Hello: The price certainly makes them *very* attractive! However, New Egg is currently totally sold out of *all* the black versions! That must tell you something...what do the addtional letters in the model number mean? Some units seem to only have USB front ports, while others add audio and some al...

Hello d_kay: Is the cpu-fan blowing air onto the heatsink, or is it extracting the air from the heatsink?. Which is the most common?. Most HS fans blow air down through the HS, though there are some that work better when air is sucked up through the HS; like the Alpha PAL8045. It has a shroud that g...

Hello ExoticPC: As an aside, the current ExoticPC website works pretty horribly with my two favorite browsers: Konqueror (in Linux) and Opera 6.05 (in Windows). In Konqueror, I get the flanking frames, but the main window is *blank*! And in Opera, the main page is there but all jumbled and overlappi...

Hello Katana Man: Please do tell us how it works -- $32 is a lot less that $60 which is what the 300watt SilenX PS goes for. It may have the disadvantage of more awkward air flow (the "90 degree" bend) but it may be quiet at 5 volts and still move a lot of air. And the fan is "buried" a bit inside t...

>>Anybody came up with a tidy way of muffling or blocking those?<< I would look at Mike C.'s article here on SPCR reviewing case damping kits. He uses the Sonata as the test case, and you could install sheets of the damping over the "Antec" holes. Another possible mod is to open up the *inner* openi...

Hello: Ralf, thanks for the link to Jim's Cool Cases! Nice. I'm salivating over a black D8000 with both fan grills punched out... Do the (white) grommets in the HD mounting holes that I see in the pictures over at New Egg work well? And New Egg sells that Evercase in black sans PS for $36 including ...

Hello:

You left out (unless I missed it) what heatsink you are using?

Hello:

I noticed this review and though that someone might find it useful:

http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp_p5.htm#sfr2

Hello: I'll add the three 120mm fans that I have on hand to the "database:" Antec (Dynatron, TCP Motor are also on the frame) 120mmx38mm (2600RPM, 105 CFM, 44dBA, 0.52A): pretty loud at 12volts but it blows up a storm, and at 7volts it is quite a bit quieter and it still blows a lot. As others have ...

Hello: The 8045 is an excellent HS -- to switch to the SLK-800 would be a very small improvement. Is the fan set up to blow down into the HS, or is it pulling air up through it? Alpha recommends the latter -- that aluminum shroud is to help the air flow enter the pins down low so the cool air hits t...

Hello Mike: You grabbed some good bits. I used to be an audiophile of sorts, and I'm remembering something called the Fletcher/Munson curve. It has to do with a quite wide change in response of "our" (human) ears depending on the frequency. Bass (low) frequencies are the strangest: we have relativel...

Hello pandamonium54: After reading the thread topic, I thought -- that's easy: Papst. But, in you post you've added a "deal breaker:" there is no way that the Papst can push that kind of air. Then you mention undervolting -- yes this is a very cheap and (fairly) easy DIY thing to do. I would suggest...

Hello:

You can find several brands of Flex ATX PS on this page including SeaSonic and also HeroIchi, which was mentioned on another thread here on SPRC as being very quiet:

http://www.goroyalpc.com/submain.asp?m_ ... ction=list

Hello:

They are not the least expensive on the page! Comparing the 300watt units:

Enlight = $25
SeaSonic = $30 (w/ sleeve fan! )
Compucase HeroIchi & Topower 215 = $31
Topower 235 = $35
SeaSonic w/ball bearing fan = $59 (!)

So, the HeroIchi is right in the middle...

Hello Mike: The AnandTech article seems to have been corrected: it (now) reads that 8dB represents an approximate doubling of perceived volume. So by that standard, the quietest (Antec) is 4.5X to 8X quieter than the noisest (Vantec) (19-24dB difference). Yikes! The only problem with these noise fig...

Over at Dan's Data, he has tested over 125 heatsinks! http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm He doesn't have specific noise measurements, but he does often comment on the noise. As far as 38dBA being quiet or not, it depends a whole lot on how they measured it! 38dBA from less than an inch away (or ...

Hello quokked: I just replaced it with the stock fan again, which doesn't have this problem. It was basically that the fan part itself was chattering/vibrating in a way that was self-perpetuating. The other tweak that I made in order to slow the PS fan down was to dislodge the thermistor from being ...

Hello: If its not a build up of dust on the blades that is causing the noise, then you can try just a small drop of oil. That is if you can get to the bearings. Some are right under the sticker, and some are inaccessable. I use the oil that I already own for use in my slot cars, which has a very con...

Hello:

61C @ idle? Yikes! Seems like you might want to find a more efficient heatsink, for sure! A much more reasonable temperature for a HS with a full speed fan might be 20 degrees less than that...and even 61C at full load might make me nervous. Nevermind damaging the thing.

What CPU is it?

Hello: From the fabulous (and GIANT!) Dan's Data Cooler Comparison: http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm and specifically from here: http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp_p3.htm#sk7 it says that the SK7 does "very, very well with a medium powered fan" (80mm YS Tech) and the same with the TDM fan. It ...

I have one on order and would like to put a water block on the northbridge (there's currently a big passive cooler, but I'm guessing that this would need airflow from the CPU heatsink fan - which I've eliminated). I very much doubt that it needs any extra cooling. Do you have any case fans? How abo...

You won't get any shielding from it either -- you could wreck havok on other devices like wireless phones or whatever. There is a good reason to have steel or at least aluminum cases...

Looks kewl, though you will have to be a very neat builder!

does anyone know if the chieftec "dragon" case's steel is thicker than the Palo Alto PA-810? If the Chieftec is the same as the Antec's (which they are very similar to) then they are 1.0mm thick steel, and it's good strong steel, too. Not soft "peanutbutter" steel like so many cheap cases. If the P...

I thought that these were identical to the Antec cases As someone mentions in near the beginning of this thread: Antec, Chieftec, Chenming and some CoolMaster, and several/many others are sourced from the same OEM. That is, the carcasses are the same, but the paint is "by" the company who's name is...

You might look into the Thermaltake Volcano 7+ -- it costs as little as $22 with fan that has 3 speeds. High is quite loud, but medium is nearly as effective and a lot quieter.

http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp_p3.htm#v7p

Hello: I may be confusing the SlientDrive with the SmartDrive, but I don't think so: the SilentDrive has no way to cool the HD, and so with some HD's you will possibly have troubles with premature HD death. Heat and HD's are enemies; even slightly elevated temps can shorten the life of an HD. If I'm...

Will a rear 120mm be better than having a pair of 2 80mm rear exhaust fans as in the Antec/Chieftec cases?

Yes! The other thing that can happen with two idendical fans close to each other is if they are *slightly* different speeds, then you get a beat frequency which only makes them noisier.

Hello:

The rear fan grill would have to go -- cut it out, Dremel it smooth and install a wire grill, is what I would do. And as others have mentioned, the front intakes would probably have to be tweaked if you put any fans in them.

Hello p_UK: This is an easy answer: LCD monitors are silent (well for all intents and purposes, they are). All they consist of is some light bulbs, and the screen with colored pinholes that each have a little "shutter" in the LCD panel. The "biggest" source of any possible noise is the voltage trans...

Hello: Sure you can just bend 'em a few times to break them off, but that leaves sharp and nasty looking twisted bits metal... I like the idea of having some sort of a finger guard in front of any fan, and while the wire grill is more elegant, it also takes a lot more effort and I'm not sure it woul...