Introduction

Over the past few years silencing your computer has become an ever more present demand. There have been many products that have tried to cater for this demand such as silent cases and silent fans. But what most products don’t bear in mind is vibrations from hardware. It is with this in mind that Lamptron have sent me their silencing kits to review.

About Lamptron

Lamptron develops and markets the next generation of high performance computer peripherals using the latest technology that enables a new level of interaction between the end-user and their personal computer. Products developed are through a combination of proprietary technology, innovation and ergonomic industrial design.

Product Specifications

Packaging

The product is delivered in an injection-moulded plastic case – - the type that you can cut your fingers on – - with a rather boring cardboard insert. The insert is basically just a sheet of cardboard with a few product specifications on the back and the product name and company name on the front.

Once out of its plastic housing you can see that the box itself is separated into compartments, each with a different piece of kit in.

The box itself is quite sleek in its appearance and locks shut with a latch mechanism.

Included in the package is:

• 12pcs Black Rubber Screws for Open Chassis Fan
• 8pcs Black Rubber Screws for Closed Chassis Fan
• 6pcs Black Deluxe Rubber Screws for Open Chassis Fan
• 12pcs Black HDD Rubber Screw
• 4pcs Black Rubber Case Feet
• 1pcs 12V->9V Silent Fan Cable
• 1pcs 12V->7V Silent Fan Cable

Lamptron Noise Reduction Kit

Once I had taken the rubber parts out, I thought that they felt of poor quality and would snap when stretched, fortunately they didn’t break but they did have that smell of smokiness to them which surprised me.

Firstly, the rubber feet feel very strong and also quite rubbery so they should do well in dampening the sound of the case.

The silent fan cables, which are basically for undervolting your fans, look like standard fan cables – - no cable braiding – - and there is a large fundamental flaw about them, they only support a 3-pin fan connection which means there is no support for Molex and 4-pin fans.

As to the purpose of the rest of the kit I can only guess, as none of the compartments are labelled, nor the rubber pieces. My thoughts however are that these long rubber pieces are for closed chassis fan connections.

The smaller rubber connectors seem to be for open chassis fans.

The name black HDD rubber screw is misleading, if you were to buy this item expecting some black rubber screws for your HDD you would actually find a few noise dampening rubber grommets instead and some extra-length metal case screws.

Testing and installation

The testing and installation was pretty easy as all I had to do was replace every connector in my case for the noise reducing ones and listen for any difference in sound levels.

Firstly I tested the case feet, I found that the adhesive wasn’t very strong and the feet fell off whenever I picked up the case.

The fan connectors however yielded much more promising results. To test them I installed the loudest fan I had to hand inside my case and powered up the fan, the noise level had dropped dramatically when compared to using metal screws to connect the fans. I should state that I used both power cables and they worked brilliantly with the rubber fan mountings.

Now for the HDD screws, similarly I took the loudest HDD I had to hand – a Samsung 20GB IDE – and connected it up using the “rubber screws” amazingly enough; there was no change in sound levels. Unfortunately as well, the so-called “rubber screws” are mounted on the outside, which means the noise and vibrations from the hard drive wasn’t dampened at all and remained the same. It’s also worth mentioning that these screws for the hard drive are quite wide and probably won’t fit most cases without having to re-drill the holes in your bays.

Cost

The Lamptron Silencing kit can be found online for between £6-7, this is quite a large amount to charge for a product that has no instructions, is poorly thought through and doesn’t actually work.

Conclusion

Lamptron clearly haven’t thought this product through properly. If they had fixed all the little problems, this would actually be a good product. But as it stands, I can only award this product a mere 1/5.

Pros

• Fan attachments work well

Cons

• Rubber feet don’t stick
• Fan silencing cables are 3 pin only
• HDD screws don’t work and may have compatibility issues with some cases
• Expensive