Hi, as to would it make sense to use a hybrid drive as a secondary drive is going to depend on what you are doing. I think they typically have ~8GB of NAND on board, think about the use you'd give the drive and whether the data you'd pull off it regularly would fit in the 8GB and is the data you wan...

Hi, I second the opinion to open up the laptop and clean out the cooling system. My experience is it's not so much dust, that can be blown out with out dismantling, but fluff. I've found many a laptop with their heat sinks well blocked up with fluff, the only way to remove it is to take it apart. On...

Looking at the image linked I can only see two wires to the fan which implies no fan speed monitoring so very likely the card won't 'know' the fan is disconnected. It may not even have thermal speed control on that fan either. I suspect there won't be much of a heatsink under the shroud, but it migh...

There have been a few PSUs over the years that have a fan monitor cable coming out of them that you can connect to motherboard header, but not common place. You can achieve it with some modding, which will most likely void any warranty. Some PSU fans will have a Speed monitoring connection that you ...

Hi, you could also look at the nh-u9s 92mm fan tower. I've used freezer 13 with good effect that will fit in the case, has amd and Intel compatibility for half price of noctua. Fan is smooth and goes down very low rpm. Or other 92mm fan towers, cooler master has some,at need fan swap on them but the...

Hi, Hexus.net have reviewed a few GTX 980Tis, including recently the Palit Super JetStream and the quietest in their tests is Inno3D GeForce GTX 980 Ti iChill X3 Ultra. Review here From the Hexus review: Noise levels are, for the most part, wonderfully low. Inno3D's three fans turn off completely at...

I use NH-C14 in a case just about the same width, cooling i7-2600K. Your quad core Xeon shouldn't be that bad in use, only 4 cores and no overclocking (AFAIK on Xeons) I can cool my 2600k quietly at stock and fairly quietly when overclocked so I think the NH-C14 could work for you. I found it works ...

Hi, if money is no object and you're bottle necked on rendering and it's truly able to make use of as many cores/threads as available then you might look at Xeon CPUs. They are supported by your chosen X99 Deluxe and vary in core count/frequency highest I can see is E5-2699 v3 with 18 cores @ 2.3GHz...

It does seem to be something that case designers don't quite get that for the quietest systems (I think) the best approach is not to contain noise but not to make it in the first place. So nice open free flowing cases where plenty of air can be moved through quietly is what's needed, then all the in...

When I first built my current PC I used an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 as it would fit in my case (< 135mm) and it was pretty good. At idle the 92mm fan is really quiet and it coped well with load too. It's only that I was pushing over-clocking on i7 2600K that it couldn't cope, I was seeing ~85°C at ...

Hi, Thermalright True Spirit might be worth a look too. Older 120mm fan version got a good SPCR review and the new 140mm versions come with a 300-1300rpm black and white fan.
Regards, Seb

...do I dare the impossible? Try to retrofit her for modern, quiet computing??? I would, in fact I did and my PC is in the very similar ACTS 201. Very quiet at idle with fans 300 (140mm) to 600rpm (80mm) Load is still quiet, but not dead silent, and I'm not running low end hardware either, at the t...

I do like the look of this case, smart and classy, and a little different. The size constraints might be an issue, but probably overcomable. My current case is not very wide either and 120mm+ fan towers are all out so I have a Noctua NH-C14 that gives up little to the big coolers. I would think it w...

Acer Aspire E11 (and V11) are definitely fanless.
Acer UK page

There is a thread on fanless laptops, not looked in detail to see what is listed.
here.

Seb

Hi, I modded the BIOS on my Gigabyte GTX 560Ti, IIRC, using NIBiTor for quieter operation. My main complaint was the minimum fan speed was ridiculously high, probably 50%. About the only thing I could alter with NiBiTor was the minimum fan speed, which I set to 20% successfully. This means the card ...

Hi, from a quick look up of the Silencio 352 I would suggest that it is (like many cases) heavily intake restricted. Think how the area of the 120mm intake fan compares with the area of the intake slots around the front. If you open the front door (and remove all the filters) does this help the nois...

Hi, I would suggest that it depends on what you want to achieve from said laptop. I would say that even for just browsing the Internet they wouldn't be great, depending on your experience/expectations anyway. The biggest problem is I think from the HDD models you gave is that they are using IDE driv...

Hi, if you wish to use the 280x then I would suggest an Arctic Cooling cooler, e.g. xtreme IV 280x I've some experience with AC fans and have found them to be good, nice and smooth once slowed down. The massisve heatsink also gives you a fighting chance of keeping the card cool and quiet even under ...

You can get 4 pin to 8 pin 'eps' adapters for a few £/$ if you need. If you're looking at Pico PSU then I doubt you're planning a high power system so should be no problem with overloading any of the power connectors. [The only time I've seen this 'in the field' is old Athlon systems pulling high am...

Hi, I would guess you want to set the setting to 255 for the fans top speed to be its maximum speed. If you run Speedfan or HWMonitor software this will report figures that will help you/us determine what's going on. If you have a pwm/°C setting then will need to calculate the value, yes it's that u...

With enough effort you can do anything! You might like to look at what I've done with my CoolerMaster 201, which is a similar aluminium case. http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=502878 http://silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=62993 Case now houses an i7-2600k with GTX56...

maybe stupid question but : i have a cooler master silencio550 that have two hole for liquid cooling i can unplug the tubes to place the heat sink outside the case ? Hi, no I would think not, as far as I know these are sealed units, the pipes do not disconnect. The radiator mounts inside the case. ...

Hi, I have cleaned heatsinks many a time, whether it makes much difference is another matter, if it's really clogged with dust and fluff then it probably will help. It will look better after though. My technique is to remove the heatsink from the computer and remove all fans etc so just bare metal p...

Hi, I think you need to balance intake with exhaust potential so my somewhat radical suggestions for the poor case air flow: Cut out the rear fan grill, remove any unused slot covers, water cooling grommets etc, basically get as much air flow out the rear as possible. On the roof and door remove the...

You can have great heatsinks, a good case and nice smooth fans but you won't get the best from it without good fan speed regulation. My PC is moderately quiet as it boots but only once it's booted and Speedfan takes control of the fan speeds does it become 'properly' quiet. The case and CPU fans get...

Hi, I've used NF-R8 fans and while they were fine there wasn't anything 'special' about them from my point of view. I don't know how the NF-B9 is. I have used Arctic Cooling F9 fans in 3pin and 4pin PWM formats and really like them. They seem very smooth and quiet, they have some sort of 'fluid bear...

Hi, if the board is run outside of a case does the very high reading become much lower? How about with a fan blowing over the board on a 'test bench' (or table or book)? This will tell if there is an issue with the actual temperature of the component(s) or just with the reading reported by the senso...

Hi, run 'resmon' (Resource Monitor) while you're running the copy and it will show you the activity in your system. The disk tab even lists the file names involved in activity.

Seb

Hi, I suggest that if you want the lowest noise level and need to have local spinning disk then a Scythe Quiet Drive is great. I have a WD 2TB green in one, soft mounted, and it's more-or-less inaudible. SPCR reviewed the 2.5" version here. They found it cut 3-4dBA off the drive noise, for already q...

How about a Zalman VF-700, if you can find one? Not certain if it will fit but it's not massive and has a range of mounting holes. With the fan speed dialed right back if will still cool well and be properly quiet. Well Zalman's fans aren't always the best but still will be much better than stock. Seb