle]

also see:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1122428

Volker.

[DECxchange]

Hello,
Emulators aren't totally quiet, they are as loud as the machine you are running them on.

Anyway, the quieter VAXs would include the VAX4000-100, -100A, 105, 105A, 106, 106A, etc. the MicroVAX 3100 series are relatively quiet as well. The VAXstation 3100 and VAXstation 4000 series are quite quiet.

As far as the Alphas go, the newer Alphastations are pretty quiet. But if you want to hang a lot of disc drives on your systems, you will obviously increase the noise factor.

And just like any computer, if you have a fan that is going bad, or a bearing in a disc drive that is going bad, that will be louder. If you replace these with new fans, discs, etc., your machine will be pretty quiet.

If you get into the large VAXs and
Alpha servers, they might be kind of on the louder side.

[johnslayton1]

Im sorry...

I was refering to the VAX-7000/820.

Is this one pretty noisy at all?

[Hoff]

[[[I was refering to the VAX-7000/820.
Is this one pretty noisy at all?]]]

My answer from your original
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1122428
question hasn't changed.

The VAX 7000 series -- all models -- is very big, very hot, very slow, very power-hungry, and very old. And loud.

L O U D.

VERY LOUD.

Few would want to use these boxes outside a dedicated computer room.

If you're asking this for hobbyist use and you're willing to spend the money needed to house and feed a box as big as the VAX 7000 series (and that's a whole lot of money compared with other options), there's an AlphaServer 8400 available for small dollars over on the Deathrow Cluster. That's the same basic big box, with newer giblets. There are other similarly big boxes available.

Probably the best use for a VAX 7000 box is as spares for some site that has critical processing running on same. And has one or more of these VAX boxes running in a computer room.

[Robert Gezelter]

John,

I totally concur with Hoff. The 7000 series VAX systems are significant noise emitters.

Almost all of the profile VAX and Alpha systems are reasonably office-friendly.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

We only have Alphas.

The AS500 is installed at a lot of desks and many people complain about the noise. Sometimes using canned air helps reducing the noise (removing dust).

None of the server makes a lot of noise (but all inacceptable for having them next to your desk). The EMC SAN however sounds like a small F16 (with about 10 engines/racks).

Fwiw

Wim