Sounds like this will be my next CPU HSF! I was going for a Ninja, but this seems less ... excessive. Thanks for the review.

Welcome to SPCR! * * Sorry for not writing it in a gaudy color and a larger font, I was too lazy to determine the right formatting codes. ;) Try soft-mounting the hard drives - it's extremely easy, extremely cheap and very effective, especially in aluminum cases (got a Lian Li, too). Although unfor...

That's kind of ugly. But eh, whatever floats his boat, right? It certainly stands out.

The PC6277 reviews are from 2004, so this isn't exactly a new case... although it's newly available in that shop. Doesn't get me very excited, though.

Will do. Not sure how insightful my commentary can be, but hey at least I can take a photo.

Aleksi, you're right, that's what I was looking at. I went ahead and bought the 400W unit for 21 Euros including shipping, I guess you can't really do anything wrong at that price. If it doesn't work out for some reason or another, I'll look into using it in an old machine or something. Thanks for r...

Thanks Tibors. I guess nobody is eager to enlighten me on the future safeness of the Seasonic? I'll probably just buy it and hope, then...

No Seasonics and no Antecs, though. And somebody on Slashdot commented: The review tested all these products in FSG Groups facility, an employee of FSG Group is said to be "sexy" in the review, and a product from FSG Group won? Yeah, right... Hohum.

Hi folks, I could buy a SS-400FS for an ungodly low price, but I'm wondering whether this kind of dated PSU will still be sufficient for a modern system? I'm probably going to upgrade RSN, new mid-end graphics card, A64 "3000+", S-ATA HDs and so on. I'm not worried about my current setup, everything...

A Seasonic PSU will keep the HDs cool without the middle fan - pretty much any active PSU will, as long as the vents on the back of the case are taped up. PSUs with top intakes (ie basically all 120mm units) are not exactly what the guys had the designers had in mind, but it turns out they work fine...

Be sure to buy good headphones to enjoy watching movies on your newly acquired leaf blower.

I'd recommend something like an A64 3000+ if you're looking for bang for the buck. Certainly not cutting edge, but fast enough, and judging by your choice in graphics card, you're opting for sanity anyway. Overclocks well, from what I hear. Also, lose the HD enclosure, complete waste of money IMO. E...

Why do you want to go RAID, anyway? If it's about speed, you probably shouldn't go with a file server in the first place, I'd think a single local HD will be faster than a remote RAID, even over gigabit LAN. Of course it might be about data security, but then simple mirroring would be enough, and da...

If I were you, I'd just get the P180 and take it from there. If you think vibration is an issue, I'd first decouple what isn't decoupled already (some fans, especially), then I'd think about more case damping.

I thought it was a fair review, better than I would have expected to see in a round-up of that size. The only thing they should have done better is simply remove the fan in the bottom, leaving room for the HDDs in the back instead of putting them in the top portion of the case. Since they are using ...

Yeah, there are companies that sell quiet/silent PCs. Obviously at a certain price premium. I assume the others will have more and better suggestions, the only one that came to my mind right off was silentmaxx.de in Germany. They sell a fairly high-end computer - A64 3500+, 1 GB RAM, dual 6600GTs, d...

They are pulling your chain. While the PSU might be to blame for random crashes under load, it's absurd to say this for certain without actually trying another PSU. The 11.7V value certainly isn't indicator enough to make such a claim, anyway. Random crashes like you describe are sometimes horribly ...

Hm. I think AoE sounds interested, but really only from a technical point of view - if it works as well as you say it does, that's quite a feat and very neat/cool. And I'm sure there are cases where it's useful. I don't see using it for silencing though, that'd just be way too involved for me. You'd...

Great post, very interesting. The paper flaps are hilarious, great idea - although I don't really see the motivation, ie how this is more efficient than just covering them all the time.

FWIW my Lian Li came with a speaker. I think. At least something's beeping in there.

Awesome article. Not too long at all, I'd love to see more really in-depth articles like this one, although I'm aware that there's a huge amount of work involved.

Somewhere else someone commented that the air outside the case mixes with the ambient air so quickly that taking in exhausted air is usually not an issue, unless you're dealing with extremely cramped spaces where there isn't a whole lot of ambient air in the first place. Outside of that, the air fro...

If anybody in Germany/the EU is interested, Frozen Silicon now takes pre-orders for the P180. 159 Euros, though, ow. Didn't want to create a thread for it so I'm just posting this here.

Too bad I was late, because I just read a fair amount about the various HVAC power plugs on Wikipedia - sthayashi's PDF is a lot more detailed, though. Just for fun, here's the page on domestic power plugs.

Interesting review. I hope you guys stay on the ball, if AOpen decides to release a better HSF - which they obviously SHOULD DO - I'd love to see the review updated.

Regarding the side panel hooks that fellow broke, one the one hand I guess it's not so much of an issue considering how he broke them. One the other hand, it would have been nice if they were more solid - made from metal and bolted to the side panel, something like that.

Why have the "spoiler" at all? To prevent smaller (solid) stuff from falling in (the fan grill is too open to protect well), I suppose. Hm. I think a simple wire grill would have been more sensible, then. If you make it extruded, it will also prevent people from putting stuff on it like Rusty sugge...

Well, most if not all of these issues were already raised in other threads, especially the (long) review thread. Intake air must make a sharp 90 degree turn when entering the case with the front door closed. This will result in more air turbulence and lower efficiency when compared to a traditional ...

The top "spoiler" - Why not use a solid design, as to redirect noise to the back of the case, instead of allowing it to be released upward? Then again, this could easily be fixed with black electrical tape. You know, I've been wondering (aloud) about that ever since I saw the first images of the sp...

Hmm. I just had an idea: how about removing the PSU fan and using the PSU fan controller to control the case fan instead? Probably a bad idea when using the Phantom 500, since it might be off for long stretches while the HDs are being cooked. But with other PSUs, the fan would turn at low idle all t...