If it's moving air noise, then that's not due to any fault with the fan. I thought you said there was mechanical noise? You shouldn't be hearing airflow noise with the fan at 600RPM. The only thing I can think of is noise caused by airflow restriction at the intake of the case. Hard drives can also ...

I don't think you're being too fussy. I would feel the same way. Your fan should be inaudible even at close range. Wasn't that your goal from the outset? It's a shame to have come so far to be let down by a dodgy fan.

I agree, there is potential to build a better, more efficient duct. What this project goes to show is that it can be done easily without special materials or techniques, and works quite well even in a fairly hot system like this one. It's also very easy to remove and replace (eg I forgot to take a p...

Ok, now I'm convinced that your temperatures are good. As I said before, idle temperatures sometimes don't mean much. I'm glad that's especially true in this situation. Your load temperatures reveal that your setup is working properly. You have plenty of headroom to take account of ambient temperatu...

Unfortunately your temperatures still seem too high. At this point I'm a bit concerned that your heatsink is not mounted properly. What temperatures are you getting with the side of the case open? I've got a smaller heatsink and a faster clocked CPU, but I'm idling at 36degC at 23 ambient. However I...

While it is educational to understand what your CPU voltages are doing, for the sake of using RealTemp, you don't need to do anything. Just download it and run it. I didn't even know that there were instructions. I think they are mainly for overclockers or pedants. If you want something simpler you ...

Don't worry, I can easily understand it. I'm grateful that people in other countries make the effort to learn English. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer to your questions. Do you really need mini-ITX? It can limit your options, especially if you're on a budget.

Yes it looks very interesting, especially the first one. Some more pictures and details would be great!

That's a great result, you'll never need to worry about overheating.

I've been using the same Fanmate for 5 years in different PCs, and my fan speed stays pretty constant.

Speedfan gives me all kinds of wacky values. It's telling me now that Core0 and Core1 are both a steady 35, which I know they are not. Just because they are labelled INTEL CORE, doesn't really mean anything. Also, as you will find out when you get RealTemp, the actual core temperatures will fluctuat...

I've had plenty of problems with substandard stuff, so it's not just you. I'm constantly whinging to my girlfriend about it. In fact I try not to buy much stuff these days because I know that I'm almost guaranteed to be disappointed. If you get another fan, get a Nexus, as they seem to be consistent...

The fan at those speeds should be effectively silent, even from a foot away. When I had problems with my fan, I felt similar to you - it wasn't loud, but just kind of annoying being aware of it. That's not what I paid for! Being a bit of a pedant, I drove 40km to get it replaced. Even though the new...

I got these silicone fan mounts, great price:
viewtopic.php?t=52868

I can't explain why the fan speed is changing like that. With all automatic fan controls switched off, it should be stable. As for the clicking noise, I think you've got a defective fan. There should be no mechanical noise whatsoever. I had one of those fans and it ran quietly for about a month and ...

Thanks for the link Shamgar. I've been using Ceramique, but I think I will get MX-2 next time.

It's not really necessary for a lot of builds, but it gives us all a standard to refer to. I always test my systems in this way even though I never put them under full load in practice. In this situation it would be very educational to see what kind of performance can be achieved from a completely p...

In contrast to that article, I like to spread the paste as much as possible. I use less than the size of a grain of rice, and use a credit card or plastic to spread a thin layer all over the CPU. Keep spreading it around until it is quite even. It should be thin enough that you may be able to read t...

Prime95 for an hour would give a more definitive answer.

Are you certain that it's just the fan making all the noise? What configuration did you end up with? Maybe you could post a photo of your PC.

Blanket statements like "only zero moving parts can be silent" unintentionally serve to make others feel inferior, when the level of inaudibility they have achieved is reasonable enough for them. As a result of feeling inferior, they might end up spending needless amounts of money trying to match w...

At this stage it might be worthwhile trying to get a Fanmate if you can. Otherwise, if you like soldering you can insert some diodes on one of the fan leads to lower the voltage.

Don't mean to rub it in, but this is why I suggested a hardware type controller like Fanmate. Set and forget.

I don't know much about Athlons, but I've got a fanless Ninja Mini on an Intel E5300. I was able to run the CPU at load for an hour with the case fan switched off, and I got better temps than what you mentioned. I don't think your case is the problem. There may be a problem with the way your heatsin...

Holy grail indeed!

Thanks hybrid, good post. There's no thread I know of that discusses all the "issues", but there's a long article at Anandtech that explains why the newer SSDs with the improved controller chip are the ones you want. The OCZ Solid uses an older generation controller that doesn't perform well. There'...

I'd steer clear of the "Solid" series SSD. Get a Vertex instead, or there are newer ones from other manufacturers which could be better value. Slot load drives are hard to find and expensive, and I've never understood why. The only one I know of is the Sony Optiarc AD7670S which is listed here http:...

+1

Cutting grilles might not be necessary, but if you decide you want to do it, try to get Wiss tinsnips. They are fairly cheap and will do quite a neat job, even for a beginner. Someone wrote a tutorial about it somewhere in the forums.

Suspending it will help a lot. Use clothing elastic, it's cheap and it will last. I bought a fairly quiet caviar blue a year ago and I'm already getting serious SMART errors. I bought another one this year and it's louder, sounds like a completely different drive. I recently used a caviar black in a...

Being "behind the times" is nothing to be ashamed of Wasn't implying that in any way at all. I'm always behind the times, and if you knew me better you'd see that around I tend to recommend cheap, simple, and DIY solutions. I usually buy low end processors (except for Celerons!) and mature chipsets...