What is the dust ingestion like? The vents aren't filtered and it seems like it's a negative pressure layout, so dust will be welcomed with open slits. It's only been running for a month and a bit so far, but a glance through the window shows no dust buildup yet. But yep, it is negative pressure so...

Love it when testing proves a hunch wrong :) Turns out that, with my components , the addition of a front fan makes close to no difference at all. That component choice may be relevant though; comparing my temps to those Lawrence was seeing in his U3 review I was initially worried I was doing someth...

Hi QuietCat, sorry for the delay. Nope, no magical ducting. As to how useful that extra front fan is, I'm only going on gut here as I haven't tested in any meaningful way, but my gut says "probably small but nevertheless meaningful". My hunch is that temps which, with the CPU & exit fans alone would...

1. I'd be sure to seal up any problematic gaps but with the fans mounted as if they were radiators, there would only be a small gap around the fans. They'd have to pull air from inside the case, against their own flow of exhausted air, in order to pull in unfiltered air. The only part of the case t...

1. Regarding positioning fans deeper within the case. Testing would show for sure but my hunch is that you'd gain no noticeable acoustic benefit at modest fan speeds. Potentially more problematic could be that moving the intake fans away from their filters you incentivise them to pull air from the p...

MiniITX gaming builds have been all the rage on SPCR lately, my contribution uses the Jonsbo U2 case - the even teenier version of the U3 MicroATX/MiniITX Lawrence reviewed in September . QuietPC & Scan are the only dealers I'm aware of selling these in the UK, nominally under the Cooltek brand. I u...

Just thought I'd drop a note about this fan as purchased to replace the stock fan on my CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo cpu heatsink. That stock fan - as detailed at http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=65208 - I found too loud and had an annoying warbling resonance at the c.1000rpm ...

With the motherboard that I bought (Sabertooth Z77), would I be able to use USB 3.0 ports that are on the front of some cases? Yes, there's a USB 3.0 header on that board just next to the sata ports and three USB 2.0 headers at the bottom of the board. Is there anything I'm not thinking about in re...

Hyper 212 Evo is quite small as tower coolers go. It fits handily in a great many micro ATX cases so I'd certainly not envisage any problems in a mid tower ATX. Check potential cases for a clearance height of 165mm+ and you'll be golden. If I may query your parts list slightly - why full size ATX? I...

Thanks, MiniMatt, for that info. In reading the links I also found this link http://www.silentpcreview.com/article22-page1.html which identifies possible temperature issues (as well as solutions) when using elastic bands. So if heat does become a problem, adding narrow aluminum side rails to the su...

Regarding quieting the hard drive with "two rubber bands", is there a particular kit that is known to do a good job, or do you literally mean some sort of modding using two rubber bands? If the latter, is there a description of how to do it? (This is my first build, and I'm not familiar with these ...

I dithered between the Fractal Define Mini and the TJ08-E for a long while before finally settling on the Fractal. I now kinda wish I'd gone for the TJ08-E but I strongly suspect had I done so I'd now be kind of wishing I'd gone for the Fractal :) The mini is a darn fine case but a little bigger tha...

Just trying to make sure I've grasped what you're talking about when referring to the sides of a door, some hamfisted ascii art: Left side view Slatted door sides __________________ | |\| | |\| | |\| | |\| | |\| | |\| | |\| ------------------ [] [] Open door sides __________________ | | | | | | | | ...

Recently put their "Straight Power" E9 480W modular into a recent partial upgrade . From a purely subjective perspective my ears comprehend this as similarly inaudible at normal operating ranges (73 watt i3-530, c.80 watt HD7770 graphics). As best I can tell, the Straight Power range keep the noise ...

Yep, a bit of monkeying around with Speedfan has confirmed a replacement fan is in order. Speedfan can knock the rpm of the stock fan down to near but not quite inaudible but the warbling resonance remains between 650 and 1200 or so RPM (it might remain at higher revs too, but just by that time drow...

"Very quiet", "off the shelf parts", and "gaming" is now, to my very great pleasure, easy. I've been lurking around here for five years or so and with a limited budget have only ever really achieved a noise level of "tolerable" but with the latest partial upgrade, and more importantly with very litt...

Howdy folks, I've done enough lurking and searching to know that the answer to pretty much any question about airflow is going to be "it depends" :D So, hopefully a slightly more intelligent question - beyond gut instinct and a degree of common sense how do you model airflow to check that what you t...

MiniMatt − Welcome to SPCR !!!! or that Eee all-in-one keyboard to ZX. Thanks for the welcome :D And ooooh - we like :D If I can run Visio, telnet/ssh and an email client on that I'm sold. Actually, I really am, that's fantastic. I guess the reason we all lug around hulking great rigs is so that ...

Long time lurker, first time poster etc :D Howdy all. Interesting thread :D Personally I go more with the idea of moving the GPU off board with PCI-E extender cables - I figure that allows for evolution of the standard rather than revolution. However, I am old and as such *we fear change*. How about...