Oh, also, my CPU temps with no CPU fan (only exhaust fan) were 45/65+. The idle temperature was stable but under load the temperature was increasing pretty steadily so I stopped it after a few minutes at 65.

Well, now I have to apologize for the message board spam because I unplugged the CPU fan (easy to do with the Fan Mate) and the vibration is still there... it must be from the hard drive... I thought the vibration went away when I unplugged the hard drive but I must be mistaken. Look like it's time ...

No. My hard drive did cause a lot of vibration but I put a square of foam under it and now it's basically impossible to tell if it's on or off when the case is closed. The packing materials from an old motherboard included a sheet of foam that worked perfectly for this. HD temps are only 5-10C hotter.

Thanks for the foam tape idea. Unfortunately I haven't gotten the hang of mounting fans on the Mugen and it has been kind of a pain both times I've done it, so I'm loathe to switch out the fan again. (I replaced the Scythe fan for a 3-pin Nexus fan so now I can control the speed with a Fan Mate inst...

Thanks for the reply and I understand what you're saying. I screwed down my side panel but unfortunately it didn't seem to help. Surely fan vibration must be an issue even with nice fans though, otherwise why would Nexus ship its fans with those silicone mounts? I wonder if an Arctic Cooling fan wou...

Overall I'm extremely happy with the quietness of my computer. But I have noticed that at certain ambient temperatures, and near-idle loads, my computer will make a humming noise for ~20 seconds, then be quiet for ~20 seconds, then hum again, etc. (Not unlike water torture. You can see how this migh...

Okay, I just got my desktop computer to a level of quietness that I'm very satisfied with, thanks in large part to SPCR. (Just donated!) - 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad (Q6600), 6 GB RAM, random passive $30 nVidia 9400 video card - Antec Sonata III case - Scythe Mugen 2, mobo controlling PWM fan, RPMs are ~750...

Thanks for the suggestions. Perfect. Although I did find the SeaSonic X Series 650 which should theoretically operate in passive mode since my system only draws 90-120 watts from the wall right now. Not sure why anybody would buy a fanless PS when you could get one of these for basically the same pr...

Long time (occasional) SPCR reader, first time poster! I have more or less decided to bite the bullet and get a fanless power supply, but at the last minute I realized that these are supposed to be mounted at the bottom of a case. (Seems obvious now.) So I did a quick Newegg search for cases with bo...