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Residents who live near data centers say a constant low-frequency vibration is ruining their health and homes (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 2 months ago* by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 32 points 2 months ago (1 child)

Have a number of big fans run at almost the same frequency, and you get an onslaught of waves at the differences of those frequencies.

As they are all nearly the same speed/frequency, the differences will be infrasound, which causes a lot of odd effects on people, like anxiety.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    So basically the data centers could alleviate their sound problems by having all their fans run at opposite frequencies to cancel our the sound through deconstructive interference

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Or soundproof the building.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Isn't it really difficult to soundproof against the low frequency noises?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Just use corrugated cardboard and with longer sine waves, duh!

    I am not an audio engineer but you might have a point in that the longer low sound waves would be harder to block.

    Where my audiophiles at? We need a sound check on low frequency blocking.

    Edit:
    Found an article on a crypto mining facility mitigating noise issues.

    https://noisemonitoringservices.com/data-center-noise-control/

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The problem is that you cannot get them synced sufficiently. You basically have to route the complete air flow through a padded chamber to dampen their own and the derived sounds.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Let's get a grant going and do some tests. Surely if you get a couple of jet engine generators next to each other and fiddle with their frequencies you can get some deconstructive interference. I suspect though that there might be some loss in efficiency, and no data center wants higher fuel costs. Only one way to find out though let's get this science funded

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    No because the problem only exists because of differences in the frequencies the fans actually run at. If they all run it exactly the same frequency it would just be a loud hum which would be annoying but fine.

    So if they got control of their fan frequencies to the level necessary to do what your suggesting they could just have them all run at the same frequency anyway and alleviate the problem that way. But they won't because that kind of fan control isn't really possible.

    The real solution would be some kind of soundproofing and maybe not building massive data centres in populated areas.

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