(no subject)

[torkell]

You never realise just how loud your desktop is, until you sit and use the laptop instead. Without the sound of all the fans and whine of failing hard disk bearings, you can hear other sounds...

The wind in the trees outside, the rain lashing against the window.
The low buzz/rumble of the kitchen extractor fan resonating slightly, varying up and down in pitch.
The gentle airy whirr of the laptop hard disk, with the odd click as it talks to itself.
The reliable tick...tick...tick...tick... of a small clock.
The 'tock' of a relay and the hum of a pump as the boiler preheats the heat exchanger.

What do you hear right now?

Comments

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

whirr whirr whirr whirr as the 2 harddrives beat with each other.

My laptop is off, so I don't hear an angry "clack" every $RANDOM*3 hours as the actuators do scary stuff.

Preheating the exchanger? I found the hard way this winter, by putting the air conditioner on a timer to turn on an hour before I come to bed back at the lodge after night shift, that there is such a thing as too cold. Perhaps the heat exchanger froze up or something. But -1 degree or so, very cold wind blowing directly into the heat exchanger, and I heard it trying to start repeatedly, but it never got anywhere. Silly me thought that with the air conditioner having sufficient time to heat up the place before I got back, I wouldn't need to also put the electric blanket on.

[torkell]

Heh, I used to hear a beat pattern with the old case. A regular ...thruuuummmmm......thruuuummmmm......thruuuummmmm... from a couple of fans in there.

Re heat exchanger: combi-boilers have an internal heat exchanger for on-demand hot water (the central heating water is diverted through this). Some like to run for a few seconds every couple of hours to keep this warm so that you get hot water 'faster' when turning the tap on. It's slightly disconcerting when you first have one of these, and you hear it fire up for what seems like no reason.