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Does anyone have any experience with vibration isolation pads? I moved my desktop down to the floor, and now I'm feeling vibrations in the floor, which I would like to stop.

I've found a couple items that look promising, but I'm wondering if anyone has anything they can recommend.

The items I've found so far.
Sorbothane Anti-Vibration Circular Pad .5"(1.27cm)Thickx2.5"(6.35cm)Dia. 50 Duro-4Pack
http://www.amazon.com/Isolate-Sorbothan ... 53&sr=1-62

4 Pack of Anti Vibration Pads 4" x 4" x 7/8" All Purpose Super Duty Blue Composite foam Vibration isolation pads
http://www.amazon.com/Vibration-Purpose ... uctDetails

Mason NK2X2 Neoprene Waffle and Cork Sandwich Vibration Isolation Pad, 2" Length x 2" Width x 1" Thick
http://www.amazon.com/Mason-Neoprene-Sa ... WH5ZXGQ3Q1

I would go to the hardware store, and also check out your local arts & crafts stores. I recently bought some rubber matting at JoAnn Fabric for just this purpose. Only cost a couple bucks.

If you're feeling the vibration I'm guessing it's from hard drives? It may be better to try and damp the source within the case rather than damp the whole chassis, the heavier the object is you're damping the more material required to damp it. I've successfully damped my hard drives by suspending them in the 5.25" bays with elastic cord. It's very cheap to do and works well so long as you have the space and don't need to swap them out regularly. A google image search for "elastic cord hard drive" will show you what I mean, it seems to be the preferred method amongst the 'silent PC' crowd.

puppetworx wrote:

If you're feeling the vibration I'm guessing it's from hard drives? It may be better to try and damp the source within the case rather than damp the whole chassis, the heavier the object is you're damping the more material required to damp it. I've successfully damped my hard drives by suspending them in the 5.25" bays with elastic cord. It's very cheap to do and works well so long as you have the space and don't need to swap them out regularly. A google image search for "elastic cord hard drive" will show you what I mean, it seems to be the preferred method amongst the 'silent PC' crowd.

Those cord ideas are really nice. Never thought about them but lots of pics to go through. Thanks for the suggestion!

The sorbothane pads do a pretty good job, but they're probably overkill for what you have in mind. I have a few of them under the feet of the mini-lathe I have in my woodshop. If they work for that I'm sure they'd work for your PC.

Those pads you linked are nice but possibly overkill. Even some simple felt pads (or simple soft 'bumpers' meant for the same purpose) from a hardware store meant for furniture could help. They are pretty cheap so are worth a shot just to try.

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, give this a try. Just cut the pieces to whatever shape you want, and stack if necessary to get additional isolation.

I'm using dampening feet on all my speakers and subwoofers. That's basically the only reason that I can have and use 2 x 12" subwoofers for my home theater in an apartment. That and the fact there is no air drums, only a feet or so of concrete between me and my neighbors pads. So I would say that they work since my neighbors easily heard me a few years back with a par of much worse speakers but hard feet. So they should work as well for any other form of vibration.

The ones I have are important that they are semi-compressed, so mine are actually classed on what weight they need to support for optimal absorbation.

Aphasia wrote:

I'm using dampening feet on all my speakers and subwoofers. That's basically the only reason that I can have and use 2 x 12" subwoofers for my home theater in an apartment. That and the fact there is no air drums, only a feet or so of concrete between me and my neighbors pads. So I would say that they work since my neighbors easily heard me a few years back with a par of much worse speakers but hard feet. So they should work as well for any other form of vibration.

The ones I have are important that they are semi-compressed, so mine are actually classed on what weight they need to support for optimal absorbation.

Got links to them?

When I bought my 5.1 setup for this apartment, the sub is too much so I found a thin cardboard box (like 2" thick), fill it with packing peanuts, put the sub on top, and that was decently effective in "muting" the sub. I can still hear some bass but I fear that more will get me into trouble from the neighbours.

Redocbew wrote:

The sorbothane pads do a pretty good job, but they're probably overkill for what you have in mind. I have a few of them under the feet of the mini-lathe I have in my woodshop. If they work for that I'm sure they'd work for your PC.

MadManOriginal wrote:

Those pads you linked are nice but possibly overkill. Even some simple felt pads (or simple soft 'bumpers' meant for the same purpose) from a hardware store meant for furniture could help. They are pretty cheap so are worth a shot just to try.

I'm okay with overkill at $20.

just brew it! wrote:

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, give this a try. Just cut the pieces to whatever shape you want, and stack if necessary to get additional isolation.

That's an interesting idea. I'm just afraid it would compress too much and stacking would make it unstable.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

If you have a Harbor Freight store near you, give this a try. Just cut the pieces to whatever shape you want, and stack if necessary to get additional isolation.

That's an interesting idea. I'm just afraid it would compress too much and stacking would make it unstable.

Even if it doesn't work out at least it is cheap! If you stack it, putting something stiff between the layers would improve the stability while still getting you the isolation of the additional layers.

How about an old mousepad?

Flying Fox wrote:

Got links to them?

When I bought my 5.1 setup for this apartment, the sub is too much so I found a thin cardboard box (like 2" thick), fill it with packing peanuts, put the sub on top, and that was decently effective in "muting" the sub. I can still hear some bass but I fear that more will get me into trouble from the neighbours.

Of course, I have no idea if they are available outside of Scandinavia though, but you could probably find similar ones.

http://www.sonicdesign.se/sdfeet.html

From looking at the eng page, they don't ship to UK / Canada, only within EU and I guess UK, but even at that I'm think you should be able to find similar ones from somewhere for a better price. The price from the webshop is almost double from what it is in the brick and mortar stores. The material in use is from a discussion I had with a friend, supposedly used in sensitive electrics shops that need isolation as well.

My experience with passive vibration isolation mostly has been in laboratory settings.

Put a few of these babies under your desk, and none of those pesky vibrations from the neighbor's ultrasonic mining machinery will bother your hard drives again! http://www.thorlabs.us/thorproduct.cfm? ... ber=PTP602

FightingScallion wrote:

My experience with passive vibration isolation mostly has been in laboratory settings.

Put a few of these babies under your desk, and none of those pesky vibrations from the neighbor's ultrasonic mining machinery will bother your hard drives again! http://www.thorlabs.us/thorproduct.cfm? ... ber=PTP602

I'm sure there are audiophiles out there who would pay (and have paid) that much to isolate their tunrtables!

Redocbew wrote:

The sorbothane pads do a pretty good job

Many years ago, I became a fan of sorbothane when, as a birthday present, I was given a bicycle seat pad/cover that was a 1" thick pad of sorbothane. Amazing stuff, that (in this case) really improved my cycling user-experience