A reader asks: “How can I reduce laptop noise?”

Laptop noise usually comes from four components: the cooling fans; any spinning-media data-storage device (e.g. hard drive or DVD); the keyboard; and the speakers.

We’ll discuss those in reverse order, and immediately discount the speakers: I seriously doubt that’s the kind of noise you were referring to! You can just turn down the volume, or mute the system, to quiet them anyway.

Likewise, we won’t talk much about keyboard noise: You can easily avoid any noise from the laptop’s own keyboard by plugging in a high-quality, quiet, external USB or Bluetooth keyboard. (Such external keyboards are often better for typing anyway, with larger keys, and better key travel and tactile feedback.)

Hard drives have some unavoidable spin-up noise caused by the platter motor; and some “chattering” noise caused by the head movement. Many newer drives let you choose a “quiet mode” or “acoustic management” via settings in the firmware interface or BIOS; or accessible via add-on software. (Info; more info) This option lets you trade off some drive speed to quiet the mechanical noises. But it’s not a commonly-used setting, and some drives don’t allow it anyway.

After a drive has been used for a while, it may develop additional noise as the bearings wear: If you hear anything resembling incipient grinding or metal-on-metal, it’s time to start thinking about getting a new drive before the old one craps out. That’s a pain, but at least the new drive will likely be quieter than the old.

DVDs can be especially noisy during spinup/down; that’s often caused by an imbalanced DVD — things like a uncentered label or a poorly-manufactured disc can cause the whole drive to rattle or throb as it’s spinning. Your best bet here is never to needlessly leave a disc in the drive; and to use only high-quality discs and labels.

And that brings us to what’s often the noisiest part of a laptop: the fan.

Some noise is inevitable with fan-based cooling. For one thing, the kinds of small, high-speed fans often used in laptops inevitably produce air turbulence that you can hear; and the fan blades themselves may spin fast enough to produce a whine or whir.

Think back to the day you took the laptop out of its box: did you hear offensively loud fan noise when you first turned the laptop on? If so, the noise is a design issue, and may not be user-correctable.

But if your laptop fan was once quiet, and is now noisy, you might be able to fix it. Check the fan blades for encrusted dust and debris; use a cotton swab and a blast of compressed air to get the junk off the fan blades; and out of any laptop ducting, air passages, or grillwork. (For some related how-to, see an old, still-relevant article I wrote for InformationWeek: Langa Letter: Curing Laptop Overheating. It contains text and photos that show how to de-dust a laptop’s fans.)

If the fan is still noisy after the blades and air passages are clean, the fan’s bearings may be worn, allowing the blade assembly to vibrate as it spins. The only fix for this is to remove the old fan and install a new, exact replacement. (This may or may not be an easy repair, depending on the laptop design and your skill level.)

If you’ve tried all the above and the fan is still noisy, about all you can do is adjust the laptop’s power options or power plans to prevent it from running full bore (e.g. to avoid “high-performance mode,” or whatever your laptop calls it). Lower performance means less heat generated, which means the fan can either spin more slowly; or not have to spin at full speed as often or as long. Either way, reduced performance modes often are quieter than high-performance ones.

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