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Why? I'm not getting any younger, and the older I get, the more sensitive my ears become. Right now, if I don't sleep with ear-plugs, I get migraines the next day. I used to be a game enthusiast, so I have a very power gaming computer. I don't play often now, but when I play, I always finish playing with tinnitus due to my graphics cards and CPU cooler. I invested lots of money to make it silent, but no matter how much I spend, I still am sensitive to its noise.

Breaking it down: So I figured that to do this, there are multiple things I have to manage on long distance:

  1. Ethernet: This is easy because I could move my Router. That's not a problem.

  2. HDMI: I found this on amazon, so I'm gonna buy it.

  3. 5.1 Sound system: I found this on amazon, so I'm gonna buy a few of these for every connector.

  4. USB ports (many 2.0, and maybe one ore two 3.0 occasionally): This is my problem now.

So my question(s) is/are: How can I solve the USB problem? Do you know of any solutions? I'm afraid of response latencies of my keyboard and mouse. Also what are possible issues I may run into?

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  • You could use a USB 3.0 hub so that you only need to run one long USB 3.0 cable from the computer. [Off-topic: if you have a young person available, have your computer running and ask them if they can hear any loud annoying noise - maybe there is a high-pitched whine that you don't perceive which nevertheless affects you. I assume you have already consulted a medical professional.]
    – Andrew Morton
    Mar 17, 2016 at 19:58
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    Can you play with headphones and thus eliminating graphics card and cpu cooler? And then sleep in another room and use a tablet for internet connection?
    – ott--
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:23
  • As for performance / noise, have you looked at liquid cooling? You can do so and be virtually no noise other than a very slow running fan for the radiator. Might be worth looking into :)
    – Eric F
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:23
  • @EricF have liquid cooling for the CPU already, but it's still noisy...
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:34
  • @ott-- I want a fundamental solution... other people may play as well and we wanna have a good time together.
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:34

2 Answers 2

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USB 2 can be extended up to <=5M, USB 3 <=3M, beyond this you can use USB hubs as repeaters at those intervals, or powered extension cables. There may be small latency increases, which with normal hardware would unlikely be noticed. For a mouse and keyboard, I wouldn't suspect any perceptible delay, although it may be possible with specialist gaming hardware that their benefits are slightly negated.

Perhaps consider a water-cooling system, if your machine is so loud it's damaging your hearing it may be insufficiently cooling as it is. If that's not the case or you don't wish to modify this, perhaps consider noise cancelling/isolating headphones.

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  • Thanks for throwing the idea of a repeater. I didn't know there's such a thing. But is there a repeater of 20m? Btw I already have liquid cooling for the CPU, but it's still noisy.
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:36
  • @thequantumphysicist you can daisy chain them up to the maximum each time, you can buy long active extension cables, and I've also seen adapters before that connect usb <-> Cat5/6 <-> usb that, supposedly, worked to 100m, such as this
    – Jonno
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:42
  • oh, thanks! Do you know how much latency we're talking? Is it microseconds or milliseconds?
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:54
  • @TheQuantumPhysicist Honestly I've never tried anywhere near that length, but I'd expect the answer to be measured in microseconds. Looking at some reviews for active extension cables, nobody seems to claim a perceivable latency issue.
    – Jonno
    Mar 18, 2016 at 4:05
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I'm sensitive about noise as well, I know that feeling. I was obsessed with fan noise like you.

Things you can do:

  • Underclocking GPU and CPU
  • Changing fan speeds
  • Changing hard disk sleep timer (so it sleeps like after 5min idle, it doesn't spin thus no noise)
  • Cleaning your heatsinks, if your temperature is above 50C when idle(if you did invest a lot for cooling, and you are having more than 50C when idle, that's not normal)
  • Reapplying thermal paste (Maybe it's not applied well, or its been a long time since you applied it)

I will not describe you how to do these in this answer, because if I would, then this answer would turn into a 20 page manual :) But you can find HOWTOs for these easily in web.

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  • Thanks for the answer. Actually I'm looking for a fundamental solution... I play high-end games like BF4 and Crysis 3, which uses my overclocked config.
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:36
  • Ah, so you don't mean the idle time. You wan't to burn your computer and play remotely, OK.
    – ferit
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:38
  • yep... pretty much!
    – The Quantum Physicist
    Mar 17, 2016 at 20:50

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