In the end I managed to get 2 second hand Fujitsu 40gb SATA 2.5" HDDs for £16 on ebay (I plan to build a 2nd HTPC soon) drive is very quiet cannot hear it at all above the CPU fan (Zalman 9500AT), I suspended it in a 3.5" bay using Bungie cord. Quite right I'm not exactly using the PC for anything ...

This maybe a good budget choice, if available in the US. Its a mid tower with 9x5.25" bays ideal for installing hot swap bays

http://www.sharkoon.com/html/produkte/p ... ex_en.html

On the outside of the case, is the PCI slot recess wide enough to fit a 120mm fan in it? If so you could try to soft mount a fan on the outside using a gasket and some stretchmagic/bungie cord so that you have a the equivalent of 2 rear exhaust fans with all the PCI slot covers removed of course. Ha...

my 2p.. having had a high end lian li case made of 2mm aluminum, the engineering is fantastic but not quiet, fans above 700rpm tend to make a lot of resonance even when soft mounted,and you have to suspend the drives or you get grumbling case noise. If you want aluminum I recon the Lancool range is ...

Recently I tried the Push Pull setup on my Infinity with 2 Nexus @ 7v and it seemed to create alot of added Air turbulence noise when in the case, which I think was the Rear case fan and the pull fan interacting as they were only a few cms apart. Does this mean you tried it outside the case and it ...

Does scythe sell that PWM slip stream fan separately? I've been wanting one forever. I don't beleive so, the only one I've found sold individually is the Kama PWM, not a bad fan btw. Recently I tried the Push Pull setup on my Infinity with 2 Nexus @ 7v and it seemed to create alot of added Air turb...

the Silverstone Sugo SG05 is supposed to be an excellent case

Just used the idea from this thread regarding pulling out the wire from the power led connector and moving it to another pin, excellent advice, don't need those maplin cables after all, thanks.

I know that the Scythe infinity is a tighter fin than the Ninja which is ideal for passive use, but could I use an Infinity with no fan on a E2180 cpu overclocked to 2.44 - 2.66 ghz?

Case is a Coolermaster CM330 with a Nexus rear fan only.

BTW newbie on the forum so hello to all

Okay 47 views and nothing

What I'm wondering is the platter density very low therefore the drive is slow? I'm finding it difficult to get any specs on this drive as its from an Xbox 360

I was thinking of using a Samsung 2.5" SATA 20gb Xbox HDD in a HTPC running Ubuntu 9.04, would this disk be too slow due to its small capacity? I was considering it as a cheap option. I don't need much storage space on the disk as I'll stream the media from my NAS and an Ubuntu install usually takes...

Its looks like it'll be worth all the effort in the end, as you are gonna have a really nice machiine.

Can't get over how big that Mini Ninja looks on the board!

Image as promised

Also what helps is you arrange the header cables in the right way to plug into the mobo and then use a thin piece of Duct tape to hold them together, acts as a makeshift Asus plug.

Hope you've got the power on switch working. For the Power Led you don't need to cut the connector, get down to maplins or the equivalent and they sell individual header wires so you can turn the 3 into a 2 (shold be just the outside 2 holes that you connect to on the case cable), I did the same thi...

MoJo wrote:You can't beat the keyboard on Thinkpads. They are more business oriented though...

Can't argue with you there, I have an old T41 and its the easiest keyboard I have ever used including desktop keyboards.