I don't want to invest much money into stuff that won't be useful if I upgrade, but I'm willing to invest time and effort. That could be interesting and I could learn something. I'd like to focus on the prominent noise sources first rather than handling everything at once. The fans on the Antec Eart...

I have a first generation Antec Sonata case. I chose it for quietness, but never tried to modify it to make it really quiet. Noise sources inside were the 120 mm rear fan, the stock CPU cooler, the PSU fan, and the hard drive. Most noise is from airflow, and the rear fan, which is probably getting a...