Yes. I use 5 volt Zener diodes to drop 12V to 7V for fans. Works great.

My 350 watt Smartpower 2.0 has been in service for about nine months and is working fine. I removed the rear fan and built a duct for intake in the front.

I have a few black mesh covers for 5.25 inch single slots. The covers were removed from my Coolermaster Centurion 5 case when I installed the CD/DVD ROM drives.

What's your location? Maybe I can mail you one. Or you can check with Coolermaster. Else, find someone locally who has a Centurion 5 case.

Recommend the MSI board. There is an excellent tutorial at Anandtech Forums.

Recommend the MSI board. There is an excellent tutorial at Anandtech Forums.

The stock heatsink looks a lot like the Zalman aftermarket HS. You might just try the mainboard "as is". I don't think you will have any problems, but if you do, just rig a slow, quiet 80mm fan to blow some air across the HS.

Ditto to all of kentc's comments. Very satisfied with my new rig. See below

Looks like my little project is a success! The enclosure is sitting on bubble wrap in the bottom of the PC case and is SILENT! The little bit of high frequency noise turned out to be resonance in the top aluminum L pieces. I superglued a 3/4 inch square piece of carving rubber to each L and the reso...

Your assumption is correct. Nothing but air. No fan either. Apparently, the thickness of the aluminum is helpful. However, now I notice a very low level but high frequency sound when seeking?

Felger, I have a work in progress that you may be interested in. It's the basic carving rubber box - at least, on the top, bottom, front and rear. The sides consist of two 1 x 1 x 1/8 inch pieces of aluminum "L" angle stock bolted together to form a "C". The aluminum "C" is attached directly to the ...

I bought Dynamat at Circuit City for less than $20 if I remember correctly ( it was just enough for 1 case). Money well spent.

I have a different video card that is equipped with VIVO and I just use an old VCR as a tuner, connected to the Composite Input of the video card. TV looks great! A cheap way to go, especially if you have a surplus VCR.

I agree with Jackylman concerning the MSI 6150 board. Read the reviews. The onboard audio is very good and the onboard video is sufficient for HDTV. You can build a fairly nice system with only a TV capture card in a PCI slot. Later, if you get the urge for high performance gaming, get a strong PCI-...

I have that PSU and I am very satisfied with it. My rig is relatively low powered, so I don't know whether the PSU fan would ramp up under a "mid-range" load of 150 watts or so. I have an XP-M 2600 CPU and a Radeon 9250 video card. The SuperFlower power supply is essentially silent at this load.

Yes, I use the Video IN. I feed a TV signal through an old VCR and into the Video IN. I am using a basic copy of Intervideo WinDVD Recorder for the software necessary for watching and recording TV. The quality of the TV picture as viewed on your computer CRT or LCD far surpasses what you see on an o...

I have that Powercolor 9250 card and I am happy with it. Excellent value for the price.

Maybe if you tried a resistor in PARALLEL with the thermistor. Comments?

Something that has worked well for me is a bottom air intake. I cut a 120mm hole in the bottom of the case and relocated the front fan in my Black Knight case. Elevated the case with homemade 1.5 inch legs. The fan is inaudible and case temps are excellent. Bluefront's posts got me started with this...

In my experience, Dynamat works well in reducing vibration. Before I got smart, I had an aluminum case. Even with low speed fans, tne vibration was annoying. Applying Dynamat to the entire interior helped a lot. There was still noise. You can touch the side of the case to see if it is vibrating. For...

I have the Spire Whisperrock IV, available from NewEgg for $20 shipped. It looks about the same as thr Masscool, but the fan may be a bit quieter. At 12 volts, you can hear it but its probably acceptable as a temporary measure. I have mine quieted down with a 5 volt Zener diode in series. It turns a...

Well, I can only tell you that my SuperFlower is very quiet. My rig is a low power setup, with a 45 watt XP-M CPU. There are several SuperFlower models. Mine is the single fan version. It has three fan speed settings: low, auto, and turbo. The auto setting is temperature controlled. The low setting ...

I have a 350 watt single 14 cm. fan Super-Flower. Its very quiet in my rig.

Ferdb is right. Connecting two Zeners in parallel is probably a bad idea. It won't hurt anything but it also may not increase the maximum wattage. In any event, as Tay says, with the fans you have, a 1 watt Zener is more than enough.

There is yet another way to 7 volt a fan. Go to Radio Shack and buy a 5 volt Zener diode. Insert the diode into the 12V fan lead. The Zener will drop 5 volts, leaving you with 7V to the fan. You can buy a 2 pack of 1 watt Zeners at Radio Shack for about a buck. If you are not sure that a 1 watt rati...

There seems to be some confusion here. Twice the electrical power is +3 dB, half power is -3 dB. However, the human brain/ear subsystem responds logarithmically, so to takes a 10 dB increase to SOUND twice as loud, a 10 dB decrease SOUNDS half as loud. That is why two identical fans don't SOUND twic...

I just bought a Black Knight case. My DIY build will use an XP-M 2600, AIW 9600, 2x256 TwinX PC3200, 'Cuda 4, WinXP. Gonna try a cheap FalconRock IV HSF just for kicks. PS is a Super-Flower with 14cm fan (looks like a Fortron), Shuttle AN35n Ultra 400. Will run stock and/or undervolted. Now the issu...

The tech support people at Coolermaster say that the power supply fan runs at about 1500 RPM at 50% loading and 3000 RPM at 100% loading. Since most of us only run at perhaps 50% loading, I think this power supply may be "in the ballpark" for us quiet PC enthusiasts. Still hoping one of the experts ...

Yes, I agree. With my setup it is necessary to have the PC on your left. Also, you probably wouldn't want to cut a blowhole if you have a window. I think the Alpha heatsinks, which were considered the best available a couple of years ago, are still top performers when low RPM fans are used. Thanks f...

I have an Alpha PAL8045 with a Papst 1500 rpm fan blowing up. I cut a blowhole in the side of the case directly beside the HSF/fan. The power supply is a modded Zalman with an air duct to the front of the case and a Panaflo running at about 9 volts, courtesy of a siries resistor. Hard drives are Bar...