One problem with compressed air - you can destroy the bearings on the fans by causing them to spin very fast. Resist the temptation (even though it looks cool!).

I thought I would try one of these, given that it wasnt very expensive (AUD120). I got the 120mm version, 'cause I'm wanting to cool a 3GHz Prescott. It's not too bad to install, except that you must remove the motherboard from the case. I managed to install the 120mm version in a Sonata without muc...

Actually this might work well in a tower case - it could be anchored by the dents it makes in the other side of the case - could even get some extra cooling by conduction into the door...

This is an attractive piece of work.

The fact that it works well is good, but I'd be tempted to buy one even if it didn't work too well

Wonder when I can buy one?

I like it. I like it a lot. Why does a PC have to be a rectangular prism? Rectangles have sharp corners, inducing turbulence and unsmoothing air flow. Smooth curves may produce better airflow. And this case gives lots of front space we want it for drives, and less back space, where we don't need it....

I think the jpeg of the HSF that looks like a 7000 with circular heat pipe may be a hoax - maybe it's a photoshopped effort.

The cylindrical one, however, looks real. I agree the fan looks questionable, though - I'd have expected a fan in place of the lid, sucking or blowing air through the fins.

I agree with an earlier poster - this looks like the perfect case to fit with an Antec Phantom PSU - looks like it was designed for it. Plenty of room in front of the PSU for an over-length unit, quiet 120mm fan to keep it cool - this might be perfect for those wanting Phantom 500 performance from a...

The big difference between vinyl and CD/DVD-A/SACD is that vinyl is analogue, and the others are digital. Digital is good in terms of suppressing noise elements (scratches), but is limited to a particular level of fidelity. It's also very dependent on the quality of the A->D and D->A converters. Ana...

I have a couple of passively-cooled Matrox P650 AGP video cards, and I like them (the dual DVI outputs are handy for multi-LCD-panel loonies like me). I bought a Matrox P650 PCIe (new card) and a Matrox P650 PCI (slightly less new) so I could run 4 LCD panels from DVI ports on a PCIe motherboard. Th...

I installed the Gigabyte passive 6600GT in an Antec Sonata case (no mods, yet!) with an ASUS P5AD2 Deluxe and P4 3.4GHz (Intel HSF). Not a cool system! I thrashed it hard playing CounterStrike Source, and it got warm, but not hot, and cooled off rapidly when I stopped playing. That passive heatsink ...

I have been using Matrox P650 (AGP version) in two machines for some time now because it's passively cooled and offers two DVI sockets, all for a reasonable price. They recently released the PCIe P650, so I ordered that for a new PCIe motherboard I was assembling. To add to the joy, I also ordered a...

I like the Matrox P650 for use with LCD panels because it has two DVI outputs - most cheaper cards have one or none. And the AGP P650 is passively cooled. The P650 has 3D capabilities, but nothing significant. It's much better suited to 2D. BTW: I discovered, to my chagrin, that the new PCIe P650 an...

Perhaps the best might be to buy some 36Gb Raptors, and have the OS + software on the first one, the pagefile on the second one, the Photoshop scratch space on the third. Then save the finished images to space on a (large!) file server, cause there's no room left in the machine for more hard drives ...

The 7700 uses a 120mm fan. Are you sure you don't have a 7000 - that uses a 92mm fan?

There are several 120mm fan options for a 7700 - the only catch is working out a good way to mount them.

I'm hiding my HD's in the cat where the noise floor won't be noticed-- then the effort to go passive with the PM will pay off.... :? Here's an interesting new technique with which I was previously unfamiliar - cat-mounted hard drives. I went to the trouble of fitting my new low-noise machine with a...

You left out one possible fan mount point - there is provision to mount a fan in the side panel, in the middle of that big circular mesh piece. With all those other fans, it would be a shame to miss out on that opportunity.

I built a server in one of these cases, and I'd suggest the first thing you might want to buy to go with it is a power screwdriver

Removing the motherboard tray requires removing 19 screws - no, that is NOT an exaggeration. The tray is very securely attached to the chassis.

Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts. ...I don't know about that.... One day, using WMA9 VBR, I took a single 44.1 khz, stereo track and encoded it at various bitrates, and then converted it back to wav. Also on the CD was the original, unencoded track. All conversion was d...

(Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing.) Sorry for dragging this off-topic a little bit but can you explain that in a bit more d...

Yep. MP3 sound quality is definitely not for HiFi enthusiasts. (Then again, if you're a real HiFi nerd then not even wav format does it for you, since few hdds and computer D/A converters can compete with a really good cd-player. So stick to the silent computer nerd thing.) This used to be true, bu...

I have an assortment of drives, including Pioneer (DVR-107, DVR-108) and Sony (510 and 710). All of these are fairly quiet, but the Sony, in particular is difficult to hear running.

dimva wrote:But does it reduce idle whine?

Maybe you need to use the "whine cooler" version?

I have a terabyte of disk space, too - I think it's a perfectly sensible thing to have :P But my terabyte is in a disk space server in another room. I wanted fast access to it, so my house is wired with gigabit Ethernet (amazingly affordable today - every motherboard I use has gigabit Ethernet on-bo...

The V1000 have 6 drive bays, but you would be foolish to cram those WD drives into adjacent bays. I have 4 of them, and I've installed them with an empty drive bay between each pair of drives. You could install them in the V1000 if you put the Seagate into one of the 5.25" bays (which is not a bad i...