Are you all sure you need *any* fans there? What kind of drive temps are you getting?

I have a pair of the M-Audio Studio Pro 3s, qviri. They're fine for youtubes, and a step above standard PC speakers, but I wouldn't buy them to listen to music on. While I have doubts about the 50Hz claim, the Audioengines look a lot more thoughtfully made. The other category someone might think abo...

Another vote for snips for the rough cut and a file to clean up. Cheaper tools, safer to use, easier to control, and durable -- you're not using up grinding disks.

And a little physical effort every now and then might be a good idea.

Isn't this really an aesthetic question? At one extreme you can just leave the 3.5" cover off and have a rectangular hole in the front. Easiest airflow. If that looks too weird, you can put modder's mesh or screen or fabric just inside the slot. It's really neat-looking flush-mounting mesh covers th...

Thanks Adam! A real inspiration to all us DIYers.

CoolGav is right. It's going to be driven in urban conditions where you rarely get up to much speed, and it'll be the first thing people trade up to from a motor-scooter. Why 4 doors? You want to be able to drive your aging parents around. My favorite Indian car remains the indestructible Ambasador:...

These people

http://www.par-metal.com/

have a pretty good line in cases and the capacity for custom orders.

Assuming you just want to make a one-off case for yourself, is there a reason for starting from scratch as opposed to modding an existing case?

Let me bump this up. I have a couple of LaCie 500 GB usb drives and am thinking about getting four more (for music and backup, so speed is not critical). At the moment, at about $110, they're cheaper on a per-GB basis than 1-terabyte external drives. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N...

... and a quick search shows that there's a ton of impressive lego casework out there, including some people who have really grappled with the technical problems. I say go for that. Less resonant, and way more fun than corrugated cardboard and duct tape. And consider the possibilities for nonstandar...

Why not build the whole case out of lego? I'm sure someone's already done that, but it would certainly make it easier to try out different shapes and configurations. EMI can cause interference with other gear and in most places it's regulated; but for home use it's not much of a worry. If you have h...

Great -- then follow your vision and take pictures and keep us informed! You can always stuff it in a store-bought case later. Do aim for good airflow across anything hot. Monitor temperatures. I assume if you've been reading the forum you know about CPU heatsinks and HD suspensions and you've read ...

How are you going to mount the optical drive, switches, LEDs, and so forth? And will you have to take this thing apart every time you change a cable connection to the mobo? Store-bought cases solve a lot of these problems for you. And you're also going to want to attach stuff so it won't slide aroun...

The Jessekopelman and Lou_H replies are great and should be turned into a sticky, as this areas is rife with misconception. Just to pile on, damping is worth doing if you have things in the case that are gonna vibrate no matter what, and you don't want their vibration setting other things rattling. ...

You don't have to use the Solo's suspension devices. I pulled all that stuff out, bought a spool of bungee, screwed little P-clips to the HDs, and laced four of 'em into the cage. Admittedly I used little 2.5" drives but there is beaucoup room and you could easily do the same thing with four 3.5-inc...

Has anyone seen the more recent Lian Lis on display or worked with them? There's general agreement that you don't want the earlier soda-can-thin Lian Li cases. Some of the more recent ones are clearly thicker and claim to have been designed for quiet. Some look like little vaults. But the last time ...

If you can manage without the dust filtering, the easiest thing is to scrap the entire steel panel with the front fan grilles. You have to remove and re-mount the HDD LED, but that's easy. I'm running with four suspended 2.5" HDDs and no fan on them, but it would be no problem to fit one 120 mm fan ...

I dunno if the link will hold, but the Dec 22 WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119829714746346773.html had a nice piece with several good ideas, including a pointer to this site http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/recipes/fruitcake.html which uses dried, not candied, fruit. The candied fruits I end up usi...

I realize they may not be your favorite source, Bluefront, but the old New York Times cookbook has several good recipes and the current site offers: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0D6103AF93BA25753C1A96F948260 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/dining/19cake.html It's the brown s...

I have a Nexus "real silent" 120mm in a Solo. To be clear it's the system fan blowing out the back; there is no intake fan on the front and I'm using a fanless PSU. I've got a BE-2350 plus fanless Ninja and it's happy in this environment. So I don't think the CPU is going to be a problem. Assuming y...

Thanks for a really good clear concise review. This is the kind of work that keeps me coming back to SPCR! Would the system described have worked with a Ninja? Suppose you don't need HDMI and can manage without mobo fan control, and mainly care about heat/power. How far is the described system from ...

I have a VIA EPIA EN12000E system running XP that has been fine with internet video. One stick DDR2 533 RAM 1GB. And music servers generally don't need a lot of CPU. I suspect you have some other bottleneck. I built the VIA box inspired by the Devon Cooke review http://www.silentpcreview.com/article...

I put one Nexus in the back, threw out the whole filter setup in the front (both the plastic filter and the metal plate with the fan grille) and also removed the rear fan grille with snips and a little grinding. Better airflow and less noise. You need to reseat the HDD light if you do this, but that...

Just a note in the general DIY spirit of SPCR: I've made DIY speakers and it's a lot of fun. This is an inspiring site: http://www.t-linespeakers.org/ The "design information" section links you to some nice MathCad simulation software, a great way to generate simple designs and get a sense of the pr...

When I faced this question a few months ago (I was moving on from the SD11G5's predecessor, the ST162K) the choice ended up being between a little VIA-based system with an external PSU, or a more traditional full-size PC with an internal PSU. Initially I wanted to imitate the toaster-sized Shuttle b...

How long has this been out? It would be nice to see reviews from actual users about the quality of the support and software. If we're thinking about the clueless-relative category, you can get a complete desktop or even notebook PC for $500, including the dreaded Windows. Add $40 a year for anti-vir...

I don't think you can really go wrong with B&W, though you may be paying more than you need to. I take it you've ruled out buying used gear, which is usually half the price. You can usually test for listening fatigue with just a couple of hours of continuous listening. The problem is that speakers t...

Depends on what you want it to do. There are different kinds of noise problems in different PCs. Can you describe the noise you're trying to deal with? As I've mentioned on another thread, McMaster-Carr will sell you heavy rubber sheets that you can use to damp panel vibrations; the solutions jhhoff...

As I look at my speedfan readout right now, one of the "core" temps is cheerfully reporting 8C. You do wonder if it's all gibberish. OTOH I seem to remember that the reports on the Gigabyte board's NB temps relied on more than Speedfan or equivalent. I tried a kitchen thermometer on my actual heatsi...

The Solo's damping looks like adhesive vinyl, not real thick but enough to stop large steel panels ringing. It won't do for you whatever foam does for you, but adding foam should be a cinch.

You *can* squeeze a videocard in there along with an HR-05-SLI. I tried, but went with the stock NB cooler because: 1. They'll bump, so you'll want electrical insulation to stop the cooler shorting out the card 2. If the mobo is to be mounted vertically, you need something sturdier than those pins a...